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Marxian economics
This entry begins by setting out the core ideas of Karl Marx (1818–83), with particular reference to the theory of historical materialism and its application to the capitalist mode of production. Marx’s theory of value and distribution receives detailed attention, followed by his models of capital accumulation and economic crisis.
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No need to understand the conflict in Niger, says the United States, just open fire
On October 4, four US soldiers were killed in a firefight in Niger. The United States government is convinced, with minimal intelligence, that fighters from the Islamic State (ISIS) killed these men.
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Tax cuts: It’s all about capitalism
Powerful corporations and the rich in the United States continue their winning ways. By narrow margins, both the House of Representatives and Senate have agreed on a budget proposal that calls for an increase in the federal deficit of $1.5 trillion dollars in order to fund a major reform of the U.S. tax system that will make the rich and powerful even more so.
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Spain jails 8 Catalan officials, issues arrest warrant for Puigdemont
A Spanish high court judge has ordered eight Catalan ministers, who appeared in a Madrid court, to be jailed on charges related to the Catalan Parliament declaration of independence on Oct. 27.
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Britain: The empire that never was
Brexit sold the country a dream; ostensibly a project built on anti-migrant sentiment, it also invoked delusions of grandeur, rooted in reanimating the glorious days of imperial rule and global British hegemony. Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit speech announced a vision for a ‘Global Britain’ – ‘a great, global trading nation that is respected around the world and strong.’
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‘It being clearly understood…’: What the Balfour Declaration tells us about Israel
Few documents as brief as the Balfour Declaration have had as devastating an impact as this historical document. I do not want to minimize the European colonization of the Americas, an utterly ravaging catastrophe for the Indigenous peoples of these continents.
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The Popular Front Novel
I became interested in literary relationships with communism and anti-fascism when I was an undergraduate student. I was curious about how modernist writing, often thought to have peaked by the mid-1920s, was transformed by the rise of fascism and the coming of the Second World War.
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100,000 indigenous people join national strike and the repression continues
Colombia is in an environment of almost permanent mobilization of social and political movements due to the government’s failure to follow through on the agreements it has made in different spaces of negotiation, its continued campaign of violence against members of social movements, and its silence in the face of renewed paramilitary violence in the territories of Colombia.
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Stuart Hall’s deconstruction of fate
The island of Barbuda is currently devoid of human life, a bleak reality that is both unfathomable in its scope and seemingly inevitable under the conditions of racialized capitalism. The severity of Hurricane Irma’s impact was undoubtedly worsened by the gross consumption of natural resources, particularly by nations that historically benefitted from colonialism and the construction of empire.
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Radical municipalism
Last week saw a flurry of humiliating pitches by North American cities for Amazon to pick them as the location of the corporation’s second headquarters.
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Women and work
It has often been claimed that the radical documentary practice of the 1970s attended to class politics to the exclusion of gender. This was one of the core arguments for a staged practice of photography.
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Why Everything Costs Money
This year marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Marx’s Capital. In the midst of a near-decade long world economic crisis, there has been a major resurgence in interest in the book.
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The imposition of class
The recent success of authoritarian-populist politicians and the critique of globalisation, unemployment and social insecurity they advocate has prompted renewed attention to the question of class. In Germany, this debate has been accompanied by discussions surrounding the publication of Didier Eribon’s recent book, Returning to Reims.
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Fanon: freedom for the wretched or servitude to Marxist orthodoxy?
Frantz Fanon attended the All-Africa Conference convened by Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah in 1958. He met with anticolonial leaders, including Congolese Patrice Lumumba and Cameroonian Felix Moumié. During the Second Congress of Black Writers (Rome 1959), he expanded his network with activists from the Portuguese colonies, including Amical Cabral.
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This year’s real Halloween horror
The Mars family has made billions selling us M&Ms, Snickers, and countless other Halloween treats for a century now. But when it comes to paying tax, the Mars family seems to be all tricks and no treats.
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Reconcile this
The world joined most South Africans in cheering when Nelson Mandela was finally released from prison, the apartheid regime was largely dismantled, and multiracial elections were eventually held.
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Why is the U.S. at war in West Africa?
Between 2006 and 2010 the deployment of U.S. special forces troops in Africa increased by 300 percent. From 2010 to 2017 the numbers of deployed troops exploded by nearly 2000 percent, occupying more than 60 outposts tasked with carrying out over 100 missions at any given moment across the continent.
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Neo-liberal capitalism and its crisis
“Neo-liberal capitalism” is the term used to describe the phase of capitalism where restrictions on the global flows of commodities and capital, including capital in the form of finance, have been substantially removed.
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An oral history of the next American revolution
In this interview, author and activist Michael Albert discusses his new book, RPS/2044: An Oral History of the Next American Revolution.
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Trashing science in Government grants isn’t normal
There is now a political appointee of the Trump administration at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), John Konkus, reviewing grant solicitations and proposals in the public affairs office.