“Sex work is work” – the New Zealand Model of misogyny
It is easy to underestimate the current ideological and political drive against women, and the degree to which it threatens the gains made in the struggle for women’s equality from […]
Author Archives: James Robb
Larissa Reisner and the German revolution of 1923
In a vain effort to escape from the disgusting trivia of the New Zealand elections, I have been reading Hamburg at the Barricades, Larissa Reisner’s1 account of the failed German […]
Workers, farmers and war: New Zealand in 1914
Of all the questions confronting the working class in New Zealand in the decade beginning 1912, as it set itself on a course toward political independence, none was more decisive […]
The socialism of mining villages, lumber camps and company towns
The capitalist mode of production comes into existence by uprooting people from the land and drawing them into urban industrial concentrations. Great industrial cities are a characteristic feature of capitalism, […]
No escape from the death-trap
The first victim of the horrific fire in Grenfell Tower in London to be named was Mohammad al-Hajali, a 23-year-old civil engineering students and Syrian refugee. Three years ago, Mohammad […]
Why ‘Vaxxed’ gets a hearing (and why the defence of vaccination can’t be left to doctors)
I watched the movie Vaxxed – from Cover-up to Catastrophe recently. It has been generating a great deal of excitement and controversy as it does the rounds in New Zealand. […]
Apology, anthropology, and colonial genocide
A review of Terra Nullius, A Journey Through No One’s Land, by Sven Lindqvist Terra Nullius – a Latin expression meaning ‘no one’s land’ – was a legal fiction used to clear […]
The falling rate of profit and other explanations of capitalist crisis
Guest post by Terry Coggan, a New Zealand Marxist and trade unionist. Part two of a two-part article entitled A Complete Theory of Capitalist Economic Crises? An Appreciation of the Work […]
A Complete Theory of Capitalist Economic Crises? An Appreciation of the Work of Sam Williams
Guest post by Terry Coggan, a New Zealand Marxist and trade unionist. Part One (of two parts): The implications of Marx’s theory of commodity money Few of us will ever make […]
A meditation on family violence
Maea, the central figure in Tusi Tamasese’s movie One Thousand Ropes, is a man haunted by his violent past. He lives in a barren, cramped, dark apartment – typical of […]
