Subjects Archives: Political Economy

In this interview, Foster discusses why a Green New Deal is just an entry point to an ecological revolution, and why any economic-social system that hopes to address the climate crisis must transcend capitalism.

rtemis is now 60 years old and started working when she was a teenager. She has been in formal employment for 38 years, with a few brief interruptions, and is still working. Her salary is not as good as it used to be: she no longer receives basic benefits such as medical care, and her chances of retiring are zero, due to the peculiarities of Mexico’s legislation.

If you listened to or read the text of President Trump’s State of the Union speech Tuesday night, you might have been surprised by the explicit mention of socialism.

Russia denounced Tuesday the U.S. cynicism by announcing sanctions against the Venezuelan oil company PDVSA and excluding from that sanction U.S. companies operating in the South American nation.

The policy of Quantitative Easing (QE) has been implemented by the ECB since 2015 in the wake of what the Fed had done in the U.S. from 2008 to 2014. It consists of massively purchasing private and public debt securities from banks in the Eurozone and from corporations.

MARTIN LUTHER KING spoke with vision against capitalism, and about the kind of changes needed to replace it: the following quotes reflect some of King’s key thoughts on the subject as US citizens mark Martin Luther King Day.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics just published its latest news release on union membership. Unfortunately, the downward trend continues.

Late last year, U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton went to Miami (USA), where he coined a new–chilling–phrase: troika of tyranny. It echoed former U.S. President George W. Bush’s phrase, axis of evil. Bush’s axis included Iran, Iraq and North Korea.

The World Bank’s latest annual report on poverty and shared prosperity has an unsurprisingly positive message that only 10% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty in 2015, which is the most recent year that available data allows for global poverty estimates to be made.

As the Yellow Vest movement in France continues its novel and inspiring revolt, president Emmanuel Macron could not help expressing his class disdain for ordinary people: at a gala speech on 11 January, he declared: “Too many French people don’t know the meaning of the word ‘effort’. That’s part of the explanation for the present troubles”.

In this episode, we’re joined by Steven Attewell, Adjunct Professor of Public Policy at the City University of New York’s School of Labor and Urban Studies.

Eminent Indian economist Professor Utsa Patnaik (Jawaharlal Nehru University) has estimated that Britain robbed India of $45 trillion between 1765 and 1938, however it is estimated that if India had remained free with 24% of world GDP as in 1700 then its cumulative GDP would have been $232 trillion greater (1700-2003) and $44 trillion greater (1700-1950).

Incoming Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made waves in late November when she called for a Green New Deal (GND)—a plan to “transition” the U.S. economy to “become carbon neutral” over the course of 10 years.

On 8 and 9 January, over 160 million workers went on strike in India from a broad range of sectors, from industrial workers to health care workers. This has been one of the largest general strikes in the world.

“Liberal democracy is crumbling.” A Harvard Law Professor opened a recent talk with this matter-of-fact statement and the audience readily murmured its assent.

Landless leader told Brasil de Fato that, despite threats, MST will not back off from social struggle.

Through his relationship with the Chartist radical and labor poet Ernest Jones, Karl Marx came to realize the necessity of opposing slavery and colonialism in ending capitalism.

In this interview with Venezuelanalysis, an independent researcher speaks frankly about the roots of the country’s economic crisis and outlines a series of policies to revert it.

We’re all done singing to “days gone by” (even though no one really knows the lyrics). But, unless we change our tune and resolve to fundamentally alter the way the economy is organized, we’re going to have to face up to the problem that’s been haunting the United States for decades now: growing inequality.

Pedro Rocha de Oliveira considers the context of Jair Bolsonaro’s rise to power in Brazil.