Capitalism
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UK: Government of Denial: Crisis? What Crisis?
Looking at the Conservative party as it is right now, it would be easy to believe they are of a different species, who speak a different language, who came from a different world – a different dimension even. Every day a new statistic of our failing nation feels more like the opening of festering wounds,… Continue reading
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Inequality and risk – both rising by Michael Roberts
The US Federal Reserve governor Lael Brainard, in a speech in Washington, revealed the extent of rising inequality in the US. Using the latest income and wealth data, she outlined that the incomes and wealth of working-class (the American establishments like to use ‘middle-class’) households in the US have been squeezed in the last 50 years and… Continue reading
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Productivity, investment and profitability By michael roberts
Radical economic historian Adam Tooze recently tweeted that “Whenever I see figures for the decline in the (advanced economies) AE productivity growth rate I am left puzzling: do we really have an explanation? Do we really have an explanation?” Continue reading
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Book Review: Fascism and Dictatorship: The Third International and the Problem of Fascism By Fabian Van Onzen
Around the world, fascism and the extreme right have made significant gains. In Hungary, Viktor Orban has established a fiercely xenophobic, anti-immigrant government, with participation of the fascist Jobbik party. In the United States and Brazil, Trump and Bolsonaro took power with the support a fascist mass movement that openly attacks Muslims, immigrants, anti-communism, and… Continue reading
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BAT shifts nearly $1bn out of developing countries into one UK office
Tax Justice Network: For every dollar British American Tobacco (BAT) paid in tax in the countries it operates in, the giant multinational shifted more than half a dollar that would have been taxed locally to a UK subsidiary where BAT paid almost no tax.[1] New analysis by the Tax Justice Network estimates Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kenya,… Continue reading
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The social crisis and the global eruption of US imperialism
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has spent the past week staging provocations and making military threats everywhere from the Caribbean shores of Venezuela to the Persian Gulf, the South China Sea and the Arctic Circle. Continue reading
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The West: Full Spectrum Dementia By Stephen Sefton
Journalism has never been free of propaganda. News has always been produced and marketed like any other commodity, satisfying and shaping consumers’ opinions, loyalties and taste. Over the last thirty years, the US elites and their allies have effectively eliminated conventional journalism in favor of propaganda and counter-propaganda serving their relentless war on the majority… Continue reading
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Uber drivers to participate in global strike By Leslie Murtagh and Jessie Thomas
Thousands of drivers for Uber, Lyft and other ride-sharing companies are expected to join in a strike today, logging off their apps at peak hours to press demands for livable wages and job security. Continue reading
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Jeremy Bernard Corbyn ‘What Was Done’ *HQ Official*
Bonnie Prince Bob reflects on the political history that led to the appointment of England’s greatest ever Prime Minister ‘Jeremy Corbyn. Continue reading
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Trees don’t grow on money – or why you don’t get to rebel against extinction By Tim Hayward
Money doesn’t go on trees, and although people can make money out of trees, they cannot make trees out of money. This much may seem platitudinous, but it is worth keeping in mind. Continue reading
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Half of all land in England owned by less than one percent of the population By Margot Miller
The UK is one of the most unequal societies on the planet. The scale of this is effectively documented in new research revealing that one half of all the land in England is the private property of less than one percent of the population. This equates to just 25,000 people. England accounts for just over… Continue reading
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Progressive capitalism – an oxymoron By Michael Roberts
Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel (Riksbank) prize winner in economics and former chief economist at the World Bank, as well as an adviser to the leftist Labour leadership in the UK. He stands to the left in the spectrum of mainstream economics. Continue reading
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If war is an industry, how can there be peace in a capitalist World? By Vijay Prashad
On 26 April 1937, twelve bombers of the German Condor Legion and the Italian Aviazione Legionaria flew low over the Basque country of Spain in the midst of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). They tore down over the small town of Guernica, where they let loose their fiery arsenal. Almost two thousand people died in… Continue reading
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Workers of the World Unite (At Last) By Ronaldo Munck
Once seen as the vanguard of a new social order, the contemporary labor movement has been written off by many progressive activists and scholars as a relic of the past. They should not be so hasty. Rather than spelling the beginning of the end for organized labor, globalization has brought new opportunities for reinvention, and… Continue reading
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From the BRICS countries to the townships: racial and social segregation continues
Over 25 years ago now the people of South Africa won the struggle to end the Apartheid regime.(1) Nevertheless, even though it is now against the law, de facto racial segregation is still apparent. Moreover the capitalist assault on the majority of the population is blatant. The class struggle is all the more clearly perceptible… Continue reading
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Empire Files: Giants – Who Really Rules The World?
Abby Martin sits down with Peter Phillips, former director of Project Censored and professor of Political Sociology at Sonoma State University. His new book “Giants: The Global Power Elite” details the 17 transnational investment firms which control over $50 trillion in wealth—and how they are kept in power by their activists, facilitators and protectors Continue reading
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Extinction Rebellion: A new stage for the climate change movement
It would be criminal if political criticisms keep the organized left from supporting and joining the Extinction Rebellion campaign. Three articles from the British left … Continue reading
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Ecosocialist Bookshelf, April 2019
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… Continue reading