When is Capitalism not Capitalism?
As used by right-wing apologists for “free market capitalism” (an oxymoron if ever there was one), capitalism is the source of everything good in the world — but also something that never existed.
As used by right-wing apologists for “free market capitalism” (an oxymoron if ever there was one), capitalism is the source of everything good in the world — but also something that never existed.
As long as capitalism has existed, in whichever form, there have been a great many voices of dissent, movements and thinkers crying out and struggling against what they have seen as an unjust, exploitative and destructive system.
In his new book Empire of Cotton: A Global History, Sven Beckert reinterprets the history of global capitalism through the lens of cotton, the commodity at the center of the Industrial Revolution.
Jim Koplin, who developed the most comprehensive and consistent radical left/feminist/anti-racist/ecological politics of anyone I have ever known, talked with great affection about his time as a bank teller.
A growing group of elite storytellers present radical solutions to global problems, but their ideas actually inhibit real change and strengthen the status quo.
Given that the overall objective of this economic system is not the fulfilment of needs or the promotion of individual flourishing but the endless accumulation of capital, a school system that feeds this machine can neither be centred on children’s learning needs, nor on the development of their personalities.
(Round-up) Urban gardening in Greece – a new form of protest / Solidarity economy takes root in Greece / Paul Mason: The end of capitalism has begun / John Holloway: Cracking capitalism
We are entering a new era in which the current way we run our economy won’t work.
It seems that the rumbling story about HSBC’s Swiss branch has achieved what political pollsters know as “cut through” – meaning that it’s of interest to voters as well as to those reporters who are sentenced to watch Prime Minister’s Questions each week.
This is the vicious circle of capitalism, which is speeding up the destruction of the commons, driven by a world economy based on consumption and growth.
The attraction of profit in the short-term overwhelms longer-term considerations, even for the most “enlightened” of businesspeople.
…Rates of global inequality are simply unprecedented. And neoliberalism is to blame.