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The Socialist Register 2006

The Socialist Register 2006

Telling the Truth

How do people acquire knowledge and understanding of the world they are in? Who has access to the resources and maps facilitating research and debate? How is power mobilised to shape ideas and ideologies? Socialist Register 2006 considers contemporary debate, policy-making, research, education, and scientific practice generally as it relates to the role of the state in intellectual life, the press and the media.

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About the book

A generalized pathology of chronic mendacity seems to be a structural condition of global capitalism at the beginning of the 21st century. Previous volumes of the Socialist Register have analyzed the imbrication of national states and economies in the American neoliberal imperial order, and the stresses this generates within them, as well as between them. What has become increasingly clear is that it is not just falling in line with the increasingly crude, militarized geopolitics of the imperium that threatens the legitimacy of governments that join ‘coalitions of the willing’. Equally profound, and perhaps ultimately more serious, problems of legitimacy are created by the relentless pressure of the market forces unleashed by global neoliberalism, and the ecological degradation and social dislocation they are generating. These legitimacy problems are reflected in the unprecedented levels of secrecy, obfuscation, dissembling and downright lying that now characterize public life.

Capitalism & Alternatives Cultural Studies Research & Theory

Authors

Colin Leys

Before coming to Queen’s in 1975 Colin Leys taught at Balliol College, Oxford; Kivukoni College in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda; and the Universities of Sussex, Nairobi, and Sheffield. His work has primarily been on the theory and politics of development, with particular reference to Africa and the UK. His publications include European Politics in Southern Rhodesia; Underdevelopment in Kenya;The Political Economy of Neocolonialism; Politics in Britain; Namibia’s Liberation Struggle: The Two-Edged Sword (with John S. Saul and others); The Rise and Fall of Development Theory; The End of Parliamentary Socialism (with Leo Panitch); and Market Driven-Politics: Neoliberal Democracy and the Public Interest.

Leo Panitch

Leo Panitch was a Distinguished Research Professor, renowned political economist, Marxist theorist and editor of the Socialist Register. He received a B.A. (Hons.) from the University of Manitoba in 1967 and a M.Sc.(Hons.) and PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1968 and 1974, respectively. He was a Lecturer, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor at Carleton University between 1972 and 1984. He was a Professor of Political Science at York University since 1984. He was the Chair of the Department of Political Science at York from 1988-1994. He was the General Co-editor of State and Economic Life series, U. of T. Press, from 1979 to 1995 and is the Co-founder and a Board Member of Studies in Political Economy. He was also the author of numerous articles and books dealing with political science including The End of Parliamentary Socialism (1997). He was a member of the Movement for an Independent and Socialist Canada, 1973-1975, the Ottawa Committee for Labour Action, 1975-1984, the Canadian Political Science Association, the Committee of Socialist Studies, the Marxist Institute and the Royal Society of Canada. He was an ardent supporter of the Socialist Project.

The Cynical State (Colin Leys)
The Myths of the ‘Law and Order’ Doxa (Loic Wacquant)
The Truth about Welfare ‘Reform’ (Barbara Ehrenreich & Frances Fox Piven)
The ‘Business Community’ and Business Truth (Doug Henwood)
The World Bank and the ‘Development Community’ (Manfred Bienefeld)
Correcting Stiglitz: From Information to Power in the World of Development (Ben Fine & Elisa van Waeyenberge)
Lies, Damned Lies and World Poverty Statistics (Sanjay Reddy)
Humanitarian Aid: The Sorry Truth (Agnes Callamard)
The Truth About Democracy in Eastern Europe (G.M. Tamás)
The Truth About Democracy in Latin America (Atilio Boron)
Bringing Democracy to Iraq: The Lies and the Media That Tell Them (David Miller)
Truth, Objectivity and Capital’s Media Monopoly (Robert McChesney)
Biotech Commerce: The Truth About Science Today (Michael Dorsey)
American Research Foundations and the Shaping of Ideas (Joan Roelofs)
Social Scientists Today: Critics or Courtiers? (Michael Burawoy)
Playing with the Truth: Theatre’s Small but Vital Coice (Michael Kustow)
Telling the Truth (Terry Eagleton)