By Michael Faulkner - 06.23.13

Successive U.S. administrations have, since the earliest years of the cold war, acted in their relations with the rest of the world as though their judgments and actions were not subject to the same rules as those constraining other states. It is assumed to be self-evident that whatever is claimed to be in the national interest of the United States justifies...

 

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By Michael Faulkner – 06.09.13

First, a word or two about democracy in the European Union. On May 27th, a meeting of EU foreign ministers decided to lift  the EU embargo on supplying arms to the opponents of Bashir al-Assad’s regime. Of the 27 states represented, 25 were strongly opposed to lifting the embargo. Only the U.K. and France were in favour. Nevertheless, according to Britain’s foreign secretary William Hague, “EU nations agreed to bring the arms embargo on the Syrian opposition to an end. This was the outcome that the United Kingdom wanted.” Given that only two of the countries represented...

 

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By Michael Faulkner – 05.12.13

“Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the task itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present, or at least in the process of formation.” Karl Marx (From Preface to the Critique of Political Economy, 1859).

This optimistic claim made by Marx more than 150 years ago comes to mind when considering what is, without doubt, the biggest, most pressing question facing humankind today: is it still possible in the next...

 

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