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Capitalism, slavery, and economic white supremacy
What is at stake when we talk about the economics of North American slavery? Over the last 75+ years it has been whether capitalism superseded slavery or whether capitalism and slavery were co-constituted, capitalism to some extent relying on slavery.
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Amidst pandemic, while billions struggle for survival, billionaires’ wealth tops $10 trillion
Billionaires are “smart” enough. Their wealth now, in this pandemic, tops trillions of dollars.
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Marxism and intersectionality
Ashley Bohrer has provided this important piece of scholarship with her new book, Marxism and Intersectionality: Race, Gender, Class and Sexuality under Contemporary Capitalism.
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Mainstream economics today
Readers today will be more familiar with contemporary mainstream economics than with the mainstream economics of Marx’s day. So, let’s start there.
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Why Modi’s government is not up to the task
The Modi regime believes that no matter how impoverished the people are their electoral support can always be won by promoting Hindutva and effecting a communal polarization. It is an utterly cynical view, but then, the present dispensation represents the acme of cynicism.
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Review of Jairus Banaji A Brief History of Commercial Capitalism
For Jairus Banaji, theory and history are tightly interwoven: without history, theory ends up ‘bad abstraction’; without theory, the intelligibility of history is doomed to fail.
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Tale of two capitalisms
Marxian economists recognize, just like mainstream economists, that capitalism has radically transformed the world in recent decades, continuing and in some cases accelerating long-term trends.
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The revolutionary answers of C.L.R. James
The Black Lives Matter movement across the U.S. against police violence and racist inequality is one of the most dynamic political developments in years.
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Times remain hard, especially for low-wage workers
The current economic crisis has hit workers hard. Unemployment rates remain high, with total weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits continuing to grow.
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The protracted crisis of capitalism
THERE is a commonly-held view that the current crisis in capitalism, which has resulted in a massive output contraction and increase in unemployment, is because of the pandemic; and that once the pandemic gets over, things will go back to “normal”.
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‘What stage of capitalism is this?’ Hedge fund $3 billion richer thanks to wager on wildfire insurance claims
With over 100,000 people displaced by wildfires raging across California, Baupost Group collected more than $3 billion in July after betting on insurance claims against embattled utility company PG&E.
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Under capitalism Black Lives are adrift and vulnerable
Post-Civil War arrangements by which the victorious North settled with the defeated slavocracy ensured that many Black people would not matter much and that some would die. A thousand or so were murdered in the South in 1866, reports W.E. B Du Bois.
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“Information has value”: The political economy of information capitalism
The “Information Has Value” frame provides a welcome opening to discuss information capitalism, including the commodification of information, information labor, concentration of ownership, and audience data extraction/surveillance.
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“A disturbing milestone”: America’s top 12 plutocrats now own $1 Trillion in wealth
New figures from the Institute for Policy Studies show that, despite a pandemic that has stunted the economy for months, America’s billionaire class is becoming richer than ever, adding nearly $700 billion to their fortune since the nationwide lockdown in March.
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You can’t understand capitalism without race
The centrality of race in the devilment of capitalism continues to be resisted by “the sort of hardline, orthodox folks who only look at class, alongside the sort of liberals and so-called racial multiculturals who have the misconception that race no longer matters,” said Charisse Burden-Stelly, professor of Africana Studies and Political Science at Carleton College.
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Dear Future Generations: Sorry
An Apology Letter to Future Generations. Sorry.
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Reflections on Marxism and Law: A Review of Igor Shoikhedbrod’s Revisiting Marx’s Critique of Liberalism
The book complicates the common narrative that Marx was the quintessential critic of liberal rights. Shoikhedbrod’s close and careful reading of Marx’s texts is insightful and targeted. The book helps readers to think about the role of law and rights under capitalism, and also to imagine its future in a communist society.
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Where is resistance to structural violence of capitalism?
The reality in the United States has come to this: 160,000 dead in four months, thousands hospitalized, and many thousands sick or afraid to be sick because they have no sick days and no health insurance.
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Dead Zones: Industrial agriculture versus ocean life
Worldwide, there are now over a thousand coastal areas where fish can’t breathe. The nitrogen that makes crops grow is also destroying offshore ecosystems.
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Samir Amin
Samir Amin is, incontestably, the greatest intellectual—luckily, a Marxist!