Capitalism
-
Boris Johnson’s coronavirus measures: Political criminality that will cost tens of thousands of lives
“Without a huge national effort to halt the growth of this virus, there will come a moment when no health service in the world could possibly cope; because there won’t be enough ventilators, enough intensive care beds, enough doctors and nurses,” Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared Monday. Continue reading
-
US is at a critical juncture, facing TWO EPIDEMICS: Covid-19 & soaring joblessness
The Senate and the White House have finally managed to negotiate a record $2-trillion stimulus aid package to ease the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak. But the money may well be too little too late. Continue reading
-
Covid-19 as symptom: Notes on the production of a virus
Understandably, these days we hear a lot about the symptoms of Covid-19 (dry cough, high fever, etc.). Conversely, there is much less discussion of the virus as a symptom. Let’s say then that to intervene on the symptoms of the virus it is necessary not only to have specific scientific knowledge, but also to put… Continue reading
-
Ecosocialism or barbarism: African journal interviews C&C editor Ian Angus
In an interview with the African Review of Political Economy, Climate & Capitalism editor Ian Angus discusses the environmental crisis, the Anthropocene and Covid-19. Continue reading
-
Is Capitalism a Disease?
The scientific tradition of the “West,” of Europe and North America, has had its greatest success when it has dealt with what we have come to think of as the central questions of scientific inquiry: “What is this made of?” and “How does this work?” Over the centuries, we have developed more and more sophisticated… Continue reading
-
Lockdown!
According to AFP estimates, some 1.7 billion people across the world are now living under some form of lockdown as a result of the coronavirus. That’s almost a quarter of the world population. The world economy has seen nothing like this. Continue reading
-
Our leaders are terrified. Not of the virus – of us
You can almost smell the fear-laden sweat oozing from the pores of television broadcasts and social media posts as it finally dawns on our political and media establishments what the coronavirus actually means. And I am not talking about the threat posed to our health. Continue reading
-
Ghosts of Capitalism vs. Walls of Solidarity
In these difficult times for humanity, confronted with the danger of constant predatory action by the greed and boundless ambition of the hegemonic powers in the name of the free market, free enterprise, wild neo-liberalism, the destruction of nature ravaged to extremes never before seen by decadent capitalism, only solidarity and responsibility illuminate our habitat. Continue reading
-
RECESSION FOR CHINA, DEPRESSION FOR EU AND USA?
22 March 2020 — theplanningmotivedotcom The market crash is now four weeks old. The first two weeks registered falls without a liquidity crisis (see pie chart below). The third week registered sharp falls with a liquidity crisis. The fourth week registered the biggest weekly falls with severe dislocation between assets because investors decided to be… Continue reading
-
A few ambitious points on fighting the crisis
We are facing two crises at once, health and economic, that are related in very important ways. The covid-19 epidemic has done major damage around the world, but it’s highlighting some serious structural problems with the US social model that better-run countries are not so afflicted by. We are plagued by a deep economic polarization… Continue reading
-
Late-Stage Imperial Omni-Crisis: Death by Virus and Internal Contradictions
The epidemic reveals the stark truth, that the US dismantled and privatized its public health system, to fatten the pockets of the oligarchy and render working people more helpless and dependent. Continue reading
-
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, March 2020
21 March 2020 — Climate & Capitalism Reading, red and green Six new books to read while maintaining social distance. Yellow Earth; Socialist Practice; Friedrich Engels; Chicken History; Traveling Plants; Coal and Empire Ecosocialist Bookshelf is an occasional feature. We can’t review every book we receive, but we will list and link to any that seem… Continue reading
-
The Coronavirus Is Not the Plague: The Plague Is US
The French-Algerian writer Albert Camus’ great 1947 novel, The Plague, is a warning to us today, but a warning in disguise. When he died sixty years ago at the young age of forty-six, he had already written The Stranger, The Fall, and The Plague, and had won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Continue reading
-
Archie and Jughead At Work
1. All of this stuff–this self-isolation, this quarantine, this social distancing, this confinement; all the lock-downs, ups; all the virtual meetings, the telecommuting, the face-timing- all of this eau gazeuse dispensed from the candy-cane headquarters of advanced capitalism with Archie behind the soda fountain and Jughead in the shipping room, are being manipulated as distractions, as… Continue reading
-
Brexit, Covid-19 and the Debt Deluge – The perfect storm about to engulf us all
Remembering this impending event and recalling it from memory to your friends is as easy as A, B, C, D. Broadly speaking it is about four interlinked events that have already happened but their combined effects will engulf the country within a year. Austerity, Brexit, CoVid and Debt will lead to a ruinous recession or… Continue reading
-
The Capitalist Pandemic, Coronavirus and the Economic Crisis
The coronavirus pandemic is a serious public health problem and the human suffering caused by the spread of this virus will be enormous. If it massively affects countries of the Global South with very fragile public health systems that have been undermined by 40 years of neo-liberal policies, the death toll will be very high.… Continue reading
-
The Great Unravelling: Part 2, Coronavirus: A Very British Cull
The nation is at war. Peacetime production has slumped, foreign travel collapsed, casualties rise. In every part of the country, people anxiously worry about how to avoid the enemy. This time, however, it is germs, not Germans, that we fear. Even the Germans are under attack. Medically, economically and politically, the coronavirus pandemic has caught… Continue reading
-
Anti-Capitalist Politics in the Time of COVID-19
As Marxist geographer David Harvey argues, forty years of neoliberalism has left the public totally exposed and ill prepared to face a public health crisis on the scale of coronavirus. Continue reading
-
Coronavirus and capitalism: join our online event
We’ll be trying out a two hour online event discussing some of the pressing global justice issues raised by the coronavirus crisis, and I’m pleased to say that Shalmali Guttal, who had planned to come over for our conference, will join this online discussion live from Thailand. Continue reading
The New Dark Age 