Economic liberalism

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Ten Ways to Undermine Polish Election

Going Postal: Poland's Mail Carriers Decry COVID-19 Election

The leaders of the Law and Justice (PiS) party and Porozumienie, one of two parties propping up the PiS-dominated coalition, made the announcement on Wednesday night.

The COVID-19 pandemic stands to improve familial bonds with so many people in Turkey forced to stay at home, according to a leading psychologist and thinker.

"[The lockdown] is an opportunity to discover the language of the family and familial love," Gündüz Vassaf told the Hürriyet Daily News this week.

The responses to crises come in two phases. First, governments respond in predictable ways, consistent with how they have acted before. But then crises have a longer-lasting power, and that is to shift our thinking about what governments should do. The coronavirus is a totemic case in this respect.

This is an important opportunity to redress the current situation, but many of the new emerging leaders are far-right demagogues who blame today's problems on social-welfare policies, migrants and the poor, while aiming to remove all remaining constraints on capital.

Rights groups said any doubt that Poland's annual November 11 Independence March has become a platform for far-right extremists were dispelled by this year's event. The banners alone set the tone.

Even if the EU and its member states have the leadership skills to weather looming storms — from a US-China trade war to rising tensions in the Middle East — the reasons for Europe's recent travails should not be forgotten.

Only through self-reflection can the EU rejuvenate its standing in Europe and the rest of the world.

In the pre-election period that Greece has entered, one hears plenty of grand declarations from politicians. Some, for instance, are about how to defeat neoliberalism, and others concern safeguarding the endangered European culture.

The sort of pirate and parasitic capitalism that evolved in Greece over previous decades is to blame for many of the ills of today. Some of its manifestations were the culture of easy money and anything-goes entrepreneurship, the carefully orchestrated bankruptcies and stock manipulation.

Members of the self-styled anarchist group Rouvikonas walked into the Austrian embassy in Athens on Friday to protest the approval of a 12-hour working day by lawmakers in Vienna.

After they threw flyers, the members of the group left the building.

In times of past exuberance, many listed companies operated without regulations or meaningful control from the relevant supervisory authorities.

The consequences of this state of affairs soon became evident.

And what is most worrying is that we are now witnessing a repeat of that phenomenon, involving companies with foreign shareholders and investors.