Category: Capitalism

Ecosocialist Bookshelf, April 2019

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20 April 2019 — Climate & Capitalism

Five new books: The rising tide of marine disease … Energy, food, nature, and the future … Civilizations and planet … Political economy of carbon … Understanding microbiome science

Climate & Capitalism can’t review every book we receive, but this column lists and links to those that seem relevant to Climate & Capitalism’s mission, along with brief descriptions. Titles described here may be reviewed in future.

Inclusion of a book does not imply endorsement, or that we agree with everything (or even anything!) these books say.

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Nitrogen Crisis: A neglected threat to Earth’s life support systems

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18 April 2019 — Climate & Capitalism

Planetary Boundaries. Nitrogen and biodiversity are farther out of safe limits than any others (Rockstrom et. al, Nature, 2009)

Part One of a discussion of the disruption of the global nitrogen cycle by an economic system that values profits more than life itself.

Continuing our series on metabolic rifts. 

by Ian Angus

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Glyphosate Worse Than We Could Imagine By F. William Engdahl

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15 April 2019 — New Eastern Outlook

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As new studies continue to point to a direct link between the widely-used glyphosate herbicide and various forms of cancer, the agribusiness lobby fights ferociously to ignore or discredit evidence of human and other damage. A second US court jury case just ruled that Monsanto, now a part of the German Bayer AG, must pay $ 81 million in damages to plaintiff Edwin Hardeman who contracted non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma cancer. The ruling and a line-up of another 11,000 pending cases in US courts going after the effects of glyphosate, have hit Bayer AG hard with the company announcing several thousand layoffs as its stock price plunges.

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Capitalism: A delicate moment

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14 April 2019 — Michael Roberts

The IMF-World Bank meeting in Washington this weekend revealed again that the world economy is slowing down and the prospect of an outright recession is getting much higher.  The IMF economists cut their outlook for global growth  to the lowest since the global financial crisis of 2009 amid a bleaker outlook in most major advanced economies and signs that higher tariffs are weighing on trade – “a growth slowdown and precarious recovery”, the IMF called it.

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No shortcuts: The climate revolution must be ecosocialist

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12 April 2019 — Climate & Capitalism

A Red-Green Manifesto for the 21st Century

Only a mass socialist, feminist, internationalist, pro-peasant, anti-racist, indigenous, and anti-colonial movement can save humanity

This declaration was drafted by Daniel Tanuro and adopted by the national leadership of Belgium’s Gauche Anticapitaliste. Translated for Climate & Capitalism by Richard Fidler, who blogs at Life on the Left, with light editing by Ian Angus.

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Climate Catastrophe and Extinction Rebellion by Paul Street

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10 April 2019 — The Greanville Post

Catastrophes, self inflicted

“Vote if you think it’ll make any difference but don’t drink the full Kool Aid of American electoral fake-representative politics, the longtime graveyard of American social movements…”

In the last years of his life, Dr. Martin Luther King spoke against what he called “the triple evils that are interrelated” – economic inequality, racism, and militarism. If King were alive today, he’d be talking about the five evils that are interrelated, adding patriarchy and Ecocide, the destruction of livable ecology.  He’d also be noting the dangerous rise of a new national and global fascism linked to the presidency of a malignant racist who glories in accelerating humanity’s environmental self-destruction while the media obsesses over matters of far slighter relevance.

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Time to shun the financial kakistocracy By Terry Bell

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8 April 2019 — Terry Bell Writes

First published in City Press, Sunday, April 7

South Africa’s trade unions were probably just as confused as most people when a considerable fuss was made last week about the decisions of ratings agency Moody’s. The agency first said it would not publicise its views on South Africa’s status before the May 8 elections. Days later, it changed tack.

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The geopolitics of oil in the Trump era By Thierry Meyssan

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9 April 2019 — Voltaire Network

The United States have become the leading world producer of hydrocarbons. As from now, they are using their dominant position exclusively to maximise their profits, and do not hesitate to eliminate their major rivals in oil production, plunging their citizens into misery. Although in the past, access to Middle East oil was a vital necessity for their economy (Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr.), then a market over which they presided (Clinton), and then again a failing ressouce whose supply they wanted to control (Bush Jr., Obama), hydrocarbons have now become black gold (Trump). Thierry Meyssan retraces the evolution of this bloody market.

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No Alarms and No Surprises? What Lyft’s Slump Tells Us About Modern Capitalism by James Meadway

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6 April 2019 — Novara Media

Ride-hailing app Lyft’s initial public offering (IPO) last week saw the company valued at $24.3bn in its first day of trading shares – before crashing back below its $72-a-share initial purchase price, where it has knocked around for the rest of the week. Short-sellers (those betting on further price falls) have reportedly gone into “overdrive”, whilst the post-offer price slump has been flagged as a significant warning for tech investors in general.

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Q&A: Manipulators, Optimism, Utopia, Trump, Writing Tips & More By Caitlin Johnstone

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6 April 2019 — Caitlin Johnson

While we’re all waiting to find out what’s happening with Julian Assange, I thought it might be fun to do a little Q & A with my readers to pass the time while that singularly important crisis resolves. I asked for some questions on social media and got way more than I had expected. Here are a few of the ones that jumped out:

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