Alternate Routes: A Journal of Critical Social Research is pleased to announce the publication of our newest issue “Saving Global Capitalism: Interrogating Austerity & Working Class Responses to Crises.” The essays collected here are of particular relevance as the austerity measures around the world intensify in their scale and scope. Recent trends suggest massive state retrenchment in the realm of social services, health care, education, pensions, unemployment insurance and government stimulus spending, in favour of wage controls, the fire sale sell-off of assets and resources in order to facilitate privatization, as well as tax-shifting for competitiveness, the weakening of environmental laws and employment standards, and thereby a subsequent increase in the unpaid sphere of social reproduction. While these processes may suggest the arrival of a new phase of accumulation, post-neoliberal assertions remain premature as the precise nature and direction of these developments are indeterminate. While the legitimacy of neoliberalism appeared to be in jeopardy, current ‘exit strategies’ have starkly revealed its dynamism as ruling elites continue to impose their agenda. In fact, neoliberalism seems to be gaining new momentum in seeking wage and benefit concessions, public-sector spending restraint, and an all-out attack against the unionized, non-unionized and unwaged segments of the working class. The contributions collected here vividly demonstrate who is paying for the crisis.
