The government, university bosses and national officials of the National Tertiary Education Union are combining to attack uni workers’ pay and conditions.
Subjects Archives: Political Economy
The connivance of capitalists
Socialist ideas have been jeered and sneered at by the same establishment now faced with the consequences of their profit driven contempt. We should be done with those bellowing cheerleaders of capitalism, argues Eamonn McCann.
Stanch the bleeding from local and state finances with local currencies
At the risk of making it seem like central bank swap lines are the solution to every problem, a swap line for local and state governments is the perfect tool using the Federal Reserve’s existing legal authority and can facilitate supporting these local currencies.
Why are we still exchanging goods on the market?
Empty hotel rooms, bare supermarket shelves, factories producing jet engines and luxury cars instead of ventilators, governments competing with each other to purchase testing kits and masks. This way of organising society doesn’t make sense.
From agribusiness to agroecology: Escaping the market of Dr. Moreau
Presentation by Rob Wallace, author of ‘Big Farms Make Big Flu’ and co-author of ”Neoliberal Ebola’ and ‘Clear-Cutting Disease Control’, Historical Materialism conference, 10 November 2019.
This pandemic is ecological breakdown: Different tempo, same song
Comparisons between the toll of COVID-19 and climate change are not helpful because they view each as two separate “things”
Mike Davis on pandemics, super-capitalism and the struggles of tomorrow
The coronavirus pandemic is overwhelming to comprehend. There are now hundreds of thousands of confirmed cases. Tens of thousands have died. Nations are on lockdown as the disease continues to spread. The planet is in crisis.
Engels on nature and humanity
In the light of the current pandemic, here is a rough excerpt from my upcoming short book on Engels’ contribution to Marxian political economy on the 200th anniversary of his birth.
Brother Ali – Uncle Sam Goddamn
Ali raps in his verses that America is not the great place people make it out to be. He reminds us that slavery was present only two generations ago and extremely violent hate crimes occurred in the country. He also compares paying taxes to paying a homeless man for crack. Tax money is just supporting […]
Why coronavirus could spark a capitalist supernova
There is no magic money tree – the ‘rescue packages’ aim to rescue a rotten system, and won’t work.
Austria’s ‘Unsozial’ Capitalists in a Time of Crisis
In a move seemingly reserved only for cartoonish villains, one of Austria’s best-known millionaires, Attila Doğudan, CEO of DO &CO—one of the largest culinary companies in Austria, and who employs over 11,000 people worldwide—has used the COVID-19 crisis to orchestrate a widespread layoff campaign against all restaurant employees within Austria.
These migrant workers did not suddenly fall from the sky
Madness engulfs the planet. Hundreds of millions of people are in lockdown in their homes, millions of people who work in essential jobs–or who cannot afford to stay home without state assistance–continue to go to work, thousands of people lie in intensive-care beds taken care of by tens of thousands of medical professionals and caregivers […]
A Russian firewall for Venezuela against U.S. sanctions
The optics of the Russian oil leviathan Rosneft’s decision to sell its subsidiary Rosneft Trading SA and sell all its assets in Venezuela after the US Treasury sanctioned its trading arm two weeks ago as part of Washington’s regime change project to oust president Nicolás Maduro, may not look good to the uninformed outside observer.
The Coronavirus depression requires a new approach to budgeting
Congress recently passed a 1.5-1.7 Trillion dollar stimulus bill (as I wrote about last week, the reported headline number is including a useless accounting gimmick which provides no additional support to the U.S. economy). Part of the reason we can report such an exact number is congress budgets in exacts.Take a look at these two […]
Catastrophe capitalism: climate change, COVID-19, and economic crisis
Obviously, the situation associated with the sudden appearance of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the COVID-19 pandemic is grim all over the world. Both the causes and the consequences are closely related to capitalist social relations.
Corona and what then?
Berlin, like many of your hometowns, is a ghost city. Except for those offering groceries, medicines or medical care, everything is shut tight. Luckily, no-one here has to stay inside, we can stroll around outside but, aside from families, we may not “assemble” in groups of more than two (if any cops are around).
The Federal Reserve’s Coronavirus crisis actions, explained (Part 3)
The International Aspects
Amid coronavirus crisis, China demonstrates that an alternative to the US-led, neoliberal order is possible
The bankruptcy of neoliberalism has been highlighted by the vastly different responses of the world’s two most powerful countries to the coronavirus pandemic.
A niggardly response to an extraordinary crisis
In a show of solidarity, some of India’s opposition leaders have declared the much-delayed relief package (titled Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana) announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on March 26 to mitigate the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic on the poor as a welcome “first step”.
All the craziest things about America are being highlighted by this virus
“Corona is a black light and America is a cum-stained hotel room,” comedian Megan Amram colorfully tweeted a couple of weeks ago. Her observation has only grown more accurate since.
