Subjects Archives: Political Economy

One of the most glaring plot holes in the official mainstream narrative on Ukraine is the way US officials keep openly boasting that this supposedly unprovoked war which the U.S. is only backing out of the goodness of its heart just so happens to serve U.S. interests tremendously.

THE fossil fuel industry, particularly the oil and natural gas lobby, always has new cards. Earlier, the fossil fuel industry came up with carbon credits: We, the rich countries, will burn coal, oil and natural gas so that we can continue with our current lifestyles but “compensate” by planting trees in poor countries.

This month, we discuss democratic possibilities for public finance with Saule Omarova, the Beth and Marc Goldberg Professor of Law at Cornell University and President Biden’s original nominee for Comptroller of the Currency. Her and Robert Hockett’s “finance franchise” metaphor for modern banking-–according to which the federal government is the franchisor and chartered banks are all franchisees–renders an often-times opaque system intuitive and readily politicizable.

It seemed utterly absurd that, even as the Australian federal government announced its purchase of over 200 tomahawk cruise missiles—because that is exactly what the country needs—there are moves afoot to prune and cut projects conducted by the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD).

AT the Johannesburg summit of the BRICS countries, it was decided to expand the group beyond its original five, namely, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, to include six more countries.

Once again, the Western media Establishment, and sadly some on the left, are talking up an impending economic disaster in China, when the truth is quite the opposite, argues JOHN ROSS.

The document indicates that the villa was purchased by Zelenskyy’s mother-in-law in May 2023. According to the document, the price of the villa is 150,000,000 Egyptian pounds or approximately $4,850,000.

When class analysis is absent from discussions about systemic problems, issues like income inequality, access to resources, and power imbalances are often oversimplified or ignored.

AS SIGNIFICANT as the fact of BRICS expansion are which countries are now set to join: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and Argentina.

Thomas Sankara, radical leader and martyr of Burkina Faso, understood that the problem of ecological destruction was rooted in capitalism and imperialism.

BRICS countries represent 40% of the world’s population and a quarter of the world’s economy, and the group is now considering a possible expansion to more than 20 other countries.

Despite the limitations of the BRICS project, it is clear that the increase in South-South trade and the development of Southern institutions (for development financing, for instance) challenges the neo-colonial system even if it does not immediately transcend it.

Of late however there has been a popular anti-imperialist upsurge in several countries of Francophone Africa. In Guinea, Mali, Chad and Burkina Faso, new anti-imperialist governments have come to power in the last couple of years that want French troops out of their countries; and in Mali they have even succeeded in getting French troops out.

Basically the problem is that our whole planet has been gamified. All the Earth’s life, resources and geography have been folded into this sick game where people commodify them into points called money, for no other reason than to score as many points as possible.

The World Bank plans to use public funds to subsidize private finance, ostensibly to mobilize much more capital to address the climate crisis. But the new plan is not the solution it purports to be.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has shared an analysis on the current situation of the cocaine market structure, warning that this illicit business has moved to Ecuador after its collapse in the U.S. due to the fentanyl boom.

CounterSpin interview with Teddy Ostrow on UPS/Teamsters agreement.

As part of negotiations for Saudi Arabia to recognize Israel, the United States is demanding that Riyadh keep pricing its oil in dollars, not China’s renminbi or other currencies.

Since the overthrow of Niger’s U.S.-friendly government, West African nations of the ECOWAS bloc have threatened an invasion of their neighbor. Before leading the charge for intervention, ECOWAS chair Bola Tinubu spent years laundering millions for heroin dealers in Chicago, and has since been ensnared in numerous corruption scandals.

In the different countries of the world, capitalism is shaped and consolidated not only by the general logic of this mode of production, but also by the social, historical, and cultural conditions of each country. The way each country and region understand the forms of accumulation and expansion of capitalism is fundamental to the class struggle.