Subjects Archives: Political Economy

The nation state is once again proving its special usefulness as a vehicle for managing capitalist crisis.  Partly, this follows from the renewal of Keynesian monetary and fiscal policies.  Other key dimensions of state usefulness include its more direct provision of financial guarantees to private enterprises and its over-priced purchase of “toxic” assets (those that […]

China and India are generally regarded as the two large countries in the developing world that are the “success stories” of globalisation.  This success has been defined by the high and sustained rates of growth of aggregate and per capita national income; and the substantial reduction in income poverty.  Further, both China and India are […]

  Democracy Insurgent is a majority people-of-color activist group animated by principles of democracy, anti-racism, anti-imperialism, queer liberation, Third World Feminism, and workers’ power.  We are based in Seattle, Washington.  We are a member group of the UW Student Worker Coalition.  Find out more at <nobudgetcutsuw.blogspot.com> and <democracyinsurgent.org>.  Contact us at <d.insurg@gmail.com>. | | Print […]

This is an exercise in historicization.  This lecture concerns the relation between feminism, the movements of second-wave feminism, and the recent history of capitalism.  My aim is to try to shed some light on where the feminist movement stands today in the current crisis of capitalism. So, I want to tell a story that has […]

Of the roughly 56 million homes in the US today with mortgages, one in seven is “delinquent.”  That is over 7 million homes more than 30 days behind in mortgage payments.  Those homeowners face foreclosure procedures likely leading to evictions.  Very high (and still rising) unemployment levels guarantee rising mortgage delinquencies. Mass media and political […]

For some time now, Mr. Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, has been arguing that three observed phenomena in the world economy in the decade after 1996, viz. the substantial increase in the U.S. current account deficit, the swing from moderate deficits to large surpluses in “emerging-market countries”, and the significant decline in […]

From 21 January to 2 February 2010, Eric Toussaint and Olivier Bonfond — both involved in alterglobalization activism and members of the International Council of the World Social Forum, of the world coordination of social movements, and of the Committee for the Abolition of the Third World Debt 1 — participated in various events and […]

  Interview by Aleix Bombila, for En Lucha (Spain), of John Bellamy Foster, editor of Monthly Review, and author of Marx’s Ecology and The Ecological Revolution En Lucha: In your book Marx’s Ecology you argue that Marxism has a lot to offer to the ecologist movement.  What kind of united work can be established between […]

Alan Greenspan has been judged the economist most responsible for causing the Global Financial Crisis.  He and 2nd and 3rd place finishers, Milton Friedman and Larry Summers, have won the first — and hopefully last — Dynamite Prize in Economics. In awarding the Prize, Edward Fullbrook, editor of the Real World Economics Review, noted that […]

  The current Greek economic crisis has an aspect of ancient tragedy (for the Greek people) mixed with a bad theatrical farce (staged on behalf of the European and the Greek bourgeoisie). The farce comes first.  Till very recently the two establishment parties (the center-left PASOK and the center-right ND) preached that their economic policies […]

Well before the global financial crisis finally broke in September 2008, most people in developing countries were already reeling under the effects of dramatic volatility in global food and fuel markets.  From late 2006, prices of most primary commodities first increased very rapidly, then collapsed even more sharply from their peaks in May-June 2008. This […]

At a Paul Winter concert (I think it was) one summer in the 1980s I somehow found myself backstage at Carnegie Hall beside a very tall man.  I looked up — as it turned out to be, both literally and figuratively — and was shocked to see who stood next to me.  “God bless you, […]

  The Brazilian expression “Greek Present” (Presente de Grego) means unwelcome gift, an obvious reference to the infamous Trojan Horse.  The current crisis in Greece might show that the euro was just one of those presents.  If the European Union (EU) does not provide sufficient resources to preclude not just a default, but also and […]

The President of Argentina, Cristina Fernández, recently fired the head of the central bank, Martín Redrado, when he rejected the government’s plan to use $6.6 billion of international reserves to pay off debt. The domestic and international press response was overwhelmingly negative, with complaints that this would “kill central bank independence.” Leaving aside the question […]

  The Democratic defeat in Massachusetts on the anniversary of the start of the Obama administration makes a fitting conclusion to the lessons that the last year should have taught everyone in this country.  The question is: will the lessons be learned, especially by left activists?  Let us try to see what these lessons are. […]

The capitalist world has experienced its deepest economic meltdown since the Great Depression of the 1930s.  Paradoxically, whereas the earlier period saw the breakdown of liberal capitalism, the rise of fascism and Nazism, and the Soviet alternative to liberal capitalism, today neo-liberalism and capitalist globalization still remain powerful, and apparently supreme, on the stage of […]

  For more information about the education crisis and the 4 March 2010 strike and day of action to defend public education in California, go to <checkingeducation.com>, <defendcapubliceducation.wordpress.com/>, or <www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=184333923808>. | | Print  

  In the United States, the mismanagement of the financial crisis, in particular the ill designed Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), has led to a wave of populist protests, and to a narrow confirmation vote for Bernanke.  In Argentina, where the recession was considerably milder than in the United States and had no financial cause, […]

In most parts of the world today (except perhaps in India, where optimism about the benefits of unregulated financial markets still seems to dominate over the undisputable evidence of their many fragilities) most policy makers talk about imposing regulations on the financial sector.  Of course, the events of the past two years in the world […]

Executive Summary: The Latvian recession, which is now more than two years old, has seen a world-historical drop in GDP of more than 25 percent.  The IMF projects another 4 percent drop this year, and predicts that the total loss of output from peak to bottom will reach 30 percent.  This would make Latvia’s loss […]