According to Sartre, the freedom of thought means emancipatory thinking, looking for alternatives and opposing the established structures of life and the institutionalised mainstream reasoning. His search for intellectual and political alternatives always inspired progressive movements to act on personal responsibility. "What is the literature of an epoch but the epoch appropriated by its literature? …You have to aspire to everything to have hopes of doing something."
Category Archives: Periodical
Chávez a Reader of Mészáros
Margaret Thatcher an Obituary from Below
For the young British author, Thatcher was a "Modern Prince" of the neoliberal Right, who detected the weak points of the unions and the Left in Britain and thus utilised the crisis of the late 1970s for cancelling the social-democratic consensus established after WW2. She had smashed the unions, and undermined the basis of the social welfare state by her privatisations and promotion of financialization and has established a new neoliberal status quo. The Left needs a clear analysis, devotedness similar to Thatcher and a well developed strategy to have a chance to overthrow the "new consensus" of the Iron Lady.
Reform Spirit without Actual Reforms: Lula’s Government from a Historical Viewpoint (2003-2010)
The critical analysis of the Lula epoch is a complex task. The former workers' movement leader, who became a charismatic president, announced intense reforms and part of them were actually realised. Nevertheless, he could not break away from the past, or the history of Brazil, in many respects. The fact that Brazil now is probably the most influential country of the periphery does not mean at all that its internal conflicts were eased.
To the Anatomy of Pewripherial Development – the Case of Brazil
The specific pragmatics of the economy and social policy of the Lula government, early from its start, has reached significant results in easing social inequalities, and diversifying commercial relations – while maintaining high growth. Nevertheless, the present decrease in growth outlook, completed with the growing debt of domestic economic actors, warns that the fundamental problem, namely the dependence on the innovation cycles of centre countries, has not been solved. Breaking out from the peripheral development path still is a task.