Marx at Karlsbad

ABSTRACT

The ongoing Syrian conflict has triggered one of the worst humanitarian emergencies and the largest refugee crisis of the post-World War II era. What are the political-ecological factors leading to the emergence and spread of this conflict? To what extent have ecological injustices played a triggering or accelerating role in the Syrian conflict? The main argument of this article is that one of the most important causes of the Syrian tragedy relates to the outbreak of a political-ecological crisis whose origins are to be found in the long-term consequences of Syria's (a) oil-centered extractivist model of development adopted since the 1970s and its legacy reflected in the government's failure to generate adequate livelihood; (b) neo-liberal restructuring that has widened inequalities and bankrupted the agriculture since 2000; and (c) environmentally blind policies that have neglected the severity of droughts, encouraged water-intensive crops and the over-exploitation of water resources, and failed to address the modernization of the irrigation infrastructure. The environmental aspects of this crisis also concern inter-state and political-cultural conflicts as they apply to the control of Syria's water resources by Turkey and the so-called Islamic State.     

Sovereign state at bay

Among his books are Conservative Millenarians; The Search for Historical Meaning;and a monograph on Carl Schmitt.     

Throwing money at schools

The conventional wisdom about public schools is that they face serious problems in terms of performance and that improving schools requires additional money. However, the available evidence suggests that there is no relationship between expenditures and the achievement of students and that such traditional remedies as reducing class sizes or hiring better trained teachers are unlikely to improve matters. Furthermore, there is little reason to believe that schools will move toward more efficient operations, either on their own or through consumer pressures. More attention should be given to developing direct performance incentives.