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?
Visit the archives.
Jamie Stern-Weiner -
How can the Palestine solidarity movement win? What demands should it make in order to achieve the maximum amount of justice within the constraints of what is politically feasible? And how should it frame those demands in order to reach a broad public?
These are questions of political judgment rather than science. But sound political judgment will be rooted, so far as possible, in a clear-eyed assessment of current (or incipient) public opinion. A movement that wants to persuade a...
In this Big Think interview, economist Thomas Piketty, best-selling author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century, delves into several common misconceptions about free market economics. Piketty argues that strong public institutions are necessary for market regulation. So-called "natural forces" of self-regulation commonly associated with the writings of Adam Smith cannot be relied on to maintain a healthy economic climate. An example of this is the heavy trend toward deregulation...
Saliem Fakir -
The U.S. is putting pressure on South Africa to agree to favourable terms for its poultry producers before it is willing to include South Africa in a new round of the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). By removing tariffs on American chicken imports, South Africa, under AGOA, ought to be able to export its own agricultural products with ease, as long as U.S. poultry producers are given free reign in our country.
The deal is at a precipice. South Africa is expected to agree to the...
Larry Schwartz -
Not too long ago, homeopathic formulas were only sold in health food stores. You might have seen them: Little blue vials with tiny little pills in them. You might have thought good things come in small packages. Then homeopathy hit the mainstream, and became available in just about every drugstore. One of its biggest selling points is the lack of side effects, the way it works naturally with your body, how clinically effective it is. The lack of side effects is true enough—because there...
While studying future alternatives for China’s global relations, former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has come to an ominous conclusion: conflict is looming. As China's global ambitions grow, it finds itself on a collision course with the United States. How can this be avoided? Rudd is a long-time student of China, with a unique vantage point to watch its power rise in the past few decades. Drawing on his deep knowledge of Chinese culture, language and history he argues that the...
Steven Friedman -
If that well-worn cliché about never wasting a crisis applies to anything, it is the labour movement today. Contrary to some current rhetoric, the movement does not need to return to what it was: it needs to become something different.
Deepening tensions in Cosatu, which saw the departure of the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) and now general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi, have inevitably conjured up nostalgia for its past. As the Cosatu central executive abandons internal...
