Subjects Archives: Political Economy

Orinoco Tribune interviewed U.S. academic Steve Ellner on different issues, ranging from Venezuelan domestic issues to global matters.

THE Modi government, ever solicitous of corporate interests, has launched a plan whereby real estate developers and other corporates will be allowed to destroy large swathes of India’s forest cover for starting projects that rake in profits. It is amending the Forest Conservation Act to remove those forest patches that are not deemed as such by the government from protection under the Act.

At its fifteenth summit in August 2023, the BRICS (Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa) group adopted the Johannesburg II Declaration, which, amongst other issues, raised the question of reforming the United Nations, particularly its security council. To make the UN Security Council (UNSC) ‘more democratic, representative, effective, and efficient, and to increase the representation of developing countries’, BRICS urged the expansion of the council’s membership to include countries from Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

“Welfare for Markets” exposes the neoliberal links of basic income, and helps to explain why it is not a useful demand for the left, argues Dominic Alexander

One of the major problems faced by Global South countries is that they are saddled with immense debts in dollars, and Western corporations claim ownership over their resources.

Poverty is rising in one of the world’s oldest colonies: In Puerto Rico, 41.7% of people, including 57.6% of children, live in poverty. This is nearly four times the U.S. rate. And Puerto Rican workers are getting poorer even while unemployment falls.

Foster explains Marx’s ecological critique of capitalism and how the concept of “metabolic rift” highlights the alienation between humans and nature caused by capitalism’s focus on profit over sustainability.

Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek last week welcomed a UNESCO World Heritage Committee decision not to list the Great Barrier Reef as “in danger”. But what is “great news” to Plibersek is not great news for the reef. 

Ah, money, the driving force behind life in the modern world.

The India-Middle East-Europe transportation corridor may be the talk of the town, but it will likely go the way of the last three Asia-to-Europe connectivity projects touted by the west-to the dustbin. Here’s why.

The Trans Mountain oil pipeline expansion in British Columbia is running into another round of problems and generating even more opposition. ‘The controversial government-owned fossil fuel company is seeking regulatory approval to change its pipeline construction methods and route, after running into problems drilling a tunnel.’

The great cultural theorist Stuart Hall called Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth “the bible of decolonisation” as it encapsulated the urge for freedom across the colonial world. Fanon illuminates how racism represented an organising principle for capitalist classes by systematically devaluing the lives of the majority of the world’s population.

Éric Toussaint’s history of the World Bank shows powerfully how it and other international institutions have enforced imperialist exploitation, finds John Clarke

Amazon, like other tech giants, is selectively banning and deplatforming pro-Palestine content on its Merch on Demand platform, while racist and inflammatory merchandise continue to be sold.

This article, by Alan Thornett, was written for the current edition of the Green Left’s publication Watermelon in advance of the Green Party conference.

Three days before the Abu Mansur and Al Bilad dams collapsed in Wadi Derna, Libya, on the night of September 10, the poet Mustafa al-Trabelsi participated in a discussion at the Derna House of Culture about the neglect of basic infrastructure in his city. At the meeting, al-Trabelsi warned about the poor condition of the dams.

The appeal was made against the European Union’s broad and far-reaching unilateral coercive measures that have impacted the entire Venezuelan population.

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Caitlin Johnstone): One of the most formative moments of my life was when I was running a small eco blog called Earth Mums in the mid-00s which focused on consumer solutions to the problem of environmental destruction. Back then I still believed that while capitalism was…

The recent bailout agreement between the International Monetary Fund and Sri Lanka fails to address the economy’s structural problems. Instead, it focuses on highly regressive measures that disproportionately affect the working poor and are likely to exacerbate the country’s ongoing debt distress.

On March 8, 2023, General Laura J. Richardson of the United States (U.S.) Southern Command gave testimony at a congressional hearing wherein she issued a warning to U.S. lawmakers about the expansion of Chinese influence in the Caribbean that were at odds with purported U.S. interests in the region.