Subjects Archives: Inequality

Nobody can say that liberal democracy has not liberated some people and that some kinds of servitude have not been obliterated. But the current system has run into a number of contradictions.

This is a dark moment in American history, perhaps one of the darkest, illuminated only by the broad swath of conservatives, moderates, and liberals who have rejected what Trump and Arpaio stand for. Let us pray that they—we—prevail.

However, white supremacy is not a tidal wave. And it isn’t a lurking storm that seeks to wreak havoc on the shores of the US either. That happened centuries ago, when English colonizers laid their claim to the North American mainland circa the mid to late 17th Century.

In the absence of an informed political opposition, it will be up to the American people to defend the independence of Social Security.

Official U.S. condemnation of Nazis, fascists and extremists is just American public relations rhetoric. Evidently, the condemnation has no credibility in terms of objective reality.

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, […]

People in Eugene, Oregon have a history of coming together and fighting as a community: against logging, against the dominant system, and against development. Now we have to do the same against Neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and white supremacists.

Germany has no exact equivalent of the White House cabal; its leaders are highly educated and circumspect in their speeches. But growing threats in both countries are far too similar.

When economic crisis grips a nation, when contradictions within the ruling class and the state create instability and social upheaval, fascists act as the foot soldiers of capitalism. Their function is to disrupt and destroy efforts on the part of the working-class and oppressed masses to organize against their miserable conditions.

As Republican politicians distance themselves from the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, the former chairman of Trump’s Virginia campaign blames the victims.

Once again Trump obscures reality. He either ignores the violence and terrorism carried out against traditionally oppressed groups, e.g., attacks on mosques, or he uses evasive language in order to avoid pointing the finger at the real perpetrators of racist violence.

After the deadly clash between hundreds of white supremacists and counter-protesters today in Charlottesville, Virginia, President Trump called for Americans to “come together.”

Understanding there is extreme income and wealth inequality that has been growing and having negative impacts on our society is one thing, but having the majority of the proposed solutions fail to address deeper systemic drivers isn’t going to help get us on a better track.

The US health care system produces healthy profits while leaving growing numbers of people without access to affordable, quality health care.

Without understanding the particular plight of trans women, only a blunted and partial view of gender is possible. And without a systemic view of gender, political solutions to that plight will be equally limited.

The global labor arbitrage means the only competitive “advantage” available to most countries is forcing workers to accept slave wages and environmental standards low enough to lure in multinationals. If the population resists, the only means available to diffuse it is brutal repression.

Trump sent a message to Latinos in America — both unauthorized immigrants who are liable to be arrested by ICE at any time and might be falsely accused of gang membership in the process, and legal immigrants and citizens who nonetheless might “look like a gang member” to the wrong person based on the color of their skin. Trump is telling them there is no one who can keep them safe.

The decline in unionization is one of the most important factors promoting the concentration of income at the upper end of the income distribution. The statement may not surprise you, but the fact that this was the conclusion of an IMF study of the causes of inequality might.

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.

Class is primary—not in the sense of more important, but in the sense of being the limit, the foundation, the point where profit is extracted and the point where it can be challenged. The centrality of class is tactical, not moral.