The super-rich increased their combined fortunes by 27.5% during the worst of the market turmoil from April through July.
Subjects Archives: Political Economy
A response to Pollin and Chomsky: We need a Green New Deal without growth
Robert Pollin and Noam Chomsky have a new book out, Climate Crisis and the Green New Deal. It’s an important contribution to the emerging GND literature, from two thinkers I respect.
Growing divergence between China and ‘Developing Asia’
The past year has brought into sharp relief the significant differences between China and the rest of the world.
Evo Morales’ sarcasm: “If there was fraud, Donald Trump should go to OAS’s Luis Almagro”
In one of his last interviews before traveling to Bolivia—the return to his homeland is scheduled for November 9—Evo Morales stated his opinion on the United States elections, where there is still no confirmation on who will be the next president.
America’s labor crisis
We face a multifacited labor crisis. One of the most important aspects of this crisis is the U.S. economy’s diminishing capacity to provide employment. This development is highlighted in the chart below, which shows the trend in civilian employment over the last thirty years. Civilian employment includes all individuals who worked at least one hour for […]
Five Centuries of Pillage and Resistance: Latin America and Africa
The tragedy being the suffering Latin America has borne, the optimism being in the recognition that this is not the region’s natural or inevitable destiny, but has been imposed on it through its subjugation to the capitalist system, and is therefore capable of being changed.
India’s move toward a de facto unitary state
India is being pushed toward a de facto unitary state, with states being kept totally out of the loop in decision-making, as seen in the new agricultural laws, goods and services tax compensation, Jammu and Kashmir bifurcation and new National Education Policy.
The best response is to communicate the Revolution
The new U.S. financed counter-revolution hopes to manipulate sensitive issues and create the conditions for a social confrontation, for conflict and destabilization of the country.
Ecosocialism: an alternative to global capitalism
Over the past four decades or so, various leftists have become more sensitive to the environmental degradation in developed and developing capitalist societies and post-revolutionary societies, particularly in the former Soviet Union and, in recent times, China.
What if Everyone on Campus Understood Money?: A Response to Chronicle of Higher Ed Columnist Allison Vaillancourt
Let’s give credit where it’s due: After experiencing decades of neoliberal austerity and serving for nearly as long as pawns in tiresome culture wars, public higher education workers know all too well how the money works on our campuses and in our states. Students and alumni are the major sources of revenue; graduate workers and […]
Beyond Plague Urbanism
Over the centuries, humans have survived tragedy through the incredible stoicism of not moving, of standing one’s ground, of resisting, of engaging in tremendous creativity. Perhaps we can use the time alone to think collectively, to reflect together on how we might reconstruct the public realm of our cities.
How Venezuela has held back COVID-19 in spite of the U.S. sanctions stranglehold on its economy
A seam of cruelty runs through U.S. policy, which by its sanctions regime prevents Venezuela from open trade of its oil to import key medical equipment to help break the chain of the virus and heal those infected by it.
Billionaires and the Pandemic
WEALTH distribution data are notoriously difficult to interpret. This is because variations in stock prices affect wealth distribution, so that a stock market boom suddenly makes the rich appear much richer, while a stock market collapse makes wealth distribution less unequal overnight.
Disability, Covid and Capitalism
With phrases like “protect the vulnerable” & “underlying conditions” currently all around us, disability activist Ruth Flood looks at the horrendous treatment of disabled people under capitalism.
Debt disaster with no escape
According to the IMF, about half of Low Income Economies (LIEs) are now in danger of debt default. ‘Emerging market’ debt to GDP has increased from 40% to 60% in this crisis.
Ruthless criticism
But where did Marx’s critique of mainstream economics come from? It certainly did not emerge in one fell swoop, as a ready-made theory of capitalism. And it wasn’t produced in isolation, independently of the society within which it was first produced and then further elaborated.
Indigenous solutions to California’s capitalist conflagrations
Colonial timber management and capitalist land use has produced the wildfire crisis we see today. Prescribed Indigenous burning is a viable preventative solution to high severity wildfire but its success hinges on the fight by Indigenous socialists and grassroots organizers for Tribal sovereignty, land restitution, and the creation of a new prescribed fire workforce.
Paradise for human victims of corporate persons
Any day now, Zambia will be the first African country to slip into a private debt default. It can only pay interest on the $3 billion in dollar-denominated bonds if it totally ignores the needs of the Zambian people.
Marx, Engels and metabolic rift – Part Two
The development in 1909, by the German chemists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch of a technique for taking Nitrogen out of the atmosphere to produce ammonia (NH3) allowed for the production of synthetic fertilisers (and explosives) on an industrial scale.
Capitalism, slavery, and economic white supremacy
What is at stake when we talk about the economics of North American slavery? Over the last 75+ years it has been whether capitalism superseded slavery or whether capitalism and slavery were co-constituted, capitalism to some extent relying on slavery.
