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If you want peace, you get war; if you want war, you get rich
A quarter century ago, Victoria Sandino Palmera joined the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia–People’s Army (FARC-EP). She had previously been a militant in the Communist Party and–when FARC-EP was above ground in the 1990s–joined the Patriotic Pole. But the repression of what she calls the ‘traditional oligarchy’ sent her back to the jungle over and over again. Victoria Sandino made it clear that she was not keen on this war. ‘We didn’t take up weapons because we felt the need to use violence’
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The Coming Revolution: Capitalism in the 21st Century
The Coming Revolution is an impressive guide for Marxists looking for a way to approach contemporary capitalism, argues Josh Newman
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Harvesting the blood of America’s poor: the latest stage of capitalism
Blood has become big business in the United States and there is no shortage of corporations ready to exploit America’s most vulnerable populations in order to get a piece of the pie.
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Social crises, crises of Democracy, neoliberalism in crisis
The current global social tensions have in common the rejection of inequality and the loss of democratic control. The engine driving these challenges may well be the fading relevance of neoliberalism, which is aggravating its own crisis and opening the door to confrontation.
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Dying too young
If there ever was an argument in support of Medicare for All it’s this: despite spending more on health care than any other country, the United States has seen increasing mortality and falling life expectancy for people ages 25 to 64, who should be in the prime of their lives.
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An alternative to liberal globalization
In the Bandung Conference of 1955, the governments and peoples of Asia and Africa expressed their ambitions to reconstruct a global system based on the recognition of the rights of countries that had previously been under the yoke of colonialism. In that period, “the rights to development,” as applied to the frameworks for negotiating multipolarity constituted the basis of globalization. These rights would force the imperial powers to adapt to new realities.
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Wages of debt
Elon Musk’s new Cybertruck would appear to be the perfect design for America’s contemporary dystopia.
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Capitalism versus life on Earth
Environmental destruction isn’t driven by human nature or mistaken ideas. It is an inevitable consequence of a system built on capital accumulation.
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Public housing as the front line of Green New Deal
The AOC-Sanders initiative seeks to flip the racist script by revaluing public housing and its remaining occupants.
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Record inequality and corporate profits are what media call a ‘strong economy’
Last month, CNBC (10/7/19) reassured us that fears of a potential recession are “overblown,” because the “hard data” shows that the “U.S. economy remains strong.”
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The coup in Bolivia has everything to do with the screen you’re using to read this
The nationalization efforts of Evo Morales ensured that the State controlled 51 percent of all private energy firms that operated in Bolivia, which allowed the State’s coffers to fill rapidly. It was this money that was invested to go after poverty, hunger, and illiteracy.
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A wealth tax: because that’s where the money is
The bank robber Willie Sutton, when asked by a reporter why he robbed banks, is reputed to have answered, “Because that’s where the money is.” Which brings us to a wealth tax.
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The empire, Trump and intra-ruling class conflict
Over the past few months President Trump has unilaterally by Tweet and telephone begun to dismantle the U.S. military’s involvement in the Middle East. The irony is amazing, because in a general overarching narrative sense, this is what the marginalized antiwar movement has been trying to do for decades.(1) Prof. Harry Targ, in his important […]
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Apartheid in the global governance system
In my research I have argued that rising global inequality is driven in large part by power imbalances in the global economy, in that rich countries have disproportionate influence when it comes to setting the rules of international trade and finance.
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Dossier 22: Latin America and the Caribbean: between the neoliberal offensive and new resistances
Critical thought in our current political conjuncture faces a debate about the characteristics of the neoliberal and neofascist offensive and the challenges that these offensives raise. This debate engages three important dimensions: the character of contemporary capitalism, the new monsters that drive it, and the possibility of necessary alternative futures.
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The political tide sweeping South America won’t accept predatory capitalism
The slogan is pithy—Neoliberalismo nunca más (Neoliberalism Never Again). It was chanted in the streets of Santiago, Chile; it was drawn on the walls in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and in a more sober register, it is mentioned in a seminar in Mexico City, Mexico.
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Changing the subject
From Chile to Lebanon, young people are demonstrating—in street protests and voting booths—that they’ve had enough of being disciplined and punished by the current development model.
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Another look at the Federal Reserve’s panic in September 2019 and solutions to the crisis
You may recall that from 17 September 2019, the United States Federal Reserve injected massive amounts of liquidity into banks due to a quite abnormal situation on the repo market.(1) The repo market designates a mechanism used by banks to obtain short-term financing. They sell securities they hold in repurchase agreements (repo).
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Flying above the clouds: the U.S. military and climate change
Climate change is occurring, highlighted by dramatically shifting weather patterns and ever more deadly storms, floods, droughts, and wildfires. And the evidence is overwhelming that it is driven by the steady increase in greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, especially carbon dioxide and methane, produced by our fossil fuel-based economic system.
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Globalisation’s corroding edifice
The World Bank’s World Development Report (WDR), published every year since 1978, plays a similar role to that of the state of the union address in the US, in which the president hopes to keep the faith of the Congress and public.