Nothing happens in Beirut and Lebanon that is transparent; plots of all kinds unravel against the ordinary hopes of the population.
Subjects Archives: Political Economy
Anti-laundering bill targeting shell companies stalled in Senate as big banks caught cooking books
The Anti-Money Laundering Act would expose the owners of shell companies now sits alone on a shelf in the U.S. Senate while the Federal Reserve shrugs its shoulders in the face of blatant manipulation by the too-big-to-fail banks.
Where is resistance to structural violence of capitalism?
The reality in the United States has come to this: 160,000 dead in four months, thousands hospitalized, and many thousands sick or afraid to be sick because they have no sick days and no health insurance.
Dead Zones: Industrial agriculture versus ocean life
Worldwide, there are now over a thousand coastal areas where fish can’t breathe. The nitrogen that makes crops grow is also destroying offshore ecosystems.
Bolivia’s perfect storm: Pandemic, economic crisis, repressive coup regime
The rising toll of diseased and deceased from the COVID-19 pandemic has hit Bolivia particularly hard, in a continent that is now in the lead in global contagion rates.
Samir Amin
Samir Amin is, incontestably, the greatest intellectual—luckily, a Marxist!
The organic intellectual: Remembering Samir Amin two years on
‘In our era, when we consider the destructive (ecological and military) might at the disposal of the powers-that-be, the risk, denounced by Marx in his time, that war will end up destroying all the opposing camps, is real. The alternate path demands the lucid and organized intervention of the internationalist front of workers and peoples.’
Review of My Mis-Education in 3 Graphics
My Mis-Education in 3 Graphics is a document of the filmmaker’s darkly humorous journey through the mind-boggling constructs of mainstream economics.
The Internationalist Lenin. Self-determination and anti-colonialism.
In 1913, Lenin published an article in Pravda with a curious title, ‘Backward Europe and Advanced Asia’.[1] The opening of the article accepts the paradoxical nature of the title, for it is Europe–after all–that has advanced it forces of production and it is Asia that has had its forces of production stifled.
How the U.S. failed at its foreign policy toward Venezuela
On August 4, 2020, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on Venezuela. Appearing before the committee was U.S. State Department Special Representative Elliott Abrams.
China & U.S. power
Can China do much to fight back against the power wielded by the U.S. in the world economy? At first sight, that looks unlikely. China is big, but world trade is conducted in dollars, and the U.S. has economic, political and military influence across the globe.
Trade and tensions between the U.S. and China
The Donald Trump administration uses every mechanism to cut China out of the global supply chain, but nothing seems to be working as a resolute China is unwilling to back down and dismantle its technological gains.
COVID-19, capitalism and climate
No one should have been surprised by COVID-19. Epidemiologists have been warning for decades about the increasing danger of novel virus pandemics that could cause major human suffering, disrupt the economy and exacerbate the growing inequalities that characterizes the modern world.
Chart of the day
All told, 54.1 million American workers have filed initial unemployment claims during the past nineteen weeks.
How Imperialism foments people to rise up in arms against U.S.-Duterte’s Terror Law
Fueled by foreign capital, the new Philippines legislation intends to the revolt of dissenters at bay. But the need to hold power to account is growing.
Solar geoengineering is incompatible with a (radical) Green New Deal
Recent activity around solar geoengineering is sparking debate over its role in climate policy. Backed by billionaires, and with connections to the U.S. military, solar geoengineering offers nothing but an Earth engineered to fit the needs of capital. It is antithetical to a radical climate movement.
Has anything changed since 1840? Trade, imperialism, Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta megacity
In modern times, China has been the ultimate challenge for imperialists: it’s independence being an enigma to Europeans and Americans. From Marco Polo to Mike Pompeo, China has been a mystery to Christian crusaders.
On robots and sheep
A short introduction to historical materialism and its significance for the understanding of contemporary capitalism.
An ultra-parasitical global financial system that enjoys unwavering protection
During the evolution of the pandemic in Europe, the financial system has received little attention in the media. It was only at the end of February/beginning of March that a very sharp fall in the stock markets made the front page of newspapers and television broadcasts.
White House brands teachers “essential workers” to force reopening of schools
The comparison between teachers and meatpacking workers is highly significant and must be taken as a sharp warning by teachers and all education workers.
