Geography Archives: Global

THE hegemony of imperialism is invariably associated with an agrarian crisis in countries of the global south; in fact agrarian crisis is just the other side of the ascendancy of imperialism. This is evident from the case of Indian agriculture.

The International Labour Organisation’s Global Wage Report 2022–23 tracks the horrendous collapse of real wages for billions of people around the planet.

Far-fetched as it sounds, this year’s winners are all connected to a CIA offshoot, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and parroted CIA / State Department / Pentagon talking points about Ukraine and Russia in their acceptance speeches.

The study looks at the impact of 125 of the richest billionaires globally, whose carbon emissions equal those of France, or 67 million people, and shows that just the richest 10 of those individuals own more wealth than the poorest 40% of humanity. The average billionaire in the study is responsible for carbon emissions over one million times higher than the average person in the bottom 90% of humanity.

Art costs money. Creativity takes time. The combination of time and money is in short supply within capitalist democracy.

Within the heterogenous tradition of Marxism there are two diametrically opposed conceptions of popular culture: the elitist and vanguardist.

In a recent study published in Science, scientists analysed how the co-extinction of species accelerates the overall loss of biodiversity and predicted possible loss.

At long last, these publications have acknowledged that the material published by Assange was of vital public interest and importance, noting that what he released “disclosed corruption, diplomatic scandals and spy affairs on an international scale” and “decisions that cost the country most heavily in lives and money.”

If “what should I buy?” springs from the consumption portion of income, then “how should I give?” pertains to the portion not dedicated to current or future consumption. The first question would be asked by a citizen of the 99%, the second by a one-percenter.

THE fact that income and wealth inequalities have increased quite dramatically under the neo-liberal regime is beyond dispute. The empirical work by Piketty’s team bears out the increase in income inequality. They use income tax data to infer about the share of the top 1 per cent of the population of a country in its national income.

Readers of the first volume of Capital sometimes mistakenly conceptualize capitalism in terms of a relationship between workers and a single capitalist. In doing so they fail to notice that for Marx capitalist society is not one big capitalist enterprise.

There is much more here than can be covered in a brief review, including interesting discussions of language, laughter, neo-mercantile capitalism, digital information and abstract nature, a correlate to abstract labor.

Once upon a time Dostoevsky wrote a passage in The Idiot (1868) about an abused donkey passed from owner to owner which inspired Robert Bresson’s classic 1966 film Au Hasard Balthazar.

Despite the occasional polite nod to Alfred Nobel, the committee — which will name this year’s award on Saturday — has never made known his vision of peace through global demilitarization, writes Fredrik S. Heffermehl.

THE crux of the issue is that non-fossil, or even a low fossil fuel path, will need grid-level storage costs to drop by a factor of 10 times what they are today!

A NEO-LIBERAL regime entails a spontaneous change in the balance of class power against the working class everywhere. This happens for a number of reasons.

The hybrid war in Ukraine has sadly revealed how ineffective the United Nations Organisation has been when it comes to preventing armed conflict or even negotiating a cease-fire when hostilities have broken out.

Natural flows do not respect national boundaries. The atmosphere and oceans cross international borders with little difficulty, as greenhouse gases (GHGs) and other fluids, including pollutants, easily traverse frontiers.

The city of San Francisco has voted to legalize the use of killbots in specific emergency situations like active shooters and suicide bombers, with high-ranking officers making the call as to whether their use is warranted.

Samir Amin, world-known economist, explains the reason of decadent condition of the modern economy and gives the recipe of the salvation from global imperialism.