The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
Colette Francis Ashton -
Book: Choice, Not Fate: The Life and Times of Trevor Manuel
Author: Pippa Green
Publisher: Penguin Books
Reviewer: Colette Francis Ashton
When I sat down to read the biography of Trevor Manuel I knew that, for me, it would stand or fall on how well it answered three nagging questions I had about the Finance Minister. Firstly, what exactly was Manuel’s role in the arms deal? Is he really a ‘neoliberal’? And lastly, what was the personal motivation behind his resignation...
Glenn Ashton -
Last year in the run up to the global economic meltdown, all commodities became fair game for the financial casinos of Wall Street, London, Tokyo and points between. The prices of food sky-rocketed around the world, driven by several triggers but primarily by the ability to trade futures, speculative financial instruments linked to international food commodities in the same way as resources like iron, coal, oil and gold are speculated upon as a hedge against market uncertainties.
This...
Fazila Farouk -
Although important work is carried out in this field, we certainly don't hear enough about holding corporations accountable for the profits they pocketed during South Africa's apartheid years.
The focus of South Africa's negotiated democracy has been finding unity in forgiveness. This is important for a country looking forward and trying to construct a civilised society, but it comes with a cost.
This cost is a lack of acknowledgement for the ongoing suffering of South Africans whose human...
Glenn Ashton -
The recent sharp increases in food prices around the world have resulted in a siren call from the pro-biotech cheer-leaders that genetically modified (GM) crops must be more widely adopted if we are to reduce food prices and increase the availability of food for a burgeoning global population.
News stories have abounded since food prices spiked hailing the benefits of GM technology being able to feed us all. Although most of these stories emanate directly from public relations sources, they...
Saliem Fakir -
Ida Tarbell is long forgotten and very few know of her. Tarbell left us with a seminal work -- a piece of investigative journalism that led to the publication of the first expose of the doings of the Standard Oil Company.
She carved a new style of investigative journalism in which personal ethics played a big role. Tarbell was also a feminist and undertook some insightful appraisals of the working of corporations and the business world.
Tarbell was one of the few brave investigative...
Jospeh Stiglitz argues that there are a large number of ways in which a focus on GDP is not a good measure of economic performance and societal wellbeing. GDP doesn't tell you about what happens to the typical citizen and this is a problem when you have growing inequality in societies where most people, not just the poor, are becoming worse off. There are many alternative measures that we could be focusing on such as a focus on green GDP that takes into account of environmental degradation...
