Post Tagged with: "Capitalism"

Neoliberalism’s GDP Hoax and its Costly Consequences: Time for a different ‘Development’ paradigm?

Neoliberalism’s GDP Hoax and its Costly Consequences: Time for a different ‘Development’ paradigm?

It is true that economic growth – meaning rising GDP – is one of the key indicators of rising prosperity in a society though as the Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz also reminds that “Maximising GDP is not same as maximising wellbeing” puts to question the merit of overemphasis that are often put to GDP as the marker of ‘development’ in[Read More…]

by 20/02/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Things That Can’t Be Said but Must Be Said Anyway

Things That Can’t Be Said but Must Be Said Anyway

In all societies and social groups, there are rules not only about what can be said but in fact what can be thought.  In the West, this has strong tones in the professional world, in which some things are so sacrosanct as to be verboten.  The more unsayable a thing is deemed to be, the more it needs to be[Read More…]

by 19/02/2023 Comments are Disabled World
Capitalism, Class, Race, Classist Racist Capitalism and Capitalist Inhuman Nature

Capitalism, Class, Race, Classist Racist Capitalism and Capitalist Inhuman Nature

There is no god but God: Islamic belief. There is no race but human: scientific fact. The first holds true for many if not all the 1.8 billion Muslims of the world as a foundational belief. The second is true for all Muslims, Jews, Christians, agnostics, atheists, and all the other many belief systems based on creativity, hopes, dreams and[Read More…]

by 09/01/2023 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Capitalism: Why we should scrap it

Capitalism: Why we should scrap it

This is a new book by Ted Trainer. You can download it for free (170 pp.) at: https://thesimplerway.info/CAPITALISMBOOK.pdf This book provides a fairly short but sufficiently detailed critical discussion of the nature of our basically capitalist economic system, its faults, why it is not just unsatisfactory but is leading to global breakdown, the alternative we must work for, and how[Read More…]

by 03/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Book Review
We Need a New Society, Not More Psychiatric Diagnoses

We Need a New Society, Not More Psychiatric Diagnoses

Are you sad because a bout of Covid-19 disrupted your life with illness, bills, or even the death of a friend or family member? Are you anxious because your benefits have ceased and you can’t find a new job? Are you worried because the brain fog after Covid has persisted so long? Are you angry because you are being evicted[Read More…]

by 01/10/2022 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
It’s Time to Call It What It Is—A Capitalism-Induced Ecological Crisis

It’s Time to Call It What It Is—A Capitalism-Induced Ecological Crisis

One-third of Pakistan is under water. Record heat waves blanket the globe driving up temperatures beyond what humans can survive. Polar glaciers are melting much faster than scientists predicted. Droughts, fires and floods are ravaging the planet, forcing the displacement of tens of millions of people. And this is just the beginning. It’s time to tell the truth. We can’t afford[Read More…]

by 17/09/2022 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
Exponential Explosions Shake the World: Radical Reorganiztion Required

Exponential Explosions Shake the World: Radical Reorganiztion Required

     It’s only a few months since last we wrote about the dangers of war, pandemics, and climate change reaching a climax (https://multiracialunity.org/2022/05/07/an-exploding-world-requires-radical-change/), but already the crises are intensifying. Inflation, infection, injustice, impoverishment are all further endangering the lives of workers around the world. Consequences of Ukraine War Multiply As the lead op-ed in the NY Times said recently (6/22/2022),[Read More…]

by 29/07/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Capitalism and Unmaking of Democracy

Capitalism and Unmaking of Democracy

Rule of law, transparency, accountability and citizenship rights are fundamental pillars of constitutional democracy. These pillars are eroding rapidly. The democratic cultures based on equality, liberty, justice, reason, science, secularism, tolerance and mutual respect for dissenting and diverse opinions are declining across the globe. The corporatisation of electoral campaigns, market command over political parties, corporate control over political processes and[Read More…]

by 23/07/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Communication and Capitalism

Communication and Capitalism

by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young Many people would quite correctly argue that the conceptual pair of “communication and capitalism” are more about capitalism than communication and the media. While the imperatives of capitalism carry on, the requirements of corporate media become ever more determining. More and more, the media – print, TV, online, etc. – define our lives from[Read More…]

by 28/04/2022 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Workers led agenda for the post pandemic world order

Workers led agenda for the post pandemic world order

The Westphalian capitalism and all its structures, agencies and mouthpieces have promised a world without poverty, inequalities and instabilities. The neoliberal variant of the Westphalian ideology has promised a world of prosperity, stability, peace, social and economic inclusion; the trickle-down effect. Reform not revolution was the fundamental principle on which Westphalian state managed to accommodation the aspirations of people within[Read More…]

by 03/04/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Modern Ouroboros

Modern Ouroboros

 ‘Society does not consist of individuals, but express the sum of interrelations, the relationships within which this individual stand’- Karl Marx. The interrelation of individuals and the production process was defined by Karl Marx in his analysis of Superstructure. The industrial revolution and the state of the global economy during the 17th century incited Marx to give the analysis of[Read More…]

by 12/03/2022 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Privatizing Nature

Privatizing Nature

The financial wizards of Wall Street have devised a new way to profit from Mother Nature. They’ve created a class of stocks called Natural Asset Companies that will control the earth’s resources such as water, wildlife, forests, minerals, and farmland. The project was developed by the Intrinsic Exchange Group in partnership with the New York Stock Exchange, the Inter-American Development[Read More…]

by 14/01/2022 Comments are Disabled Environmental Protection
Naked @ Work – the Neoliberal Workplace

Naked @ Work – the Neoliberal Workplace

By Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young It is no longer uncommon to hear people saying, I love my work. Is this just the latest stage of capitalism getting us to work harder so that someone else benefits? Historically, it all started when former peasants were – at times, with brutal force – converted into workers. It was the time when capitalism quite literally was Making[Read More…]

by 26/12/2021 Comments are Disabled Uncategorized
Profits Amid Covid: Wall Street And Bankers Share

Profits Amid Covid: Wall Street And Bankers Share

The two Wall Street investment-banking titans dominating this year’s dealmaking frenzy are opening up their wallets to try to keep their bankers happy – and ratcheting up pressure on rivals to follow suit. Media reports including reports by Bloomberg said: U.S. investment bank JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs are reportedly planning to award their investment bankers with major bonuses in[Read More…]

by 16/12/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Wealth, Capitalism and Ideology

Wealth, Capitalism and Ideology

by Thomas Klikauer & Meg Young Under the motto, “a different world is possible, a different economy is needed” – a German language magazine called Lunapark was born in 2008. It is dedicated to providing a much needed critique of the global economy. Perhaps as a pre-reflection of Glasgow’s 2021 Blah-Blah-Blah-COP26 PR-pageant, Germany’s failed environmental record is on stage, Lunapark started with the political economy on global warming.[Read More…]

by 15/12/2021 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Photo: Tom Pennington

Capitalism Is Not Your Friend

“The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.” –Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology “If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there’s no progress.[Read More…]

by 28/10/2021 Comments are Disabled World
US billionaire wealth increased 70 percent since the start of the pandemic

US billionaire wealth increased 70 percent since the start of the pandemic

The wealth of US billionaires has increased by a massive $2.1 trillion, or 70 percent, since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, while tens of millions of working people have faced unemployment and illness, and 724,000 have died from COVID-19. Additionally, the list of American billionaires grew by 131 individuals—going from 614 to 745—during the same period. According to an[Read More…]

by 20/10/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Occupied by capital

Occupied by capital

All parts and aspects of life have been occupied by capitals. This is the broader picture. This is one of the facts from reality that composes context of life of people in almost all lands. This is one of the brutal facts that dominate people in exploitative societies. The dominance is so much powerful and so much shrewd that the[Read More…]

by 15/10/2021 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Problems With Capitalism

Problems With Capitalism

One of the problems with capitalism is that it is driving us towards disaster. Greed is good? Adam Smith (1723-1790) maintained that individual self-interest can and should be the principle guiding our economic behavior . He told the readers of his book “The Wealth of Nations”, that, as if guided by an invisible hand, individual self-interest leads to the general[Read More…]

by 27/09/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Climate Change Is the Symptom, Capitalism Is the Problem

Climate Change Is the Symptom, Capitalism Is the Problem

Our planet cannot handle an eternal growth model. We live in a finite system and capitalist innovation can only take us so far. Eventually we run out of resources. Climate appears to be the limit. Too often climate change is reduced to quantification of greenhouse glasses or melting ice caps. These indicators of climate change are important to verify the[Read More…]

by 15/09/2021 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
Capitalism: The real pandemic

Capitalism: The real pandemic

Eighteen months into the latest pandemic, there are quite a few observations that can be made about the origins of, and responses to, the Covid-19 virus. The 24-hour news cycle and the lack of critical analysis have left a large part of the global population ill-informed, confused and seemingly helpless in the face of a real health crisis. No doubt[Read More…]

by 06/08/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Capitalism and Alienation

Capitalism and Alienation

Capitalism is deeply unjust. It is a system under which labour power has itself become a commodity and is bought and sold on the market like any other object of exchange. A condition of neo-slavery like this has been historically presupposed by the concentration of ownership of means of production in the hands of a minority class and the consequent[Read More…]

by 02/08/2021 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Working for the Company

Working for the Company

In the early 70s the Rolling Stones sized it up for we working stiffs in their song ‘ Working for the Company’: I want a real fine car, fly Miami too All the rum, I want to drink it, all the whiskey too My woman need a new dress, my daughter got to go to school I’m working so hard,[Read More…]

by 29/06/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Downward Social Mobility and Authoritarianism

Downward Social Mobility and Authoritarianism

Authoritarianism’s Popular Base Inexorably linked to self-identity molded by the social environment, political identity, shaped by social class and the hegemonic culture, largely determines the individual’s participation in the political arena. Not the only factor that shapes political behavior, social mobility along with cultural conditioning is the catalyst to molding political identity. In the age of mass politics where bourgeois[Read More…]

by 08/06/2021 Comments are Disabled World
From 1980s Neoliberalism to the ‘New Normal’

From 1980s Neoliberalism to the ‘New Normal’

Sold under the pretence of a quest for optimising well-being and ‘happiness’, capitalism thrives on the exploitation of peoples and the environment. What really matters is the strive to maintain viable profit margins. The prevailing economic system demands ever-increasing levels of extraction, production and consumption and needs a certain level of annual GDP growth for large firms to make sufficient profit.[Read More…]

by 02/06/2021 Comments are Disabled World
(Photo: Mr. Fish / Truthdig)

The Hell of the Same: Capitalism Breaks Down and Homogenizes Life, Disconnects the Past, Present and Future

“Capitalism is often interpreted as a religion. However, if religion is understood in terms of Religare, as something that binds, then capitalism is anything but a religion because it lacks any force to assemble, to create community…And what is essential to religion is contemplative rest, but this is the antithesis of Capital. Capital never rests. It is in its nature[Read More…]

by 26/05/2021 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Question and Resist the Power

Question and Resist the Power

The coronavirus pandemic has already caused the colossal loss of lives and livelihoods around the world. It continues to create havoc in different countries like Brazil and India.  It has destroyed livelihoods, communities and families. This global health crisis has taken a terrible toll on individual lives by expanding unbelievable levels of anxiety, alienation, deaths, destitutions, loneliness and loss. The[Read More…]

COVID Times Should Not Be Used As A Cover to Push Narrow Interests

COVID Times Should Not Be Used As A Cover to Push Narrow Interests

COVID-19 pandemic as well as the lockdowns which followed in most countries have caused a lot of distress . However the wider bitter reality is that these times were also used to push the narrow interests of very powerful persons and forces. Inequalities have  increased greatly. While tens of millions have suffered great distress and loss of income, the fortunes[Read More…]

by 13/04/2021 Comments are Disabled World
A Rejoinder to Chetan Bhagat’s Neoliberal Prescriptions

A Rejoinder to Chetan Bhagat’s Neoliberal Prescriptions

Chetan Bhagat’s article “Wanted: A bill to fix Indian manufacturing” – published on March 27, 2021 by “The Times of India” – is a paradigmatic example of neoliberal oversimplification. While the article ostensibly aims to prescribe the relevant measures to be taken to convert India into an economic powerhouse, it comes off as a ham-handed screed against perceived enemies. The[Read More…]

by 30/03/2021 Comments are Disabled India
Capitalist Seduction: Behind the veils of the Neoliberal Spectacle

Capitalist Seduction: Behind the veils of the Neoliberal Spectacle

 ‘Reforming capitalism’ is essentially considered an oxymoron by the academic world that is flummoxed by the ability of capitalism to re-mould, reorient and revamp itself for sustenance without losing the cardinal jus of exploitation. Post Perestroika and Glasnost[1], which eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, Capitalism in the American unipolar world has triumphed in establishing a symbiotic[Read More…]

by 20/03/2021 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
NO MORE Sympathy for the Devil(s)

NO MORE Sympathy for the Devil(s)

   As our nation continues to be occupied by the greedy, the exploitive and the arrogant  Super Rich, we need to call them out for what and WHO they are. The Rolling Stones 1968 hit song ” Sympathy for the Devil” still resonates some 53 years later. At the end of my column please read carefully Mick Jagger’s account of[Read More…]

by 17/03/2021 2 comments World
Feudalism in Pakistan and Capitalism the World Over

Feudalism in Pakistan and Capitalism the World Over

Pakistani expatriates in the USA have developed a consensus that the genesis of what ails Pakistan can be traced to the feudal system our former colonial masters imposed on India as a corp of supporters which they continued to throw crumbs to till the very end of their rule. The colonizers declared them and their vassals martial race,and used them[Read More…]

by 15/03/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Genesis of Capitalism

Genesis of Capitalism

Marxists advocate bourgeois revolution to break the fetters of feudalism. Capitalist markets are only the most advanced form of exchange. Industrialization was the inevitable outcome of human instincts. In the Marxist version, petty commodity production freed of feudalism grows into capitalism. 1 Many people came to believe, especially after the collapse of communism, that capitalism was the natural condition of[Read More…]

by 26/02/2021 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Mercenaries of Capitalism

Mercenaries of Capitalism

“Economic Hitmen (EHM) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the Globe of trillions of dollars…funnel money from W.B, US.AID, …into coffers of huge corporations and into the pockets of a few wealthy families…tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, pay off, extortion, sex and murder…” (1). EHMs arrange loans larger than the country’s ability to pay; it defaults and[Read More…]

by 28/01/2021 Comments are Disabled World
The Great Reset Initiative or The Great Neoliberal Capitalist Lie

The Great Reset Initiative or The Great Neoliberal Capitalist Lie

As the mutilating power of Coronavirus strikes on lives and livelihoods and create havocs across the globe, the Davos priests of the World Economic Forum have started ‘the Great Reset Initiative’ to manage the consequences of the pandemic. It rightly recognises the urgent need for global cooperation to end the uncertainties and disruptions caused by the COVID-19 crisis. There is[Read More…]

by 24/01/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Democracy is a Function of Capitalism

Democracy is a Function of Capitalism

An Overview of Systems of Government. H.L. Mencken said the typical American voter was a boob and the system was booboisie. In order to understand the submission “ Democracy is a Function of Capitalism” one has to delve deep into Social, economic, and political evolution of human race and subject it to critical analysis. Let us start with a few[Read More…]

by 12/01/2021 1 comment Life/Philosophy
War of the (Financial) Worlds Or Let the Markets Go Wild While the People Go Down

War of the (Financial) Worlds Or Let the Markets Go Wild While the People Go Down

  Sometimes things only make sense when seen through a magnifying lens. As it happens, I’m thinking about reality, the very American and global reality clearly repeating itself as 2021 begins. We all know, of course, that we’re living through a once-in-a-century-style pandemic; that millions of people have lost their jobs, a portion of which will never return; that the poorest among us,[Read More…]

by 11/01/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand Is At Our Throats

Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand Is At Our Throats

The invisible hand As everyone knows, Adam Smith invented the theory that individual self-interest is, and ought to be, the main motivating force of human economic activity, and that this, in effect, serves the wider social interest. He put forward  a detailed description of this concept in an immense book, “The Wealth of Nations” (1776). Adam Smith (1723-1790) had been[Read More…]

by 14/12/2020 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
The pandemic, the profiteers, the people

The pandemic, the profiteers, the people

To profiteers, this pandemic is very good; it hasn’t hurt their profit-making mechanism. Net worth of US billionaires has soared by $1 trillion – to total $4 trillion – since Pandemic began, a report released on December 8, 2020 by Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) said: “The total net worth of the 651[Read More…]

by 12/12/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Name Me One Country Where Capitalism Works: A Thirty-Year Reckoning

Name Me One Country Where Capitalism Works: A Thirty-Year Reckoning

ORIENTATION When I first considered myself a socialist revolutionary in 1970, I was hounded by free marketers’ challenge: “name me one country where socialism works”. These market fundamentalists would then hold up the most strident expectations for socialism: Everyone is exactly equal with no classes. There is an abundance of goods which are conveniently circulated. Political rule is not dictatorial.[Read More…]

by 12/12/2020 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
(Photo: Mr. Fish / Truthdig)

My New 25% Solution

Please remember that in 1961 when JFK took office the top bracket for federal income tax was at 90%. Now, we all should know that no one in that top bracket actually paid at 90%. That is what a slew of deductions and bright accountants were for. When Reagan took office he was able to lower the top bracket down[Read More…]

by 12/12/2020 Comments are Disabled World
The Revolutionary Potential of Hope and Utopia

The Revolutionary Potential of Hope and Utopia

We live in disconcerting times. The wealth of USA’s 643 billionaires has soared by 29% since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. On 13 August, 2020, the top twelve US billionaires had surpassed a combined wealth of $1 trillion. This year, the world’s 500 richest people have grown their fortunes by $871 billion, a 15% increase. All this while, the[Read More…]

by 12/12/2020 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
The Twin Essence of Our Times

The Twin Essence of Our Times

The pestilence of COVID-19 has not only revealed the failures of capitalism but also exuberated over all institutions of capitalism. The culture of crisis and conflicts are organic to capitalism. Capitalist systems are antithetical to the idea of peace, prosperity and stability. The Coronavirus infused lockdown is a time to reflect on emanating crisis and conflicts across the world. Some[Read More…]

by 01/12/2020 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Invasion of the body snatchers: How political science and neoclassical economics zombifies the Yankee population

Invasion of the body snatchers: How political science and neoclassical economics zombifies the Yankee population

ORIENTATION Why do political science and neoclassical economics go in one ear and out the other? A human being who has a fully integrated social body understands that economics is about a social system of circulation of goods and services. In other words, provisioning for the population.  Politics is the collective process of evaluating and deciding a) where have we[Read More…]

by 26/11/2020 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
“Forcible Hindrances”: On the Structural Violence of Capitalism and how People respond to it

“Forcible Hindrances”: On the Structural Violence of Capitalism and how People respond to it

In his 1845 book “The Condition of the Working Class in England”, Friedrich Engels wrote: “When one individual inflicts bodily injury upon another, such injury that death results, we call the deed manslaughter; when the assailant knew in advance that the injury would be fatal, we call his deed murder. But when society places hundreds of proletarians in such a[Read More…]

by 22/11/2020 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Democracy and the Corporation

Democracy and the Corporation

“The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it.”                   Edward Dowling Of late we have been seeing many articles lamenting the role of the Press and Media in today’s society and complaining how it is[Read More…]

by 12/11/2020 Comments are Disabled World
 Capitalism is double-billing us: we pay from our wallets only for our future to be stolen from us

 Capitalism is double-billing us: we pay from our wallets only for our future to be stolen from us

Here is a word that risks deterring you from reading on much further, even though it may hold the key to understanding why we are in such a terrible political, economic and social mess. That word is “externalities”. It sounds like a piece of economic jargon. It is a piece of economic jargon. But it is also the foundation stone[Read More…]

by 26/10/2020 1 comment World
(Photo: Mr. Fish / Truthdig)

Liquid Capitalism: Everyone Drinks it, Swims in it, Drowns in it

The most radical socialists; Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters (Black, White, Latino or Asian); liberal and conservative zealots; diversity and equity gurus; pacifists; denizens of corporates and non-profits; rappers, rockers and country western musicians; Bernie Sanders; racists and White guilt pushers; Baptists, Catholics, and Muslims; children; bland K-16 teachers; members of the military; indeed, every social, cultural, political and economic[Read More…]

by 26/10/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Neoliberalism and its criminal confessions

Neoliberalism and its criminal confessions

                   The pandemic has shaken up the neoliberalism as an economic project of capitalism. The economic architecture of neoliberalism based on austerity, liberalisation, privatisation, and globalisation has failed to provide basic dignity of life in terms of basic health, education, home and food security. The rise of unemployment, hunger and homeless are the direct products of neoliberal economic policies followed[Read More…]

by 19/10/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Ye Are Many, They Are Few!

Ye Are Many, They Are Few!

A new freely downloadable book I would like to announce the publication of a new book, which discusses the question of how oligarchs maintain their grasp on an excessive share of wealth and power when, as Shelley pointed out, the have-nots are many, while the power-holders are few. http://eacpe.org/app/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Ye-are-Many-They-are-Few-by-John-Scales-Avery.pdf The Peterloo Massacre Rise, like lions after slumber In unvanquishable number![Read More…]

by 14/10/2020 Comments are Disabled Book Review
Amidst pandemic, while billions struggle for survival, billionaires’ wealth tops $10 trillion

Amidst pandemic, while billions struggle for survival, billionaires’ wealth tops $10 trillion

Billionaires are “smart” enough. Their wealth now, in this pandemic, tops trillions of dollars. A new report – Riding the Storm, billionaires insights 2020 – by UBS and PwC reveals that the world’s uber-rich have increased their already-huge fortunes by more than a quarter; and this “miracle” happened amidst the ongoing pandemic ravaging life of billions of the poor in[Read More…]

by 08/10/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Termites

Termites

Think about this: You know how spiders look, ditto for bees, ants and other assorted bugs. Yet, when it comes to termites, few of us can even sketch how they look. Meanwhile, every homeowner and tenant has to be on guard for these creatures, who will destroy the very structures they inhabit. Termites do their dirty deed always in semi[Read More…]

by 26/09/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Something In the Air

Something In the Air

A 1969 song written and sung by John ‘ Speedy ‘ Keen of the group Thunderclap Newman fits too well today… much too well: Call out the instigators Because there’s something in the air We’ve got to get together sooner or later Because the revolution’s here and you know it’s right And you know that it’s right We’ve got to[Read More…]

by 12/08/2020 1 comment World
Capitalist Philanthropy: A Means of Circumventing the State?

Capitalist Philanthropy: A Means of Circumventing the State?

On March 13, 2019, Azim Premji, Chairman of Wipro Limited and the third richest man in India (according to the Hurun India Rich List1) made an unusual announcement. The announcement was that he would set aside Rs 53,000 crore of his wealth for philanthropy. As a signatory to “Giving Pledge,” the philanthropic project started by Bill Gates and Warren Buffet,[Read More…]

by 04/08/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Globalisation of Capitalist Crises

Globalisation of Capitalist Crises

The post pandemic economic recovery looks uncertain and the economic growth projections look gloomy in every stretch of policy paradigm within capitalist imaginations. The strong and existing multilateral cooperation within the Westphalian international system is falling apart and facing its existential threats due to its entrenched Eurocentric bias, democratic deficits and institutional dominance by the erstwhile colonial powers. The world[Read More…]

by 29/07/2020 Comments are Disabled Globalisation
A few explanations on Bhabani Shankar Nayak’s article on crime, justice and capitalism

A few explanations on Bhabani Shankar Nayak’s article on crime, justice and capitalism

Countercurrents has posted an article – “Crime, Justice and Capitalism” – by Mister Bhabani Shankar Nayak (Coventry University, UK) on July 12, 2020, which deserves a few explanations. The spirit and orientation of the article – anti-capitalism – is nice. It joins today’s millions tormented and tortured by capitalism. The voice must be appreciated. However, a few points raised in[Read More…]

by 23/07/2020 5 comments World
We Have Met the Enemy….’

We Have Met the Enemy….’

And he be US!’ The late great cartoonist and political satirist Walt Kelly created his Pogo comic strip that ran from 1948 to 1975. Pogo was syndicated and seen by millions each day. One famous Pogo was the aforementioned ‘ We have met the enemy… and he be US!’ How true it has always been for us working stiffs. The[Read More…]

by 16/07/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Crime, Justice and Capitalism

Crime, Justice and Capitalism

The right-wing henchmen and their liberal brethren provide moral justifications for extra judicial deaths during colonial plunders and imperialist wars. From Iraq wars to the killing of Osama Bin Laden, and from honour killings to domestic violence, police encounters, and custodial deaths around the world are part of the same genealogy, that justifies violence on moral grounds. Colonialism as civilising[Read More…]

by 12/07/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Who got U.S. Paycheck Protection loans? They include Hedge funds and Kanye West

Who got U.S. Paycheck Protection loans? They include Hedge funds and Kanye West

COVID-19 pandemic is making the poor poorer and the rich richer. The following is such a story: An AP report said: “The U.S. government’s small business lending program has benefited millions of companies, with the goal of minimizing the number of layoffs Americans have suffered in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. Yet the recipients include many you probably would[Read More…]

by 08/07/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Finally: A Way Out of This Mess!!

Finally: A Way Out of This Mess!!

First off, this writer is simply a Socialist- not a Marxist or Trotskyite or Stalinist, Leninist or whatever flavor of left wing tastes there are. All of them are categorically better than what we here in Amerika ( and most of the industrialized world) live under. That being Corporate Capitalism On Steroids! Yes, what Adam Smith proselytized hundreds of years[Read More…]

by 07/07/2020 1 comment World
Image Courtesy: Graffiti on a wall in Toronto. | C.J. Atkins / PW

 The Political Economy of the Pandemic

The world wide covid19 outbreak has once again exposed the hopelessness of Western capitalist economies.  While the socialist one prioritizes public health and social welfare, the other seeks profit even in the time of pandemic. The magnitude of the repercussions of this greed for profit is yet to be understood. Why is there such a drastic difference in responding to[Read More…]

by 13/06/2020 1 comment World
A Strategy for Global Democracy and Wealth Sharing

A Strategy for Global Democracy and Wealth Sharing

  It is time for power to the people! Global capitalist inequality contributes directly to health pandemics, environmental degradation, and mass poverty. Elite-corporate oligarchs control the governments and political parties. They use established militarized police states to protect their vast empires of property and money worldwide. The global one percent own half of the world’s wealth, and the richest 10[Read More…]

by 07/06/2020 Comments are Disabled World
 “No. It’s Capitalism, Stupid.”

 “No. It’s Capitalism, Stupid.”

The title is a riff on James Carville’s disingenuous (and stupid) phrase from 1992 when he was Bill Clinton’s campaign director. Carville’s pithy quip, “It’s the economy, stupid,”  became the campaign’s de facto slogan. It functioned as a clever ruse to help Clinton beat Bush by pandering to workers and creating the impression that his policies would actually help them.[Read More…]

by 18/05/2020 Comments are Disabled World
Reality in the Time of Covid-19

Reality in the Time of Covid-19

  First the good. There’s an outpouring of spontaneous actions, large and small, to feed the hungry, help the desperate, aid seniors, the economically afflicted. There is public art and and an endless steam of performances, gatherings and flash mobs on line. Mask Oakland distributes N95 Masks to the homeless. In Aurora Colorado, librarians assemble kits of essentials for seniors[Read More…]

by 18/05/2020 Comments are Disabled World
A Milestone for Global Capitalism

A Milestone for Global Capitalism

Exciting news for capitalism is the recent achievement of trillion-dollar value for both Amazon and Apple, making them the first corporations to obtain such a lofty status. Amazon’s skyrocketing growth makes its CEO, Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest person with an $160 billion net worth. Driving the engine of global wealth concentration are giant transnational investment management firms. In 2017,[Read More…]

by 26/09/2018 1 comment World
How a Free Market Inevitably Produces Dictatorship

How a Free Market Inevitably Produces Dictatorship

Who rules the land? A deeper and truer version of this question is: What rules the land? Is it the money (the aristocracy), or is it the people (the public, the residents on that land)? (For the interest of paleoconservatives, the issue of residents’ citizenship will come later here, as “immigrants” instead of as “citizenship”; but our basic focus is[Read More…]

by 22/08/2018 Comments are Disabled World
Living by One’s Own Truth: Capitalism equals Corruption

Living by One’s Own Truth: Capitalism equals Corruption

Small and marginal farmers, sharecroppers, landless labourers and other farm and forest workers in India are the single largest natural resource being exploited for capitalist accumulation in India. The market pays the manual work of those who produce their own food and that of others at below social reproduction cost. This is a fundamental market failure in relation to the[Read More…]

by 21/06/2018 1 comment Life/Philosophy
Capitalism’s Failure Of The Flesh: The Rise Of The Robots

Capitalism’s Failure Of The Flesh: The Rise Of The Robots

  Humankind, being an inherently tool-making species, has always been in a relationship with technology. Our tools, weapons, machines, and appliances are crucial to forging the cultural criteria of human life. At present, amid the technology created phantomscape of mass media’s lurid — yet somehow sterile — imagery, one can feel as if one’s mind is in danger of being[Read More…]

by 10/12/2017 2 comments Life/Philosophy
AMERICAN DOLLAR BILLS BURNING

Raj Patel On How To Break Away From Capitalism

Capitalism has been the world’s dominant economic system for more than 700 years. And as it brings the planet to new crises, author Raj Patel believes it’s important to imagine what might replace it. But reform won’t happen unless we understand capitalism’s appeal and historical rise, says Patel, a food justice activist and professor at the University of Texas at[Read More…]

by 05/11/2017 1 comment Life/Philosophy
 2 or 3 Things I Know About Capitalism (with apologies to Jean-Luc Godard) 

 2 or 3 Things I Know About Capitalism (with apologies to Jean-Luc Godard) 

  A number of recent, press articles, including an over 8,000-word feature piece in The New York Times have asked, to quote the Times’ headline, “Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Severe Anxiety?” Although the question was proffered, the reporters and editors responsible for the articles remain resolutely obtuse to the obvious: The bughouse crazy environment of[Read More…]

by 18/10/2017 Comments are Disabled Life/Philosophy
Capitalism And Its Discontents: What Are We Living For?

Capitalism And Its Discontents: What Are We Living For?

“Whoever is not prepared to talk about capitalism should also remain silent about fascism?” -Max Horkheimer, from the essay “The Jews and Europe”, December 1939 Aren’t we all tired of capitalism? Haven’t most of us gotten sick of the drudgery, the monotony, the exploitation, sucking up to our bosses and management who pretend to care about the average worker? The[Read More…]

by 10/08/2017 2 comments Counter Solutions
Jeff Bezos, Global Elites And Revolution

Jeff Bezos, Global Elites And Revolution

The morning papers bring me the news that Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world. Actually he overtook Bill Gates for a few hours on Thursday as the richest person on earth as the Amazon share prices rose. Bill Gates regained his position as the richest person later in the day. So what the[Read More…]

Lies That Capitalists Tell Us

Lies That Capitalists Tell Us

Please share these counter-arguments far and wide, in order to educate your fellow citizens, and, if necessary, to provide the intellectual beat-downs needed when arguing with pro-capitalists. So without further ado, here is our list of the most devious “Lies that Capitalists Tell Us”:

by 12/07/2017 Comments are Disabled World
Revisiting Capitalism

Revisiting Capitalism

  Capitalism is dead. Period. It can no longer serve humanity without destroying the world. As an economic system it is essentially bankrupt. All the lies and all the shoring up of the lies are not going to make a difference to the truth: pursuit of the path of Capitalism means doom not only for the poor of the world,[Read More…]

by 15/06/2017 2 comments Counter Solutions
Where We Are And How We Got Here

Where We Are And How We Got Here

Following are excerpts from the Freedom Socialist Party document “Standing on the Edge of Something Big,” adopted at FSP’s September 2016 convention. These sections analyze the political and economic nature of the times and the history leading up to today’s reality. Others examine the decline of capitalist democracy; the 2016 elections; the upsurge in class conflict and social activism; and[Read More…]

by 08/02/2017 1 comment World
How Anti-Capitalists Can Seize The Moment As Trump Enters The White House

How Anti-Capitalists Can Seize The Moment As Trump Enters The White House

In 2000, I was 17 years old. I didn’t know the first thing about politics, history, or social change. My first preference in the U.S. Presidential Election was for George W. Bush.[i] Somehow in my ignorance I had figured out that the Democrats were the more popular party, and I reviled what was popular. The President for the last eight[Read More…]

by 12/01/2017 1 comment World
Notes On Modern Day Capitalism

Notes On Modern Day Capitalism

              The current economic crisis has been interpreted variously. To most of the analysts it is merely a crisis of the new globalized financial system and the absence of any effective global regulatory mechanism. Another variant of the theme points the finger to the policy of completely freeing the American corporate, especially the financial corporate, oligarchy of any regulatory[Read More…]

by 05/01/2017 1 comment World
Capitalism or Life

Capitalism or Life

The global socioeconomic system of capitalism, is forcing us to work harder to surpass previous consumption and population numbers until we have devoured everything that maintains life, ending up with a polluted, lifeless, and a scorched planet. Civilisation’s present and ultimate mode, capitalism is the system that can only lead us to our annihilation. This isn’t any individual’s, or any[Read More…]

by 13/11/2016 1 comment Life/Philosophy
The Elephant In The Room Is Capitalism. Maybe.

The Elephant In The Room Is Capitalism. Maybe.

I’d been hoping to pay another visit to the Peasant’s Republic of Wessex, but red tape has been holding me up at the border so it’ll have to wait probably for another couple of weeks. Instead, I thought I’d offer a few top-of-the-head thoughts on Felicity Lawrence’s recent article about agricultural pesticide use in The Guardian – or, more specifically,[Read More…]

by 11/10/2016 6 comments Counter Solutions
Work, Energy, Money And Climate Change

Work, Energy, Money And Climate Change

  I was travelling in Europe last month, and was very disappointed by what I saw and heard. There is a lack of unity between Western workers and the workers of the world. The gap between the prosperity of a few highly professionalised workers in the West who are more and more aligned with the capitalists and managers, and the[Read More…]

by 08/09/2016 3 comments Climate Change