Subjects Archives: Capitalism

The work of Karl Marx, Capital, considered “the Bible” of the revolution, was first published 150 years ago. Many political and ideological battles are fought until this day in the name of the German intellectual and his biggest work.

On September 14, it will be exactly 150 years since the publication of Capital: Critique of Political Economy, the first volume of Karl Marx’s epochal Das Kapital. The historicity of the book can be gauged by the fact that this first of three bulky tomes was published by a Hamburg publisher two years after the American Civil War but well above a decade before the incandescent bulb was invented. Capital however, literally acted as the bulb that shone a light on many a way.

In Marx there is a concept of an alternative to capitalism that provides a foundation for the needed effort to reinvigorate anti-capitalist movements. But a richer, more adequate understanding of socialism that addresses the realities of contemporary capitalism today still awaits us.

It is a devastating fact that James Baldwin is our contemporary; so much so, that the matter of his relevance seems either pressing or redundant depending on to whom one speaks. Raoul Peck’s I Am Not Your Negro, a “cinematic séance” (The Guardian), is being taken as the completion of Baldwin’s unfinished Remember This House, […]

We may be living through one of those moments in history that future historians will look back on as a watershed, a period of flux that marked a transition to quite different economic and social arrangements. Unfortunately, in human history a ‘moment’ can be a very long time.

How does race relate to class in capitalism? Is it intrinsic and essential to the reproduction of capital, or merely an accidental feature of particular capitals? In this recent essay by Richard Seymour, and originally published on his Patreon, Seymour considers a debate within Marxism on the relationship between class, race and capitalism.

The indirect effect of ​the increase in income inequality is economically more injurious than the erosion of company earnings or a stock market downturn.

Largely unbeknownst to the general public, many media executives and top journalists of almost all major U.S. news outlets, political and business magazines, public broadcasters and press agencies have long been members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Eugene Victor Debs was not only the builder of the social movement in America but arguably the most important political figure of the 20th century, before being crucified by the capitalist class when he and hundred of thousands of followers became a potent political threat. The most notable moments of Debs life were the railroad strikes in 1894, his campaign for Congress in 1916 until he was arrested under the Sedition Act by President Wilson and finally his speech moments before his sentencing in 1918.

When challenged on the numbers for its tax proposals, the Trump administration has insisted that they’ll lead to large-scale economic growth, which can largely offset the cost. The TPC finds that this isn’t the case.

Persistent economic stagnation together with neoliberal austerity has at this point seriously undermined the stability of the liberal-democratic state and thus the political command sector of the capitalist system. This has led to a dangerous resurgence of political movements in the fascist genus (fascism, neofascism, post-fascism), representing an alternative way of managing the state of the capitalist system, opposed to liberal democracy.

WIth 8 men holding the same wealth as 50% of the world, you have to wonder if there is something systamatically wrong with the way the world is. Capitalism is no longer ideal in the world we live in today. People are starting to realize this in the forms of inequality of wealth, food, resources. Now is the time to change that, and it can be done.

The United States is sometimes viewed as the most extreme capitalist society on earth. The decision of the newly elected Trump administration to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement would seem to affirm such a judgment. It highlights the fact that while capitalism cannot solve the environmental problem, a more extreme capitalist society can, if it is not stopped, eliminate all possibility for a future sustainable society, by accelerating the runaway train to catastrophe represented by today’s business as usual.

Friedrich Engels spent two decades in Manchester. The horrific conditions he saw in the cradle of industrialism forged his great works. But the city has never commemorated him – until now.

David Harvey, one of the most influential figures in geography and urban studies, and among the most cited intellectuals of all time across the humanities and social sciences, delivered a featured lecture, “Marx, Capital and the Madness of Economic Reason.” at the 2017 AAG annual Meeting.

“Capitalism cannot reform itself; it is doomed to self-destruction. No universal selfishness can bring social good to all. Communism—the effort to give all men what they need and to ask of each the best they can contribute—this is the only way of human life.” With this sober stroke of his insurgent pen, the 93-year-old scholar joined the Communist Party.

Organizing a strategy that is likely to win is no easy task. After all, the enemies of the working class are more powerful today than ever before; they have control over the military, the media, the courts, the politicians, and even the unions. The fight against the patriarchal capitalist system, therefore, must be strategic to be effective.

In the U.S., where wealth is most highly concentrated, almost a quarter of income goes to the rich. So it should come as no surprise that a big chunk of the world’s richest call America home. Two out of five millionaires and billionaires live there, and their ranks are growing fast.

The experience of the last three decades has clearly demonstrated that social struggles in and of themselves are not sufficient to stop the drift to the right and re-establish a dynamic of social advances. That requires going beyond defensive strategies and creating a positive alternative project that is authentically social and democratic.

Visitors will be invited to reflect on capitalism as if looking back at it from a world in which capitalism is dead. “Much of the evidence of capitalism is either eroding over time or simply not known or easily accessible to the public,” the mission statement reads. “Our ambition is to connect and integrate these many efforts before the evidence is erased forever.”