Is the United States at long last getting serious about global imbalances, or are we risking currency wars that can end in unmitigated disaster for all? No one knows, though tension is on the rise with China. This much is certain: Any advantage from a lower currency is a zero-sum gain for the world […]
Subjects Archives: Political Economy
First as History, Then as Farce: The Euro Crisis Revisited
When the Crash of 2008 hit Wall Street, European capitalism was thrown into disarray. With the demise of the export-absorbing monster that was the US consumer market, what in 2003 Joseph Halevi and I called “The Global Minotaur” (see Monthly Review, Vol. 55), Europe not only lost a critical source of aggregate demand but also […]
Adding Insult to Injury: On the 2010 Bank of Sweden Economics Prize in Memory of Alfred Nobel
Imagine a world ravaged by a plague, and suppose that the year’s Nobel Prize for Medicine is awarded to researchers whose whole career is based on the assumption that plagues are impossible. The world would have been outraged. That is precisely how we should feel about yesterday’s announcement of the recipients of the 2010 Nobel […]
Riding Capitalism to the Bottom: Why Republicans Gain as the Economy Falters
Overlooked in the recent rise of the Tea Party and the Republican Right is the way these groups have learned how to grow and thrive on the failures of capitalism. The Democrats, in contrast, remain tied to its successes. With capitalism performing particularly poorly at present, it is no wonder that the Right is […]
Currency Wars and Global Rebalancing
Guido Mantega, the Brazilian Finance Minister, said recently that Brazil is in the middle of a currency war. His preoccupation with exchange rate appreciation is not directed to global imbalances, in general, or China, in particular. A more depreciated currency provides protection for domestic production and makes domestic goods and services cheaper for foreigners. […]
Historical Materialism Middle East Special Issue
Historical Materialism has extended the deadline for proposal submissions to its special issue on the Middle East, conceived broadly to include: the Arab world from the Atlantic to the Gulf, Israel/Palestine, Iran and Turkey. The new deadline for abstracts is the 10th of November 2010. HM is a Marxist journal, appearing four times a […]
From Sugar to Services: An Overview of the Cuban Economy
Summary: In 1989, services comprised no more than 10 per cent of Cuba’s export revenues, with sugar accounting for over 70 per cent. In 2007, by contrast, it was sugar that made up 10 per cent of overseas earnings while services accounted for 70 per cent. The article provides an overview of this drastic […]
Brazil: Lula’s Labour Legacy
When Time magazine awarded Brazil’s President Lula the most influential world leader spot in its 2010 ranking of most influential people, Michael Moore, who wrote the excerpt on Lula, heralded the creation of the Bolsa Familia programme as well as the expansion of public education and health care. These are important achievements, but one […]
Signs of the Beginning of the End of the Long Retreat of Labor
Six years ago, I organized a bus from the Albany area to attend the “Million Worker March,” which was an attempt by longshore local ILWU Local 10 and some activist African-American union leaders to present labor’s demands during the 2004 election year. That rally was not supported by the AFL-CIO and of course fell far […]
Just Say No to the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement
The free trade push has begun again. Both U.S. President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak are calling for ratification of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement, which was signed by the two countries’ trade representatives in April 2007 but has yet to be approved by either the U.S. Congress or the South […]
The Crisis of Poverty in America
Testimony before the Congressional Out of Poverty Caucus Hearing on “An Emergency Response to the Crisis of Poverty in America,” 30 September 2010. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak today to the Congressional Out of Poverty Caucus on the poverty crisis facing America. In 2009, the national poverty rate hit 14.3 percent, […]
How to Fight Islamophobia and the Far Right, in Europe and the United States
An alarming trend is sweeping Europe. Far-right parties, using anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric, have made electoral gains in several European countries. In the June European parliament elections, these parties were able to garner votes in a way they haven’t before. The British National Party (BNP), which has its roots in fascist parties of the past, […]
71% of Aid to the Palestinians Ends Up in the Israeli Economy
The article “Palestinian Economic Dependency on Israel,”1 published on the Alternative Information Center’s website on 23 September 2010, briefly mentioned official development assistance (ODA) to Palestinians.2 This article will elaborate more fully on foreign aid to the Palestinians, particularly in relation to the Israeli economy. Trade Deficit The Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) has an […]
Actually Existing Capitalism
Michael Norton (of Harvard Business School) and Dan Ariely (of Duke) have released results (pdf) from a series of experiments they did in 2005 on the subject of wealth inequality. They asked individuals in a nationally representative online panel to (1) estimate the current US distribution of wealth and (2) “build a better America” by […]
Feel No Pain: Why a Deficit in Times of High Unemployment Is Not a Burden
With the economy suffering from near double-digit unemployment, public debate is dominated by concerns over the budget deficit and national debt. This discussion is unfortunate both because there is no reason for people to be concerned about the deficit at present, and more importantly, because it discourages action on the unemployment crisis that is devastating […]
The Enigma of Capital and the Crisis This Time
Paper prepared for the American Sociological Association Meetings in Atlanta, August 16th, 2010. There are many explanations for the crisis of capital that began in 2007. But the one thing missing is an understanding of “systemic risks.” I was alerted to this when Her Majesty the Queen visited the London School of Economics and asked […]
Venezuela: In Transition towards Socialism?
Nationalization and Workers’ Control: Achievements and Limitations The economic, social and political situation in Venezuela has changed a lot since the failure of the constitutional reform in December 2007, which acted as a warning to the Chávez government.1 This failure had the effect however of reviving the debate on the need to have a socialist […]
Palestinian Economic Dependency on Israel
Shortly after the 1967 Middle East War, many economic boundaries for transactions between the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) and Israel collapsed: both labor and goods could flow freely from the OPT to Israel and vice versa. At the same time Israel started to control the external borders of the OPT. A customs union was […]
Scoundrel Time at Kaiser
The stereotypical union battles of the past were fought by burly working-class heroes, on the picket line and the proverbial “shop floor.” Think of tough-looking guys, wearing scally caps (and wielding baseball bats, when necessary), while marching through the streets of the San Francisco in 1934. Their enemies were many — the long-shore bosses and […]
Are Immigrants “Good for the Economy”?
U.S. progressives have expressed a great deal of concern about the effects of anti-immigrant hysteria in the general population, from criminal attacks on immigrants to vicious legislation like Arizona’s SB 1070. But instead of just condemning the hysteria, maybe we need to ask ourselves what we’ve been doing to counter it. Not very much, according […]
