Nary a day goes by that President Trump and/or the talking heads on CNBC fail to mention the following unemployment chart as evidence that “everything is awesome” with the U.S. economy…
Subjects Archives: Political Economy
Latin America: 200 years of the infernal cycle of debt
Venezuela is an emblematic case of the infernal cycle that Latin America has been struggling with over the last two centuries. It all began in 1810, when Simon Bolivar, a figurehead of the Spanish colonies in their fight for freedom, began borrowing from London in very unfavourable conditions to finance the wars of independence.
Social reproduction theory: What’s the big idea?
Key to social reproduction theory (SRT) is an understanding of the ‘production of goods and services and the production of life are part of one integrated process’, or in other words: acknowledging that race and gender oppression occur capitalistically. In this article, Susan Ferguson, a contributor to Social Reproduction Theory, shows how SRT can deepen […]
Capitalism unhinged: crisis of legitimacy in the United States
This is expanded and updated from an article first published in German in Das Argument: Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Sozialwissenschaften, no. 323 (2017/3); republished with the kind permission of its editors; originally presented in a panel “The Crisis of the Political,” Institut für kritische Theorie, Berlin, June 9, 2017. For their comments and suggestions, I […]
The precariat under rentier capitalism
The Precariat under Rentier Capitalism Guy Standing We are in the midst of a Global Transformation, analogous to Karl Polanyi’s Great Transformation described in his seminal 1944 book. Whereas Polanyi’s Transformation was about constructing national market systems, today’s is about the painful construction of a global market system. To use Polanyi’s term, the ‘dis-embedded’ phase […]
Not with a bang but with a (prolonged) Whimper
It is probably obvious to everyone that global capitalism is in dire straits, notwithstanding the brave talking up of output recovery that now characterises almost every meeting of the international governing elite. Even so, discussions of the end of capitalism still typically seem overstated and futile, not least because those hoping and mobilising for bringing […]
Tackling Britain’s private debt crisis
As of July 2017, the Bank of England measured the stock of private debt held by individuals at £1.548 trillion; making household sector indebtedness one of the biggest problems facing the United Kingdom’s economy and society. There is growing public policy concern over the historically unprecedented level of household debt but little by way of […]
Where has all the surplus gone?
Thanks to the release of the so-called Paradise Papers, and the additional research conducted by Gabriel Zucman, Thomas Tørsløv, and Ludvig Wier, we know that a large share of the surplus captured by corporations is artificially shifted to tax havens all over the world.
Political economy of labour repression in the United States
Why is the book called “Political Economy of Labor Repression in the United States”, and not the “History of Labor Repression in the United States”? Considering it is a rather comprehensive survey of labour history in the US, how do you explain your choice of the title?
Just say no to NAFTA
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is unpopular with many working people in the United States, who correctly blame it for encouraging capital flight, job losses, deindustrialization, and wage suppression.
Step by step: How to fabricate news about the ‘default’ in Venezuela
Let us not forget that Standard & Poor, Moody and Fitch rating services are financed by the banks and therefore have no real independence.
How capitalism uses gender oppression to rule
Following is the text of a talk delivered by the author on Nov. 4 at the “The Solution is Socialism” educational conference in Connecticut. The conference was hosted by the Youth for Socialist Action chapter at Central Connecticut State University, where the sessions were held.
150 Years of Capital—with No End in Sight
For Capital’s explosive force to truly unfold, not only was education in general necessary, but also knowledge of the relevant economic and philosophical theories, in order to perceive not just the explicit, but also the implicit critiques.
At the bottom of the wealth pyramid
Yesterday, I looked at the enormous wealth of U.S. billionaires and the growing gap between them and the rest of the American people.
Precarious Work! The Reserve Army of Labor
The Reserve Army of Labor
Economist Harry Magdoff UVM lecture – the ‘Stock Market Crash’
Harry Magdoff at UVM on the Stock Market Crash. Intro by Abbas Alnasrawi. Sponsored by SPARC.
150 years of Marx’s Capital
150 years back, Karl Marx’s Magnum Opus Das Kapital (Volume I) rolled out of the press on September, 1867. The publication signified nothing short of a silent revolution on the theoretical plane, and the world would never be the same again. Capital soon became the most discussed and debated work.
A century after the Bolshevik Revolution
In the world we’re living in, it’s not enough to solve the tension between capital and work, the ongoing crisis of civilization urgently demands that we address the tension between capital and nature, which is currently compromising the existence of life in our planet.
Only intelligent planning can save us
Universalism is not an innocent concept. In “The Grandeur and Twilight of Radical Universalism,” published shortly after the fall of historical communism, Ágnes Heller and Ferenc Fehér, former Marxist philosophers and disciples of Georg Lukács, accused Marx and his followers of turning the Hegelian concept of universalism into a philosophy of praxis, a “predictive and […]
The “Amazon Amendment” would effectively hand government purchasing power over to Amazon
This week, representatives of three major internet platforms — Google, Facebook, and Twitter — are testifying before Congress about their role in facilitating Russian meddling in the 2016 election. But a fourth giant sat comfortably removed: Amazon.
