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The American savings crisis, explained
When you lay all that out, Americans’ terrible saving rate stops looking like such a mystery. In fact, it looks downright rational.
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Limits on free speech
Judith Butler asks what happens when free speech clashes with other basic values.
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Trump’s thug-power, or does anybody still like Woody Allen?
Let’s go back to when we were all a little younger and less terrified. Obama is president. I am talking to a slightly older, white, heterosexual male, highly esteemed by the academic world and by me. I, a lesbian, admire and trust this guy. We’re catching up, talking about life, books, friends. I tell him my friend Beth is having a hard time writing her memoir. She’s trying to decide if she should include the fact that her very famous father, a renowned attorney, had sexually molested her for years while she was growing up.
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The 2016 Survey of Consumer Finances paints a grim picture of working class finances
Martin Hart-Landsberg takes a look at the tragedy of what life is like for the working class. Allowing for us to directly see what we already know, that US capitalism works to enrich the few at the expense of the many.
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As ‘epic winds’ drive California fires, climate change fuels the risk
Santa Ana winds are whipping up wildfires in Southern California after a devastating season in wine country. Rising temps can make the West dangerously combustible.
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Is Fascism Making a Comeback? (Part 2)
A continuation of ‘Is Fascism Making a Comeback?’ This is the second edition to the series, ‘State of Nature’.
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Führer Trump tweets neo-Nazi anti-Muslim propaganda
On Wednesday, Donald Trump used the bully pulpit of the U.S. presidency to spread neo-Nazi anti-Muslim propaganda to the world.
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“Colombia is safe for business, but not for people”
Murders of trade unionists and social leaders, paramilitary activity, coca production… If we only paid attention to the mainstream media we would not get the idea that these problems are actually growing in Colombia, one year after the peace agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC came into place. To get a better picture and understand how all these elements connect to US policy and corporate interests, we interviewed Daniel Kovalik, a lawyer and human rights activist who has long been involved in the struggle for peace and justice in Colombia.
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IMF, World Bank, & structural adjustment
IMF, World Bank, & Structural Adjustment
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Media complicity increases the possibility of a new Korean War
Tensions between the US and North Korea are again rising in the wake of North Korea’s November 28th test of an ICBM that experts believe has the potential to deliver a nuclear bomb to cities on the east coast of the US, including Washington D.C.
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‘Valve-Turners’ putting lives on the line for our climate emergency
In October 2016, while President Barack Obama was still in office, five climate change activists, including me, cut chains and closed emergency shutoff valves on five tar sands oil pipelines in four states. In one morning, we briefly stopped the flow of all Canadian tar sands oil into the United States.
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The New York Times and the U.S. Border wall: A love story
The New York Times’ radical reasonableness offers us a clear vision of the ways one can continuously adapt its position to the political context as to be in position of respectful negotiation with the status quo.
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What is racial capitalism and why does it matter?
Talk by Robin D. G. Kelley on “What is Racial Capitalism and Why Does It Matter?” recorded November 7, 2017 at Kane Hall, University of Washington, Seattle, WA. Sponsored by the UW Simpson Center for the Humanities.
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Labor market conundrum
Nary a day goes by that President Trump and/or the talking heads on CNBC fail to mention the following unemployment chart as evidence that “everything is awesome” with the U.S. economy…
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What is social reproduction theory?
In this short video, Tithi Bhattacharya, editor of ‘Social Reproduction Theory’ (Pluto, 2017), discusses ‘SRT’, and the question of who produces the worker under capitalism?
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Social reproduction theory: What’s the big idea?
Key to social reproduction theory (SRT) is an understanding of the ‘production of goods and services and the production of life are part of one integrated process’, or in other words: acknowledging that race and gender oppression occur capitalistically.
In this article, Susan Ferguson, a contributor to Social Reproduction Theory, shows how SRT can deepen our understanding of everyday life under capitalism. She explores the history of this dialectical approach, its variances, and its potentialities; providing an answer to the question: social reproduction theory, what’s the big idea? -
Capitalism unhinged: crisis of legitimacy in the United States
This is expanded and updated from an article first published in German in Das Argument: Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Sozialwissenschaften, no. 323 (2017/3); republished with the kind permission of its editors; originally presented in a panel “The Crisis of the Political,” Institut für kritische Theorie, Berlin, June 9, 2017. For their comments and suggestions, I […]
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U.S. government commission’s plan to repeal net neutrality will hit marginalized communities hardest
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the United States—an independent government agency that regulates interstate communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable—emitted a preliminary proposal on Tuesday that seeks to repeal “net neutrality”.
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The FCC’s plan to end Net Neutrality: What you need to know
The details of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s plan to destroy Net Neutrality are out. And they’re even worse than expected. Our lawyers and policy experts are reviewing the reports and gathering details about Pai’s plan. This is our first read on the most important details you need to know about this proposal. We will update this post as new details emerge.