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In this talk, Tanner Mirrlees scrutinizes the rhetorics of “technological optimism,” “technological pessimism,” and “technological revolutionism,” discusses the political economy of communication, highlights how capitalism’s basic logics endure in the “digital age,” and concludes with an overview of how workers, citizens, and publics are trying to redesign and rebuild the digital age in support of […]
The potential mass appeal of the Freedom Budget failed to materialize in part because “realistic” compromises were made by its supporters: partisans of the Green New Deal should not make the same mistake.
While the ratio of debt to GDP fell in 2018—for the first time in a decade—for both advanced & emerging market economies it remains high, much higher than at the start of the 2007-08 crisis; and has also continued to rise in some major economies. Debt update
Impossible to deny the reality of poverty in our world. Studies of the data on income and wealth routinely show that billions of people on the planet live with minimal access to resources. These studies demonstrate that poverty cannot be measured merely by the financial resources that are not available; they demonstrate how billions of […]
I had an extraordinary Twitter Exchange with Richard Tol over the last few days. I’ve written this post to preserve that exchange in case, at a future date, Tol decides to delete his tweets. They provide a superb window into the thinking that lies behind mainstream economic modelling of climate change, and why this has […]
We know it’s bad but not quite how bad. We know we should do more about protecting our personal data but either we can’t be bothered or don’t know how.
It is not the collapse of Conservatism causing the rise of the far-right in America, Europe and Britain, it is the opposite. It is, however, important to understand that this is exactly how fascism comes to power.
The BBC’s Panorama on antisemitism in the Labour Party provides no real evidence and shows how cynical the smear campaign is, argues David McAllister
Left tech bros are honing Marx into a capitalist tool
Carbon dioxide emissions may trigger a reflex in the carbon cycle, with devastating consequences, study finds.
This article focuses on the ‘poetics’ of the Theatre of the Oppressed. These are a set of forms and techniques that challenged the traditional model of theatre. Coudray argues that the key to Boal’s politics lay in the form and the process over the content of the plays.
To perish or to radically transform the way we relate to one another and to nature, that is the question humanity has never had to face until now.
From the Algeria to algorithms, Lizzie O’Shea argues that Frantz Fanon’s ideas have much to offer us as we seek to understand, and resist, some of the most profound challenges of living in the digital age.
The battle against Big Tech has now decisively emerged as a new front in the fight for the right to the city
Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Progress in Political Economy — The idea of mass strikes within the Marxist tradition has been most powerful against capitalism. With the idea of strikes, Marx wants to bring about an epistemological change in the working class, “so they would know that they are, together, ‘the agent of production’, and that […]
In any event the dialectics of art will continue.
How should we measure inequality?
How will the police respond to environmental direct action groups like Extinction Rebellion as climate breakdown reaches critical mass?
And I would also like to emphasize that we’re using the term “natural disasters” but in many cases there is absolutely nothing natural about the disasters we are talking about. We’re not saying they have been caused by climate change, we’re saying that it has worsened them. That’s what the research shows.
The context for organizing today that faces working people across the world is one that must grapple with the challenges posed by a decentralized production process and a well-organized ruling class.
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