Jeffery R. Webber teaches in the Department of Politics at York University, Toronto. His latest book is The Last Day of Oppression, and the First Day of the Same: The Politics and Economics of the New Latin American Left. He is presently at work on Latin American Crucible: Politics and Power in the New Era, under contract with Verso. He was interviewed for Marxist Left Review by Róbert Nárai. ... read full story / add a comment

Expandir fronteras agroganaderas mediante la quema de un cierto territorio (técnica de rose y quema) es una práctica antigua y recurrente en muchas culturas a lo largo de la historia. Usualmente se la considera una técnica “primitiva”, propia de aquellas sociedades mal llamadas “de economía de subsistencia” . No obstante, paradójicamente, es dentro del capitalismo moderno donde esta técnica ha tomado dimensiones desproporcionadas que han provocado la destrucción irreversible de ecosistemas así como el masivo etnocidio hacia pueblos indígenas que viven dentro de aquellos territorios deseados por la burguesía rural y el Estado.

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The rise of the far right is a worldwide phenomenon, rooted in the nefarious effects of neoliberal globalization which have pushed the world into mass unemployment and enormous inequalities. I consider it to be a late political effect of the global financial crisis that hit the world at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

It is not an easy task to explain the phenomenon of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and to understand the groups that support him, both within and outside government. It’s difficult, for anyone, to draw a truly complete and sober analysis of what we have experienced. This essay is not based on in-depth research but on collective reflections and debates. I intend to pose some key questions and try to identify some clues to answer them. ... read full story / add a comment

"Reformed" captain Jair Bolsonaro already committed to the “market” the handover of all decisions in the economic area to large capital, under the hegemony of financial capital and foreign corporations (as personified in Paulo Guedes and his Chicago Boys, including Levy in the Brazilian Development Bank-BNDES). As per the President’s statements, his will be a government directly headed by businessmen committed to the reduction of the “Brazil cost,” that is, to the increase of private profit. A government with such profile would not only give continuity but also radicalize Michel Temer’s agenda with the aim of implementing the following measures: ... read full story / add a comment

The catastrophe – expected and foreseeable – has happened. This immense country, with its 200 million inhabitants, is now in darkness. At best, it will take a decade or two to emerge. ... read full story / add a comment

El relato victimista del PT, la división de las izquierdas, la ausencia histórica de autocrítica y apostar por la polarización ayudaron a la ultra derecha a tomar el poder en Brasil. ... read full story / add a comment

Brazil will elect its new President on 28 October 2018. Since the judicial-parliamentary coup that removed elected President Dilma Rousseff, of the Workers’ Party (PT), the new administration (led by her former Vice-President, Michel Temer) has advanced its agenda of neoliberal ‘reforms’. The economic crisis has continued unabated, and the campaign for the destruction of the PT has intensified, leading to the imprisonment of former President and PT founder Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.[1] Finally, the Armed Forces have increasingly intervened in political life, particularly through the occupation of peripheral areas in Rio de Janeiro. Their close articulation with the Judiciary is encapsulated in the appointment of General Fernando Azevedo e Silva as ‘advisor’ to the President of the Supreme Court, and in statements that would be scandalous in less turbulent times, such as the thinly-disguised demand for Lula’s incarceration issued by Army Commander General Eduardo Villas Boas. The co-ordinated shift of public institutions toward an exceptionally excluding variety of neoliberalism was challenged by attempts to rebuild the left through Lula’s campaign for the presidency and, in particular, through his convoy around the country in early 2018, which led to his steep rise in the opinion polls. ... read full story / add a comment