Capitalism
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Jeff Bezos says everything will be ok
The climate crisis may be dire, with ever more frequent and increasingly devastating floods and wildfires, with killer droughts and heatwaves across the globe, with oceans warming 40% faster and arctic ice sheets melting 70% faster than had been predicted a mere five years ago, with arctic permafrost melting and belching super-greenhouse methane into the… Continue reading
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The Three Tribes of Political Ecology
The decade that ended in 2020 was the decade of global climate inaction. Without a doubt, our inability to transform our economic systems into models compatible with planetary boundaries will define the beginning of the 21st century. Continue reading
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Global warming: planning not pricing
Carbon pricing and carbon taxes are now proposed by international institutions and mainstream economics as the main solutions to ending global warming and destructive climate change. For some time, the IMF has been pushing for carbon pricing as ‘a necessary if not sufficient’ part of a climate policy package that also includes investment in ‘green… Continue reading
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Our Rulers Have All The Power And None Of The Responsibility
As the world burns, as ecosystems die off, as the insects vanish, as the forests disappear, as soil becomes rapidly less fertile, as extinction takes over, as the oceans gasp for air and become lifeless deserts while continents of plastic form in their waters, it is interesting how often you hear the sentiment that this is the result of some flaw in humanity for which we all share… Continue reading
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Sicko UK
On the 73rd birthday of the National Health Service, the queen awarded the beloved NHS the George Cross for the valor of its staff during the Covid-19 pandemic. No one doubts the dedication of NHS staff, and its worthiness for the highest honor, but this medal now serves to cover the insidious dismantlement of the… Continue reading
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Capitalism: has the leopard changed its spots?
“Let me be clear: capitalism without competition isn’t capitalism. It’s exploitation.”, US President Biden tweeted when signing an executive order to expand competition across the economy and crack down on monopolistic practices, describing a misguided 40-year “experiment” in letting US corporations consolidate with little regulation that he said has hurt ordinary Americans. “The heart of American capitalism is… Continue reading
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Is AltE Truly the Best Solution to Climate Catastrophe?
The world is threatened with environmental disaster and capitalists hope to make a killing off of it. Fossil fuel (FF) companies claim they are “environmentally friendly.” Other corporations promote nuclear energy, hydro-power (dams), and solar and wind power as the best energy alternatives. Continue reading
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The Gates Foundation’s “Corporate Merry-go-round”: Spearheading the Neo-liberal Plunder of African Agriculture
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is dangerously and unaccountably distorting the direction of international development, according to a new report by the campaign group Global Justice Now. With assets of $43.5 billion, the BMGF is the largest charitable foundation in the world. It actually distributes more aid for global health than any government.… Continue reading
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“Capitalism must die to protect the sacred”
Indigenous people have been fighting to survive for centuries. Recently, their struggles have become more militant, more global, and less isolated, aligning with other anti-racist and anti-colonial movements, and leading the environmental movement. Continue reading
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The Spirit of Carabobo Will Overcome the Stench of Monroe: The Twenty-Fifth Newsletter (2021)
24 June 2021 — Tricontinental Kael Abello, Utopix (Venezuela), Batalla de Carabobo (‘Battle of Carabobo’), 2021. Dear friends, Greetings from the desk of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, this week from Carabobo, Venezuela. Two hundred years ago, on 24 June 1821, the forces of Simón Bolívar trounced the Spanish royalists at the Battle of Carabobo, a few hundred… Continue reading
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Corporate Watch: 18,000 new prison places coming soon
24 June 2021 — Corporate Watch In this newsletter: New mega-prison in Lancashire – Deportation Drive – Glasgow Housing Association rent hikes – Resistance to dams in Georgia New mega-prison in Lancashire The government has announced plans to build a new mega prison in Chorley, Lancashire. It will be huge, locking up more than 1715 people. It is part of a… Continue reading
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1% own 45% of the world’s personal wealth while nearly 3bn people have little or no wealth at all
Just 56m or 1% of adults out of 5.3bn globally are millionaires in net wealth terms. And they own 45% of all global personal wealth. The other 99% own the rest and there are nearly 3bn people in the world that have little or no wealth at all (after debts are deducted). Continue reading
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On Paul Kingsnorth and Unruly Nature
7 May 2021 — MROnline by Anthony Galluzzo In a 2010 essay entitled “Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist,” the English émigré environmental writer Paul Kingsnorth recounts his journey into and out of the environmental movement. The essay appeared in the inaugural issue of Dark Mountain, the journal attached to the Dark Mountain group—inaugurated by Kingsnorth… Continue reading
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The Double Deformation
Economic exploitation is only one aspect of capitalism. The crisis of humanity and the crisis of the earth system are inseparable Continue reading
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Solidarity with Resistance to Extraction
People the world over are opposing fossil fuel extraction in an incalculable number of ways. It is now clear that burning fossil fuels threatens millions of Life forms and could be laying the foundation for the extermination of Humanity. But what about “alternative” energy? As progressives stand shoulder-to-shoulder with those rejecting fossil fuels and nuclear… Continue reading
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Profits call the tune
I have argued in many posts that ‘profits call the tune’ in capitalist accumulation. What I mean by that is that any change in business profits (and profitability) will lead to changes in business investment – and not vice versa over time. Continue reading
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Inequality & tax dodging. Heaven for the rich, hell for the poor
11 June 2021 — theplanningmotivedotcom Hell has been described in a number of ways. It takes place after death and is reserved for non-believers or those who disobey “our” religious instruction. There are at least 20,000 Christian churches and sects who all claim they are the true followers of Jesus. Tens of thousands of different… Continue reading
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‘Net zero’ emissions is a dangerous hoax
A new report published Wednesday by a trio of progressive advocacy groups lifts the veil on so-called “net zero” climate pledges, which are often touted by corporations and governments as solutions to the climate emergency, but which the paper’s authors argue are merely a dangerous form of greenwashing that should be eschewed in favor of Real… Continue reading
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UK Crony Capitalism: We Won!
Michael Gove broke the law by giving a contract to a communications agency run by long time associates of him and Dominic Cummings, the High Court has decided. Continue reading
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Everyday Life and the Ecological Crisis of Capitalism
When it was first published in German in 2017, Ulrich Brand’s and Markus Wissen’s book The Imperial Mode of Living attracted widespread attention and was discussed in mainstream media, while, at the same time, fueling an intense debate within the German academic left. The multiple reactions were not by chance; they were the result of… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 