Subjects Archives: Political Economy

Fifty years after it was published, The State in Capitalist Society remains indispensable for any socialist movement with ambitions of government.

Leo Victor Panitch, one of the intellectual pillars of the Canadian left and a leading scholar of the global depredations of neoliberalism, died Saturday from COVID-19. He was 75.

With the continuing pandemic–and expiring housing and unemployment benefits across the country–millions of people may have their utilities cut off soon.

First, whether the pandemic has fundamentally altered the geopolitical balance between the U.S. and other great powers, specifically China. And second, how socialists in the U.S. should approach the November elections. For Panitch, the two issues are intimately connected.

Both the number of initial unemployment claims for unemployment compensation and the number of continued claims for unemployment compensation are once again on the rise, signaling a worsening of the Pandemic Depression.

China’s use of yuan-denominated central bank swaps, while enhancing its influence, is a source of support for developing countries in an unequal international order.

Unequal distribution means the poorest countries are getting trampled in the stampede for COVID-19 vaccines.

Millions of day labourers in India lost their jobs overnight earlier this year when Narendra Modi’s central government hastily announced a national lockdown.

Bank of England forced to deny taking basic climate actions after hoax from laughtervists, the Yes Men.

Capitalism will not ‘automatically’ morph into some ‘postcapitalist’ or socialist system due to technology replacing the human workforce. As the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY explains, ending capitalism will require a conscious, collective action on the part of ‘the many’—the working class.

The capitalist system, driven at its core by the maximization of profit, regardless of social and ecological costs, is incompatible with a just and sustainable future. Ecosocialism offers a radical alternative that puts social and ecological well-being first.

The survival of polar bears, we know, is sadly threatened. The survival of a more colorful bear species seems assured. HARIBO (an acronym of HAns RIegel BOnn), which makes those little “gold bears” sweets, was founded in a laundry room in 1920.

There is no necessary trajectory to Marx’s writings, no reason his earlier writings had to lead to or culminate in Capital. However, as we look back from the vantage point of his critique of political economy, we can see the ways his thinking changed and how the elements of that critique emerged.

With a new generation increasingly burned out by the “996” grind and liberal platitudes of their elders, can Marxism make a comeback?

The number of recorded infections now tops 14 million and the total official death toll stands at more than 274,000. 

As millions of Americans stand on the brink of economic annihilation, the money keeps flowing to Wall Street thanks to carefully contrived mechanisms to maintain a dying financial system afloat.

It was during the “age of capital,” as the illustrious British historian Eric Hobsbawm aptly called it, that Marx formulated his critique of political economy.

Frank Pasquale joins Money on the Left to discuss the legal and monetary politics that will determine the future of automation. Professor of Law at the Brooklyn Law School, Pasquale is author of The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money  and Information (2015) as well as recently published New Laws of Robotics: […]

The Lords of Capital use periods of crisis to devour the less-rich and reshape the political economy to their further advantage, so that the Joe Bidens of the world jump higher and come quicker when summoned.

A second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic is sweeping across the world with countries reporting record daily case numbers and the World Health Organization (WHO) warning that the death toll could be much higher than during the first wave earlier this year.