The New Dark Age

'Socialism or Barbarism'

July 1, 2026

  • Economic Rent Extraction

    In the 1800s, economists such as Ricardo (see Principles of Political Economy & Taxation) and George (see Progress and Poverty) identified economic rent-seeking, the earning of excess profits from the ownership of land and natural resources, to be a very major problem for any economy. These profits were not from a productive activity but rather… Continue reading

  • Black Agenda Report July 1, 2026

    Wednesday, 1 July 2026 — Black Agenda Report Black Agenda Report July 4th Special Issue The Editors “This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.” – Frederick Douglass 1852 speech Continue reading

  • Socialism Without Revolution: Jacobin’s Market Fantasy Against the Socialist World

    Bhaskar Sunkara invokes the courage of revolutionary workers and colonized peoples while treating the administrative planning systems they built as failed formations whose defining mechanisms must be superseded. This polemic subjects his proposed market socialism to the same historical tests imposed upon the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and Vietnam, showing that worker-run firms, public banks,… Continue reading