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?
Ebrahim-Khalil Hassen -
A central message from government since the 2009 elections is that the "economy needs coordination."
To this end, in addition to the already existing National Treasury and the Department of Trade and Industry, government has created the Economic Development Department (EDD). The creation of the EDD recognises that departments such as communication, agriculture, arts and culture and science and technology all play important roles in the economy. In addition, the restructured...
Leonard Gentle -
People the world over are facing an economic crisis unseen since the Great Depression of the 1930's. Despite the talk of "green shoots" and the emergence of the United States of America (US), Germany, France and others from recession, this "recovery" (if one can all it that), is extremely fragile. Witness the scare of Dubai World defaulting, and at some stage the costs of some US$14 trillion dollars will have to be carried somewhere.
The long wave of decline in capitalist...
Saliem Fakir -
The mention of green jobs salivates the eager tongues of politicians seeking quick answers for dismal economic prospects. Green jobs have become the new panacea for joblessness and a ‘pathway out of poverty’.
Statistics dazzle and sometimes flail the timid heart. Countries that have used the recession to kick-start a new industrial opportunity have seized on the idea of the green sector as a strategic choice. It has also helped them save jobs given the rapidity with which other...
Saliem Fakir -
One of the obvious and glaring things about the financial crisis is how much of it involves saving the rich rather than the poor. And, how much the poor continue to be disadvantaged by the failures and reckless pursuits of the rich – there is certainly a deferment of their interests.
Noam Chomsky, in a recent article of the Boston Review (September/October 2009), showed how other pressing crises such as food shortages, desertification and lack of progress on the Millennium Development...
We are told that Wall Street is bouncing back and the recession is bottoming out, but Richard Wolff, economist from the New School in New York City, pokes holes in the economic recovery and false euphoria of Wall Street. He says, what we are seeing now is a peculiar economic phenomenon. Across the United States, business are hurting. Revenues are down for almost every kind of business. And in response, the businesses have done what businesses always do. Cut back in order to survive....
Glenn Ashton -
Is President Jacob Zumas proposal to create the 'opportunity' for half a million jobs in South Africa over the next six months a goal that we all must embrace?
Perhaps the greatest risk South Africa faces is of the chasm between rich and poor widening to ever more extreme proportions, threatening to rend the fragile social fabric of our young nation. So how can we, as a nation, reduce the economic disparity in the most efficient manner?
Social polarisation through increased disparity...
