Subjects Archives: Capitalism

What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism is a short, accessible introduction to the ecological crisis that is intended for a wide audience — why did you decide to write a book like this, and why now? In the fall of 2008 I attended a conference where discussion of the environment was prominent, although […]

A is for Airstrike; B is for Barack Obama; C is for Capitalism.

There is a pervasive view that growth under capitalism, though it may worsen poverty, even absolute poverty, to start with, eventually leads to a lowering of poverty.  The experience of the English Industrial Revolution is invoked in this context.  There has been a huge debate among economic historians about the impact of the Industrial Revolution […]

Iran’s biggest economic problem is the growing production slump at its factories and workshops.  For both workers and the business elite, Iran’s domestic industrial troubles are far more pressing — and generating far more public anxiety — than international sanctions. The biggest danger for Iran in 2011 is the combination of higher unemployment and inflation […]

The anti-colonial struggle in the third world countries had brought together workers, peasants, agricultural labourers, artisans, middle class intellectuals, and even the national bourgeoisie into one camp, demanding decolonisation.  This was a reflection of the fact that colonialism, or imperialism (if one uses the term in an inclusive sense to refer to all stages of […]

  David A. Kideckel.  Getting By in Postsocialist Romania: Labor, the Body, and Working-Class Culture.  Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008.  xii + 266 pp.  $65.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-253-34957-6; $24.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-253-21940-4. During the last twenty years, Romanian mass media and most Romanian intellectuals have typically portrayed the miners of the Jiu Valley in Romania […]

Capitalism is supposed to bring in modernity, which includes a secular polity where “babas” and “swamys”, qua “babas” and “swamys”, have no role.  Many have even defended neo-liberal reforms on the grounds that they hasten capitalist development and hence our march to modernity.  The Left has always rejected this position.  It has argued that in […]

One less emphasised lesson from the global financial crisis was that developing countries that are successful in attracting foreign financial investors take a hit when such a crisis occurs because of a reverse flow of capital.  Foreign financial firms needing to cover losses or meet commitments at home withdraw their capital, generating a credit crunch […]

I absolutely love how shamelessly frank Naguib Sawiris‘s tweets tend to be. . . Hossam el-Hamalawy is an Egyptian socialist, journalist, and photographer.  Visit his blog: .  Follow Hossam el-Hamalawy at .  This article was first published in his blog on 21 May 2011 under a Creative Commons license. | Print

  Excerpt: On January 11, 2006, the United States signed into law the U.S.-Bahrain Free Trade Agreement (FTA), which entered into force between the United States and Bahrain on August 1, 2006.  In light of the ongoing brutal repression of peaceful protest carried out by the police and armed forces of Bahrain and the Gulf […]

John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York.  The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth.  Monthly Review Press, 2010.  544 pages. Climate change is often called the greatest environment threat facing humanity.  The threat is very real.  Unless we cut carbon pollution fast, runaway climate change will worsen existing environmental and social problems, and […]

Guy Hocquenghem.  The Screwball Asses.  Trans.  Noura Wedell.  Semiotext(e), 2010.  88 pp.  $12.95 “Speak to my ass.  My head is sick.” — Southern French proverb This little book was first published as an anonymous essay at the end of Félix Guattari’s Recherches no. 12, its March 1973 special issue titled Trois Milliards de Pervers [Three […]

  10 April 2011 Congratulations to the people of Iceland! The Repudiate the Debt Campaign welcomes and applauds the decision of the people of Iceland to reject the bank bail-out that would subsidise the wealthy elite.  They showed great courage in rejecting the terms and conditions and in resisting the pressure from the European Union […]

I said several days ago that the die was cast for Mubarak and that not even Obama could save him. The world knows what is taking place in the Middle East. The news is circulating at incredible speed. Politicians barely have time to read the cables coming in by the hour. Everyone is aware of […]

I shall relate a bit of history. When the Spanish “discovered” us five hundred years ago, the estimated population on the Island was no more than 200,000 inhabitants who were living in harmony with nature. Their main sources of food came from the rivers, lakes and seas rich in protein; they were also carrying out […]

Yesterday I listened to him when he spoke at the University of Tucson where homage was being paid to the 6 people murdered and the 14 wounded in the Arizona massacre, especially the Democratic congresswoman for that state, seriously wounded by a gunshot to the head. It was the deed of an unbalanced person, drunk […]

“Happy New Swindle!” Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist based in Spain.  The cartoon above was first published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 3 January 2011.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | Print

In recent years, radical geographer David Harvey has emerged as one of the leading theorists and popularizers of Marxian political economy in the English-speaking world.  In books such as The New Imperialism and A Brief History of Neoliberalism, as well as his popular online courses in Volume I of Marx’s Capital, Harvey has articulated a […]

  Paul Jay: Nancy Folbre, in her blog on the New York Times, wrote the following: “The Great Recession has sometimes been dubbed the Mancession because it drove unemployment among men higher than unemployment among women.”  So how is this affecting families?  How is this affecting the future outlook for the population as a whole […]

  Listen to the interview with Samir Amin: Can you tell me very briefly what your book Ending the Crisis of Capitalism or Ending Capitalism? is about? The title of my book is indicative of the intention.  The title, in a provocative way, is Ending the Crisis of Capitalism or Ending Capitalism in Crisis?  As […]