Subjects Archives: Financialization

Towards the end of the first chapter of Das Kapital, after having established the validity of the labor theory of value, Marx has a section on the “Fetishism of Commodities”.

On Feb. 24, the day when Russia launched the military operation, U.S. wheat and corn futures rose by their daily trading limits while soybeans rose to the highest since 2012.

Marx’s first sentence in Capital Volume One is: “The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as an “immense accumulation of commodities”, its unit being a single commodity.” (Moore and Aveling translation).

According to defenders of the status quo, the best response to our most serious problems is to let markets work their magic; government regulation of private business activity only makes things worse.

COVID-19 has exposed major long-term economic vulnerabilities. This malaise–including declining productivity growth–can be traced to the greater influence of finance in the real economy.

CounterSpin interview with Rakeen Mabud on supply chain breakdown.

“This really isn’t a conversation about providing relief to a small, niche group of people,” said the congresswoman. “It’s very much a keystone action politically.” –AOC

The United States has elected to lock itself in a zero-sum conflict with China, attempting to stop China’s inevitable rise as the world’s largest, most powerful economy and thus nation.

There’s millions of dollars sloshing around Massachusetts Parents United and National Parents Union these days. Some of it is from Charles Koch.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has expressed dissatisfaction over the role played by Nepal Rastra Bank to ensure stability of Nepal’s banking sector.

KUALA LUMPUR: Many factors frustrate the international cooperation needed to address the looming global warming catastrophe. As most rich nations have largely abdicated responsibility, developing countries need to think and act innovatively and cooperatively to better advance the South.

Columbia’s student workers delivered an invaluable lesson—one day longer, one day stronger—that you don’t have to have to go to graduate school to understand.

The Canadian Zionist Cultural Association (CZCA) was caught supporting a foreign military in violation of charity law. But it’s unclear if the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) will apply its rules to the Israel focused registered charity.

The Need for Transparency and Accountability

One of the most important arguments advanced by John Maynard Keynes, the renowned economist, was that the operation of financial markets under capitalism is deeply flawed.

The most scandalous fact of the current period is that 2.37 billion people are struggling to eat. Most of them are in developing countries, but many are in advanced industrial states.

Russia and China’s announcement of an independent financial trading platform will free nations under US sanctions from western intrusion into their commercial activities.

As we enter the new year almost two years after the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared a pandemic on 11 March 2020, the official death toll from COVID-19 sits just below 5.5 million people.

Facing the challenges of an aging energy infrastructure, Cuba is looking to new energy sources with help from the Belt and Road Initiative to strengthen its power production capacity and move away from fossil fuels.

As cryptocurrencies take the world of finance by storm, Thomas Redshaw examines their rise and what the left should make of them.