Ever since the Great Recession in 2008, and accelerating with Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential run, there has been a resurgence of popularity and interest in socialism in the U.S., and an increasing skepticism of capitalism.
Subjects Archives: Marxism
A response to McAfee: No, the “Environmental Kuznets Curve” won’t save us
A number of people have asked me to respond to a piece that Andrew McAfee wrote for Wired, promoting his book, which claims that rich countries – and specifically the United States – have accomplished the miracle of “green growth” and “dematerialization”, absolutely decoupling GDP from resource use.
Limits of mainstream economics today
Keynes’s criticisms of neoclassical economics set off a wide-ranging debate that came to define the terms of—and, ultimately, the limits of debate within—mainstream economics.
Colonizing the future
Working people are forever kept on the brink of going broke. More than higher wages and better job security, a just economy requires giving them the power to choose and create their own futures.
Amidst pandemic, while billions struggle for survival, billionaires’ wealth tops $10 trillion
Billionaires are “smart” enough. Their wealth now, in this pandemic, tops trillions of dollars.
It’s all work and no pay for most women in India
The NSSO’s time use survey reveals striking facts about how men and women in India spend their time very differently, with women hugely burdened by unpaid work
Authoritarianism is creeping into classrooms
New curriculum guidance will limit critical thinking and cement a neoliberal capitalist consensus. It should be setting off alarm bells, says Remi Joseph-Salisbury
Marxism and intersectionality
Ashley Bohrer has provided this important piece of scholarship with her new book, Marxism and Intersectionality: Race, Gender, Class and Sexuality under Contemporary Capitalism.
Mainstream economics today: Keynesian
Once it was created as a new theory of capitalism, neoclassical economics expanded its influence—in its original countries as well as elsewhere.
When confronted by us hungry bellies, the imperialists reach for their guns
The United States government was furious about the ‘irresponsible extravagances’ in Nkrumah’s book and decided to punish him by refusing to allow $300 million in short-term aid to cover the costs of importing food.
Che
Twenty left publishers from around the world release a joint edition including two essential texts by Che Guevara on the fifty-third anniversary of his assassination by the CIA in Bolivia.
The case for a socialist Green New Deal
Proposals for a Green New Deal (GND) were multiplying even before the pandemic, but the economic crisis triggered by Coronavirus has given them a new urgency.
Using human rights to promote war: debunking UN’s new Venezuela report
Red Lines host Anya Parampil debunks a new report issued by the UN Human Right’s Council which accuses Venezuela’s government of “crimes against humanity”. Transcript below.
Trump’s turn from immigration to the enemy within
Trump’s shift from demonizing immigrants to targeting leftists is straight out of the fascist playbook.
Noam Chomsky: Internationalism or Extinction
PI Council Member Noam Chomsky’s keynote speech at the Progressive International’s inaugural summit.
Lenin150 (Samizdat): A Lenin birthday book
2020 is the birthday year of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, whom most of us know as Lenin. If still alive, he would be 150 years old.
Eco-socialism and/or De-growth
Ecosocialism and the de-growth movement are among the most important currents of the ecological left. Ecosocialists agree that a significant measure of de-growth in production and consumption is necessary in order to avoid ecological collapse.
Mainstream economics today
Readers today will be more familiar with contemporary mainstream economics than with the mainstream economics of Marx’s day. So, let’s start there.
The increasingly impossible middle class
IN 2010 THE Commerce Department prepared data for the Obama administration’s Middle Class Task Force, headed by Vice President Joe Biden. Sidestepping knotty problems–see below–of just who was middle class, part of their study proposed a host of expectations that a middle class family would hold.
From Paul Wolfowitz (2005-2007) to David Malpass (2019-…): the U.S. President’s men control the World Bank
In 2020, the World Bank (WB) and the IMF are 76 years old. These two international financial institutions (IFI), founded in 1944, are dominated by the USA and a few major allied powers who work to generalize policies that run counter the interests of the world’s populations.
