Capitalism
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UK: £17 Billion COVID-19 contracts
Our challenge to Government’s decision to hide COVID-19 spending has led it to disclose that the Department of Health has handed £17 billion worth of COVID-19 contracts to private companies since April. Fresh analysis by Tussell reveals Government has failed to publish details of £4.4billion of these contracts. Continue reading
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A People’s Guide to Capitalism
It’s not easy to explain Marx’s economics in a clear, straightforward and entertaining way. Nobody has done it better than Hadas Thier. Continue reading
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The Past as Prologue: Caliban & the Witch – a Review
First published in 2004, Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici is a work well worth revisiting in 2020. Continue reading
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UK Head of Vaccine Taskforce Shared UK Plans with Private Investors
Just weeks after the government announced disgraced TalkTalk CEO Dido Harding was appointed as the head of the government’s failed testing programme, it has been forced into making excuses to protect its latest decision over its choice of who should lead Britain’s vaccine taskforce. Continue reading
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Bayer seeks to profit both from weedkiller linked to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and drug to treat it
Personal injury and civil rights attorney Ben Crump has denounced Bayer Corporation for seeking to profit both from the sale of its weedkiller Roundup, which has been linked to non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and a new Bayer drug to treat the disease. Continue reading
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Class Consciousness in the Age of COVID
We haven’t written in a while, and we just wanted to touch base with you about our efforts to defend Julian Assange and civil liberties and get you thinking about the importance of press freedom. Continue reading
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Vaccines – Who Needs Them?
It’s a serious question that few have asked, and there’s no clear answer. Up till this point in the Coronavirus play, discussion on vaccines has been limited to one perspective – how effective might they be, and how long before one is available. Thanks to the rigors of lock-downs and upending of society necessitated –… Continue reading
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The IMF smokescreen
In its latest World Economic Outlook report, the IMF again tackled the issue of climate change, global warming and what to do about it. As it did last year, the IMF recognised that climate change was a burning issue for humanity and the planet. But this time it claimed that there were policy options that… Continue reading
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Chris Hedges: The Politics of Cultural Despair
It is despair that is killing us, eating into the social fabric, rupturing social bonds, and manifesting in self-destructive pathologies. Continue reading
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BREXIT: AN OVEN READY DEAL OR WAS THE OVEN EVEN SWITCHED ON. Populism in disarray
18 October 2020 — theplanningmotivedotcom If Johnson was serious about a “No Deal Brexit”, his government would have prepared for one, particularly at this late stage. He would have put in place the necessary infrastructure – custom officers and posts, warehouses, tarmac, computer programs, a suite of forms available for companies and so on. Instead… Continue reading
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To Rebel Against Necessity and More
Autumn is the dying season. This morning when I came home from a walk, he was lying there on his back. He was dead. Continue reading
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IMF Seizes on Pandemic to Pave Way for Privatization in 81 Countries
76 of the 91 loans the IMF has negotiated since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic come attached with demands for deep cuts to public services and policies that benefit corporations over people. Continue reading
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Ecosocialism and/or Degrowth?
Should the ecological left aim to reduce all consumption, or to radically transform the prevalent type of consumption? Continue reading
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Why America’s economic war on China is failing
U.S. President Donald Trump—supported by most of the U.S. establishment—deepened the U.S. government’s assault on the Chinese economy. The “trade war” seemed to play well with Trump’s political base, who somehow hoped that an economic attack on China would miraculously create economic prosperity for them. In 2018, Trump slapped tariffs on more than $200 billion… Continue reading
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Pemberstone – the company trying to demolish 70 homes in a Leeds housing estate
After a two-year long battle by families to save their homes, 70 homes in the Sugar Hill estate in Oulton, Leeds remain at risk of demolition. Pemberstone, the company that owns the land, are trying to win permission to knock down the existing homes and “regenerate” the estate with less affordable housing. Continue reading
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Bayer’s Monsanto headache persists
Efforts at settling the mass of lawsuits brought in the United States by tens of thousands of people who claim Monsanto’s Roundup herbicides gave them cancer continue to inch forward, but are not addressing all outstanding cases, nor are all plaintiffs offered settlements agreeing to them. Continue reading
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Rishi Sunak’s planned cut to benefits is much bigger than Osborne’s in 2015
Back in 2015, 3.3 million working families were on track to lose an average of over £1,000 a year from the following April. As Figure 1 shows, today, the income of roughly twice as many families is at risk, with 6 million households (containing 12 million adults and 6 million children) set to have their… Continue reading
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Gates Foundation doubles down on misinfo campaign at Cornell as African leaders call for agroecology
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded another $10 million last week to the controversial Cornell Alliance for Science, a communications campaign housed at Cornell that trains fellows in Africa and elsewhere to promote and defend genetically engineered foods, crops and agrichemicals. The new grant brings BMGF grants to the group to $22 million. Continue reading
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Doubt is a treacherous path. We must avoid being diverted towards terminal cynicism
What I think of as the cynical left are once again berating the progressive critical left, myself included, for failing to write what they want written about Covid-19. I take this as a kind of unintended compliment: that they think we can write about their concerns better than they can themselves. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 