Subjects Archives: Capitalism

The new regulations on banks’ capital requirements known as Basel 3, made known to the public in mid-September, are a major institutional boost to the monopolistic position of the largest banks.1  In the new framework the capital that banks must hold against lending activities has been raised from a ratio of 2%, established by Basel […]

DIE LINKE (the Left Party) has initiated a debate on its draft party program, which it wishes to officially adopt in Autumn 2011.  Neues Deutschland is joining this debate with a series of articles.  In the Neues Deutschland article published on 9 August 2010, Michael Heinrich tackles the issue of the relationship between capital and […]

  Excerpt: Household Debt and Credit Developments in 2010Q21 Aggregate consumer debt continued to decline in the second quarter, continuing its trend of the previous six quarters.  As of June 30, 2010, total consumer indebtedness was $11.7 trillion, a reduction of $812 billion (6.5%) from its peak level at the close of 2008Q3, and $178 […]

  Paul Jay: In China in June, leaders of the Chinese Communist Party said that it’s time for workers’ wages to go up.  And there’s been a lot of discussion about whether China’s actually restructuring its economy to try to boost domestic demand.  Certainly in what leaders say in other parts of the world they […]

The Economist (July 15) published an editorial on Egypt and Saudi Arabia (two dictatorial countries allied with the United States in the Middle East) expressing hope that they would become democratic in the future.  What is surprising, however, is that in the same issue the magazine did a favorable review of a book by Stephen […]

A few days ago, an article was published that really contained many facts related to the oil spill that occurred 105 days ago. President Obama had authorized the drilling of that well, trusting in the capacity of modern technology to produce oil, which he wished to make abundantly available, thus freeing the United States from […]

There is a very pervasive view that the current capitalist crisis consists exclusively of the financial crisis and, in so far as the financial crisis is now over, the crisis as a whole is over.  This, I believe, is erroneous, and this is because, like Bob Brenner, I also believe that the current financial crisis […]

Joyce Appleby.  The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism.  New York: W.W. Norton, 2010.  $29.95.  Pp. xii, 494. Joyce Appleby, who taught U.S. history for many years at UCLA, presided over both the Organization of American Historians and American Historical Association, and served her term as professor-in-exile among the Brits at Oxford, comes to the […]

  Paul Jay: So we’ve been talking about macroeconomic policy, the G-20, austerity.  And there was one little line in the G-20 document I thought was interesting, and it’s sort of buried in amongst everything.  It said countries could facilitate wages going up proportional to productivity, which is rather interesting, ’cause it’s the only time […]

  David Stasavage, Public Debt and the Birth of the Democratic State: France and Great Britain, 1688-1789.  xii + 210 pp.  Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.  Tables, figures, notes, appendix, bibliography, and index.  $60.00 U.S. (cl).  ISBN 0-521-80967-3. In 1989, Douglass North and Barry Weingast published an article in the Journal of […]

“The thesis . . . is that in many ways the form of the current crisis is dictated very much by the way we came out of the last one.” — David Harvey, 26 April 2010 David Harvey is a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York, Director of the Center for Place, […]

  Nelida Fuccaro.  Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf: Manama since 1800.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.  xvi + 257 pp.  $99.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-521-51435-4. In many ways, the city of Manama (now the capital of Bahrain) shares affinities with other Gulf city-states.  Like Dubai, Kuwait, and Muscat, the port city drew […]

Under the Gold Standard the values of different currencies were fixed in terms of gold, which meant that the exchange rates between those currencies were fixed.  Exchange rate movements therefore could not be used to enlarge net exports and hence domestic employment.  At the same time governments were committed to the principle of “sound finance”, […]

  Speech to the Panel on Structural Causes of Climate Change, World  Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, Cochabamba, Bolivia, April 20, 2010 Good afternoon, compañero presidente Evo Morales, thank you for this initiative, for this invitation, and for your hospitality. Thanks to the people of Bolivia and the people […]

Abdallah Ahmed is an artist based in Cairo, Egypt.  He blogs at .  This cartoon was published in his blog on 17 May 2010 under a Creative Commons license. | Print

Prabir Purkayastha: You have written a lot about electricity in South Africa particularly, and you also talked about how this concept of services being priced so the cost of service is recovered is actually starting a complete ideological change in the way infrastructure services are delivered.  So what do you think is the real crisis?   […]

A longtime reader of Monthly Review, and a Marxist for all his adult life, Alexander Saxton might be one of the oldest, continuously active radicals in the United States.  Born in Manhattan in 1919, he met the novelist, John Dos Passos, and the poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay, when he was a young man, and […]

  Abstract: China’s integration into the global economy, while rapid, has been managed as part of a wider liberalization process.  The structural changes in the rural economy arising from these twin processes have led to widening intra-rural inequalities.  To address these, the central leadership has, in Polanyian manner, moved to counter some of the adverse […]

“Finally, light at the end of the tunnel!” Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist.  This cartoon was published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 24 March 2010.  Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | | Print

  Social Justice and Neoliberalism: Global Perspectives.  Adrian Smith, Alison Stenning, and Katie Willis, eds.  Macmillan/Zed Books, 2008.  253 pages. Following the tradition of critical geographers, this book explores the expansion of neoliberalism into different spheres and spaces of everyday life.  It consists of a collection of essays by writers from the global South, the […]