Articles

The welfare state as prop for capitalism? This time-honoured communist critique is too catagorical, argues Jir Pehe. Any credible approach to reforming capitalism entails not attacking the welfare state but supporting its extension on a global scale.

Among the most fatal aberrations of recent decades is that free-market liberals have assumed the mantle of economic competence, argues Robert Misik. The Left needs to go on the offensive and prove that egalitarian economies are also stronger and more productive.

Romantic valorization only partly explains the iconic status of German-Jewish intellectuals. Their resistance to ideological classification and tactics of critical displacement have attracted them to the post-modernists, whose impact they will probably outlast, writes Steven E. Aschheim.

International recognition offers a degree of protection to investigative reporters. But, writes Lydia Cacho, being in the limelight presents a new set of dilemmas.

The decimation of indigenous industry in central and eastern Europe has created a low-wage hinterland on the fringes of the highly developed core, writes Carl Rowlands. If the societies of central-eastern Europe are indeed in transition, it is very unclear what the destination will be.

The Dalai Lama as political institution is both powerful and vulnerable: powerful because political authority is supported by religious devotion; vulnerable because it is at odds with the political realities of Tibetans today. The Dalai Lama himself has suggested the institution may have outlived its usefuleness.

Today’s approach to prostitution in the Netherlands reflects the currency of the concept of “agency” advocated by feminists since the 1980s. Yet while defining prostitution as “sex work” implies entitlements, it also glosses over gendered inequality, writes Petra de Vries. Can the abolitionist arguments of the nineteenth century provide the basis for an alternative?

Multiculturalism, the default strategy in western Europe for managing cultural diversity in recent decades, is increasingly under attack. In a mainstream discourse closer to that of the far-Right, minorities are turned into problems as migration allegedly threatens cultural identity. Liberal critics, on the other hand, see a threat to Enlightenment values when the appeasement of religious and cultural sensibilities is regarded as more important than the right to freedom of expression or gender equality. In central and eastern Europe, the experience is different: because minority rights are largely seen in national-territorial terms, collective rights are viewed with suspicion, while other minorities, notably the Roma, are sidelined entirely. British writer Kenan Malik met Slovak politician and journalist Fero Sebej in Bratislava to discuss multiculturalism in the East and in the West. Moderated by Samual Abrahám, editor of the journal Kritika & Kontext.

Discussions of scientific innovation are haunted by images of Frankenstein’s monster or Faust’s diabolic pact, says Philip Ball. We will never have an honest and open debate about in vitro fertilization or cloning until we can distinguish mythical fears from real and present dangers.

“He made very few comments and never about technical problems. I once asked about a particular fingering and he replied ‘Use your nose if you like.'” Shortly before her death, the pianist Elisabeth Klein talked to composer John Moseley about her former teacher Béla Bartók.

The present French government has a profoundly ambivalent relationship with journalists and the press. President Nicolas Sarkozy has encouraged the public to treat journalists with mistrust; at the same time, his relationship with those who own the press is far too close, says the secretary-general of Reporters Sans Frontières.

Accusations of “leftwing bias” coincide with the announcement of 200 million euro cuts to Dutch public radio and television budgets. If the government has its way, it could inflict the final blow to The Netherlands’ chaotic but unique broadcasting system, comments Angelo van Schaik.

In a surprising reversal of fortune, investigative journalism is enjoying a comeback in Italy. No longer can Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s media empire dictate the terms of debate or protect Il Cavaliere and his cronies from growing public anger.

Respected but bankrupt European newspaper titles such as Le Monde in France, El Pais in Spain and the Independent in the UK have recently been sold to business tycoons unconnected with the media. Their motives are debatable, but the ones to watch are the Russians says Irena Maryniak.

As the great digital switchover moves ever closer, the threatened loss of Public Service broadcasting becomes a matter of concern to those interested in diversity of programming. Petros Iosifidis provides an overview of European debates on PSB, pointing out marked differences in approaches to its structure, funding and content.

To a very considerable extent, the UK’s national daily press is dominated by rightwing owners for whom “public interest” simply means “if we can sell it, we’ll tell it”. Can the the British press continue to be dignified with the epithet “Fourth Estate”, traditional watchdog on power and guardian of the people?