Far from embodying some timeless ‘Olympic spirit’, the 2012 Games reflect the injustice and inequality of the current economic system, writes David Renton. Long before John Carlos stood beside Tommie Smith to give their famous clenched-fist salutes on the podium at the 1968 Olympics, he was a boy growing up in Harlem. ‘When I first learned about the existence of the Olympics,’ he recalls, ‘my reaction was d ...

by businessinsider   Many executives on Wall Street and in The City, London’s central business district, have reason to be VERY NERVOUS this morning. Their sweaty palms have nothing to do with the ongoing crisis in Europe or this week’s likely weak employment report here in the United States. The nerves have everything to do with the fallout from the Libor-manipulation story that has been centered on B ...

Can the co-op movement be one source of alternatives to marketisation? Hilary Wainwright explores. In the free-for-all over the spoils of the public sector, Tory ministers are playing fast and loose with the concepts of co-operatives and mutuals. They talk blithely about ‘the John Lewis model’. One might smile at the fact that Tories have to raid progressive history, such is the crisis of legitimacy of big ...

On the last day of 2011, a headline in The Wall Street Journal read: “Spain Misses Deficit Target, Sets Cuts.” The cruel forces of poor economic logic were at work to welcome in the new year. The European Union has become a vicious circle of burgeoning debt leading to radical austerity measures, which in turn further weaken economic conditions and result in calls for still more damaging cuts in government s ...

Anarchist band react with 'total and absolute outrage and horror' after Nigel Farage appearance accompanied by song Anarchist pop band Chumbawamba expressed horror after their anthem to resilience, Tubthumping (I Get Knocked Down), was used at the Ukip conference in Eastbourne, East Sussex. Band member Dunstan Bruce said his reaction to the news was one of "total and absolute outrage and horror". He suggest ...

Britain likes to pretend it has moved on: but birth determines our destiny and income more now than it did 50 years ago. By Polly Toynbee Class is a dangerous subject, taboo in mainstream politics. The riots brought out a rash of comment implying that there is one great, respectable middle class and an inexplicable underclass beneath, quite unconnected to what's been happening to wages, incomes and the stre ...

Slavoj Žižek on the meaning of the riots Repetition, according to Hegel, plays a crucial role in history: when something happens just once, it may be dismissed as an accident, something that might have been avoided if the situation had been handled differently; but when the same event repeats itself, it is a sign that a deeper historical process is unfolding. When Napoleon lost at Leipzig in 1813, it looked ...