Socialist Register 2012

The Crisis and the Left

Edited by Greg Albo, Vivek Chibber, Leo Panitch

As the crisis continues to bite deeper into the lives of people around the world, The Socialist Register 2012: The Crisis and the Left considers how the Left has responded and asks if it can offer a viable alternative. Examining the crisis in a variety of geographic areas including Africa, Latin America, Europe and China, contributors explore many themes of crisis from finance to climate, oil and auto to poverty and over-accumulation.

Contributors: Nicole Aschoff • Elmar Altvater • Patrick Bond
• Paul Cammack • Adam Hanieh • David Harvey • Michel Husson
• Ho Fung Hung • Ursula Huws • Claudio Katz • Paeder Kirby
• Costas Lapavitsas • Larry Lohmann • David McNally
• Frances Fox Piven • Adolph Reed & Merlin Chowkwanyun
• Jan Toporowski • Galip Yalman.
 

Contents

• Preface
• The Urban Roots of Financial Crises: Reclaiming the City for Anti-capitalist Struggle
• Slump, Austerity and Resistance
• Crisis as Capitalist Opportunity: New Accumulation through Public Service Commodification
• Financialization, Commodification and Carbon: The Contradictions of Neoliberal Climate Policy
• The New American Poor Law
• A Tale of Two Crises: Labour, Capital and Restructuring in the US Auto Industry
• Race, Class, Crisis: The Discourse of Racial Disparity and its Analytical Discontents
• Finance Oil and the Arab Uprisings: The Global Crisis and the Gulf States
 

About the Authors

Greg Albo is a professor of Political Science at York University in Toronto. 

Vivek Chibber is Professor of Sociology at New York University.

Leo Panitch is a Distinguished Research Professor, renowned political economist, Marxist theorist and editor of the Socialist Register. He received a B.A. (Hons.) from the University of Manitoba in 1967 and a M.Sc.(Hons.) and PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1968 and 1974, respectively. He was a Lecturer, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor at Carleton University between 1972 and 1984. He has been a Professor of Political Science at York University since 1984. He was the Chair of the Department of Political Science at York from 1988-1994. He was the General Co-editor of State and Economic Life series, U. of T. Press, from 1979 to 1995 and is the Co-founder and a Board Member of Studies in Political Economy. He is also the author of numerous articles and books dealing with political science including The End of Parliamentary Socialism (1997). He was a member of the Movement for an Independent and Socialist Canada, 1973-1975, the Ottawa Committee for Labour Action, 1975-1984, the Canadian Political Science Association, the Committee of Socialist Studies, the Marxist Institute and the Royal Society of Canada. He is currently a supporter of the Socialist Project.