Oct 31, 1995

Can the planet survive tourism?

[Green Left Weekly, #209, October 31, 1995]

"The world", enthused a recent Time magazine feature, "is at the dawn of a new Golden Age of travel — an age of voyaging on a truly global mass scale. As the 21st century unfurls, people of every age and class, and from every country will be wandering to every part of this planet."

Oct 3, 1995

Defend the public sector!

[Green Left Weekly, #205, October 3, 1995]

Privatisation is at the cutting edge of the current capitalist attack against the working class. Throughout the western world, state assets and functions are being sold off, with drastic consequences for both the workers employed in the given sector and those who depend on the services provided. A previous article ("Privatisation is theft") sketched in the general background to the privatisation phenomenon in Australia and put forward some broad guidelines for resisting it. However, any fight against the sell-off of the state sector inescapably raises two central related issues: reforming the public sector in a progressive direction and the nationalisation or renationalisation of privately owned companies.