Subjects Archives: Inequality

Michael Burawoy’s Symbolic Violence is a Marxist critique of the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu. This fascinating book explores some of Bourdieu’s contradictions by staging a series of ‘conversations’ between the French sociologist and a range of important, mostly Marxist, thinkers whose writings Bourdieu ignored or dismissed in footnotes, even though he ought to have engaged explicitly with their ideas.

Settler colonialism, those colonial processes based on the aim of permanently settling metropolitan populations on indigenous lands, and–crucially–the struggle against it, have been at the centre of many of the key political developments of the last three decades.

Since the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis earier this year, we have witnessed the largest mass uprising in the United States’ recent history with millions taking to the streets day in and day out.

A seam of cruelty runs through U.S. policy, which by its sanctions regime prevents Venezuela from open trade of its oil to import key medical equipment to help break the chain of the virus and heal those infected by it.

Here are seven counterinsurgency features of policing and the inequities in the criminal justice system.

The Republican National Convention this year made fighting “cancel culture” a priority for the party. Former Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch wrote in the Wall Street Journal (7/27/20) that cancel culture was at the heart of the crisis facing academic freedom in the nation.

WEALTH distribution data are notoriously difficult to interpret. This is because variations in stock prices affect wealth distribution, so that a stock market boom suddenly makes the rich appear much richer, while a stock market collapse makes wealth distribution less unequal overnight.

Venezuela is no stranger to protests, registering thousands of demonstrations, rallies and strikes each year. As of October 1, about 7000 protests had occurred this year (roughly 25 a day), according to the Venezuelan Observatory of Social Conflicts.

David Gilbert, now 76, is in Shawangunk Correctional Facility in his 40th year of a life sentence. In the interests of justice, mercy and the good of society, he and countless others deserve to be released.

Female school students, with the support of feminist collectives, are mobilizing against sexist punishments put in place by their school management for wearing outfits deemed provocative.

Sean Ledwith recounts the socialist revolutionary Walter Rodney’s many accomplishments and intellectual prowess.

Peter Linebaugh interviewed by Johnny Flynn of Independent Left.

With phrases like “protect the vulnerable” & “underlying conditions” currently all around us, disability activist Ruth Flood looks at the horrendous treatment of disabled people under capitalism.

According to the IMF, about half of Low Income Economies (LIEs) are now in danger of debt default.  ‘Emerging market’ debt to GDP has increased from 40% to 60% in this crisis.

Set in our nation’s capital, VOTE is a visual call to arms, highlighting the devastating contradictions that so many in America are experiencing right now, and paying homage to the countless individuals that have sacrificed and are sacrificing so that we may have the right to vote, and have our vote count.

If I’m not a part of the solution, then I’m a part of the problem.

The authorities reported that they have repaired more than 19.000 houses while supporting waste recycling projects that aim at securing an 18.000 job position.

But where did Marx’s critique of mainstream economics come from? It certainly did not emerge in one fell swoop, as a ready-made theory of capitalism. And it wasn’t produced in isolation, independently of the society within which it was first produced and then further elaborated.

Sweden has a relatively low level of urbanisation, is away from continental Europe and has a population prepared to apply social distancing with some discipline, the cumulative COVID death rate in Sweden is not far short of Italy and Spain, and is way higher than its Nordic neighbours, Denmark, Finland and Norway, which did impose early and much stricter lockdowns.

The development in 1909, by the German chemists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch of a technique for taking Nitrogen out of the atmosphere to produce ammonia (NH3) allowed for the production of synthetic fertilisers (and explosives) on an industrial scale.