An interview with Ron Margulies (DSIP, Turkey) for the magazine of the IS Tendency's fraternal organisation in Germany.

by Tilman von Berlepsch

After the attempted coup d'état of the Turkish military, Erdoğan has declared a state of emergency. What powers does he have and how does he use them?

Most crucially, the state of emergency gives the government the power to rule by decree. This means that the government can issue decrees, without consulting parliament, and these decrees carry the force of law. In a state of emergency the judicial process is also simplified, making it easier to detain and arrest people, and more difficult for people to defend themselves against this.

The state of emergency was initially declared for a period of three months and then extended for another three, with Erdoğan saying that a whole year might be necessary. This is a complete abolition of basic democracy, and it ...

First Brexit and now Trump. There’s a pattern here that we must try to understand.

Of course it’s disgusting that a racist, sexist property developer has won the presidency of the United States. But something bigger is happening.

Britain and the US were the two advanced capitalist societies that pioneered neoliberalism. This followed the election victories of Margaret Thatcher is British prime minister in 1979 and Ronald Reagan as US president in 1980.

Now we are seeing in both of these countries the cumulative effects of more than 35 years of globalised free market capitalism.

These effects have been greatly reinforced by what the Marxist blogger Michael Roberts calls the Long Depression that started in 2007-8.

So we’ve seen a kind of involution of the political system. On the one hand politics—whatever party is in office—has come to be dominated by a corporate elite deeply wedded to neoliberalism.

Perhaps the clearest example of ...