William Briggs

Dr William Briggs is a political economist. His special areas of interest lie in political theory and international political economy. He has been, variously, a teacher, journalist and political activist.

William's recent articles

WILLIAM BRIGGS The Victorian election in a global context

That the ALP won the Victorian election was not really a surprise. The magnitude of that victory certainly was. Tea-leaves are being read and many a goat has had its entrails threatened as the political class and the media search for understanding. Something is happening out there and that something is being reflected across the globe. It is in the drawing together of a web of interconnected causes and effects that we can understand the Victorian result and all of those other somethings that are shaking our world.

WILLIAM BRIGGS. A century of remembrance days: will the guns ever fall silent?

One hundred years ago the guns fell silent or at least WWI ended. Since the end of the war to end all wars, however, 120 million more people have died as a result of armed conflict. Well might we remember, but what are we remembering and what have we learned along the way?

WILLIAM BRIGGS. Snow globes on the road to war

I stood the other day in a post office queue. Among a range of souvenirs marking the centenary of the end of WWI, were commemorative snow globes. It suggested all that is perverse in marketing, but then it might be argued that marketing is a perverse science. Australians are increasingly being convinced to buy a product that they neither want or need militarisation and all that goes with it.

WILLIAM BRIGGS. There are no racists here.

Race and racism have come to dominate political debate in Australia in recent times. However, as Senator Ian McDonald assured us earlier this year, racism does not exist in Australia! The Liberal Party have declared themselves a racist free zone, although the Sudanese community in Melbourne might see Duttons statements that they are nothing more than a collection of crime gangs a little inflammatory. There is no racism in the ALP, although Shorten has claimed that foreign workers are responsible for a rise in unemployment. Both parties share policies that effectively criminalise asylum-seekers. The Greens are not racist, but there...

WILLIAM BRIGGS. The Chinese threat in far away Hobart.

Two events in the past couple of weeks have signalled disturbing trends in local and global politics. It might seem a long bow to draw a link between a city council election in Hobart with the sometimes rarefied atmosphere of international relations, but there is a link and it is a serious one.

WILLIAM BRIGGS The anti-China syndrome at work in far away Tasmania.

A little over a century ago, the world plunged into war. The call to nationalism, national identity and symbolism was carefully promoted. The conditions that created that war still echo. We see, today, an integrated global capitalism in contradiction to a powerful nation-state system. We see fears, animosities and distrust between peoples and states rise as those 1914 echoes reverberate. Once more, the seemingly benign Tasmanian landscape and population offers itself as a case-study in microcosm of global political and economic upheavals and controversies.

WILLIAM BRIGGS. Strange Bedfellows: The Tasmanian Greens and ultra right in the China panic.

What do the Tasmanian Greens and Australia First Party have in common? While its unlikely to pop up in any trivia night, what they say is by no means trivial. What shouldnt happen is very nearly happening. Recent statements from the leaders of the two parties almost converge as they wade into a vigorous, and highly questionable anti-Chinese rhetoric. It truly is a strange connection between the Tasmanian Greens and the Australia First Party. According to Wikipedia, James Saleam , a far-right activist is the current chairman of the Australia First Party

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