Subjects Archives: Political Economy

Instead of giving a couple trillion dollars to the financial institutions, how about instituting a financial holiday — something like what FDR did — and using the trillions of dollars to create infrastructure and affordable housing? We could also raise some more money by ending the wars and cutting back military spending. Some of the […]

The political conflict over the Bush administration’s plan for a bailout of the banks, brought about both by differences with the Democrats and even more intensely with rightwing Republicans, makes it highly unlikely that Congress will be able to pass a bailout plan that can stabilize the financial situation along the lines that Secretary of […]

I did not want to write a third consecutive reflection, but I can not leave that for Monday.

There is one accurate response to Bush’s “democratic capitalism”: Chavez’s democratic socialism. There wouldn’t be a more accurate way to express the big contradiction that exists between North and South in our hemisphere, between the ideas of Bolivar and those of Monroe.

  Treasury Sec. Hank Paulson’s $700 billion bailout plan now has a name: the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.  But even as Capitol Hill debates TARP, few seem to have noticed the proposal item that puts taxpayers on the hook for future bailouts.  It’s in Section 6, and the key phrase is this: “The […]

Capitalism happens.  When and where it does, capitalism casts its own special shadow: a self-critique of capitalism’s basic flaws that says modern society can do better by establishing very different, post-capitalist economic systems.  This critical shadow rises up to terrify capitalism when — in crisis periods such as now — capitalism hits the fan.  Karl […]

Faced with the failure of the financial sector and the possible collapse of the economic system, Republicans and Democrats are working together feverishly to come up with a plan and find the funds to save the American financial system.  The Congress that has been unable to provide adequate funding to health, education, housing, public transportation, […]

  The financial sector meltdown spelt an opportunity for the system to reinvent itself. Will the financial sector meltdown in the developed economies lead to a rethink about the path the global economy has traversed in the last few decades? Simply put, will it curb the primacy of finance, will it rein in the penchant […]

“The West is living through an economic and social crisis so unprecedented in its tempo, so complex in its effects, that there are many who do not know that it is taking place.”                     — Michael Harrington, The Next Left (1987) The nationalization of American International […]

A new crisis of capitalism, in the style of 1929.  The theories of casino capitalism are confirmed.  The US government contradicts itself again and heavily intervenes, demonstrating that its confidence in the market isn’t as great as its propaganda displayed.  Neoliberal capitalism spills its guts, and the theories of the Left — Keynesian or anti-capitalist […]

Virtually the only certainty in the current financial situation is that there will be more problems ahead.  Those who controlled the levers of economic and financial policy neglected their greatest responsibility, which was to ensure an orderly financial market and prevent exactly the sort of collapse that we are now seeing.  This was a policy […]

While taking a significant toll on public revenues,1 repayment of the public debt has, since 2004, ceased to be a major concern for most middle-revenue countries and for raw material-exporting countries in general.  In fact the majority of governments of these countries are having no trouble finding loans at historically low interest rates.  However, the […]

A Briefing to the Vietnamese Central Committee Delegation, September 11, 2008 The economic situation of the United States today is widely understood to be the most serious since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and not only for this country.  So far the actions by the government have been inadequate, late, and do not address […]

(1) I thought it might be best to begin the conversation by getting a sense of your personal political trajectory, how you were drawn to Venezuela, some of your most memorable experiences from your time in Caracas, and how all of this has translated into your perspective on revolutionary change.  In short, what did Venezuela […]

Leftist intellectuals basically fall into two camps.  There are those who believe that the challenge we face is the existence of certain structures (the IMF, the US, the media, capitalism, etc.) and that avidly denouncing these structures is the key to our liberation.  And then there are the more interesting intellectuals who insist that at […]

  Jamaica became independent from Britain in 1962.  After almost a decade of “democratic socialist” experimentation in the 1970s, it was made a “model state” for Reaganism and neoliberalism in the Caribbean and Central America during the 1980s, having already undergone an IMF structural adjustment program in 1977.  As a result of economic and political […]

Introduction Despite the vast literature examining the link between trade liberalization and economic growth, empirical studies still fail to provide conclusive and unequivocal evidence supporting the link.  What most of these studies emphasize is that openness, accompanied by a country-specific mix of appropriate complementary policies (macroeconomic and financial policies, education, infrastructure, institutional capacity and governance), […]

Will shared resources always be misused and overused?  Is community ownership of land, forests, and fisheries a guaranteed road to ecological disaster?  Is privatization the only way to protect the environment and end Third World poverty?  Most economists and development planners will answer “yes” — and for proof they will point to the most influential […]

  As a young Palestinian from Gaza, I had been eagerly anticipating the opportunity to study at the University of California San Diego on a Fulbright scholarship.  The chance to escape Gaza’s confines and immerse myself in an American education was deeply thrilling.  With Israel controlling Gaza’s border exits, air space and sea access — […]

Modern economic class struggle, the unremitting, sometimes hidden, sometimes open, fight between capitalists and workers that erupted in the 19th century and dominated the 20th, is taking on new forms and dimensions in the 21st century. The stakes of this continuing conflict are higher than they have ever been.  Every aspect of human life on […]

  The 21 year old social partnership pact between unions, employers and the Government in Ireland is entering one of its periodic crises as one national pay agreement Towards 2016 begins to run out and talks on a successor have collapsed. The Government is expected to attempt resuscitation in late August or early September, writes Padraig […]