The introduction of Fair Pay Agreements (FPAs) under the last Labour government was an ambitious attempt to deal with stagnant wages and rising poverty. FPAs would have allowed unions to dramatically increase their reach and improve pay and conditions across whole industries and occupations. Unfortunately, the recent change of government led to the repeal of…
“If you remove the English Army tomorrow and hoist the green flag over Dublin Castle, unless you set about the organization of the Socialist Republic your efforts will be in vain. England will still rule you. She would rule you through her capitalists, through her landlords, through her financiers, through the whole array of commercial…
Anarchists of all varieties believe that the state lacks political authority—i.e., a special right to coercively rule its subjects. However, anarchists disagree about whether people have private property rights. This talk will defend the social anarchist rejection of such rights. Specifically, it takes Michael Huemer’s influential libertarian argument against state authority and redirects it against…
Central Otago-born Doug Jolly served on the front lines throughout the Spanish Civil War and in WW2, developing innovative systems for treating patients as soon as possible after they were injured. His systems were widely used by UK and US surgeons in WW2 and later wars, and their influence can be traced today in the…
Coming to us all the way from Chile, Pablo Abufom is the Sunday keynote speaker at the Second New Zealand Federation of Socialist Societies National Conference – Labour Weekend 2024. Pablo will speak to “Resisting neoliberalism in Latin America: The 2019 Chilean revolt and the struggle for constitutional reform.” Please note: the Sunday keynote is…
The Saturday keynote panel of the Second New Zealand Federation of Socialist Societies National Conference – Labour Weekend 2024 brings together experienced Tino Rangatiratanga activists Catherine Love (Te Ātiawa, Taranaki, Ngāti Ruanui, Ngā Ruahinerangi), Kassie Hartendorp (Ngāti Raukawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa), and Dougal McNeill to speak on “Te Tiriti and the struggle for socialism.” Wellington City…
Today the climate crisis and humanity’s broader relationship to non-human nature are among the most important questions for the Left to grapple with. However, even among socialists the Marxist theory of ecology is not widely known or discussed. This session will seek to introduce people to the ‘Theory of the Metabolic Rift’ and its application…
Indigenous resistance in Palestine and in Aotearoa responds to the violence of settler colonialism, and it is initiated in both cases by British colonialism. There is a common whakapapa. But indigenous resistance has a commonality beyond what it fights against. The commonality exists in indigeneity. This panel of young, indigenous activists from Palestine and…
There have been three periods of major transformation in Aotearoa’s political economy: the 1890s, the 1930s, and the 1980s. Founded in 1916, the Labour Party was responsible for the latter two transformations, while the Liberal Party – in many ways the precursor to Labour – was responsible for the first. Aotearoa’s right-wing parties have never…
“Precisely the defeated man must try the outside world again” – Ernst Bloch, The Principle of Hope (1954). It is easier to imagine the end of the world, than the end of capitalism. This phrase has become something of a shibboleth for the contemporary left, a diagnosis of our present condition and a bleak indictment of our…