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The main contradiction of capitalism and proof of its insufficiently examined irrationality is that, as a system of social organization, it defines success and social well-being as "constant economic growth"—although it's obvious that such idea is plainly impossible in a very fragile and finite planet. By definition, capitalist dynamics is at loggerheads with nature. |
ECONOMICS DEMYSTIFIED: REDEEMING THE DISMAL SCIENCE
Mindful Economics by Joel C Magnuson A book review by Patrice Greanville “The richest one percent of this country owns half our country’s wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It’s bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own.”—Gordon Gekko to Bud Fox (Wall Street, 1987, directed by Oliver Stone) [READ ON] |
SPECIAL: Can the Working Class Change the World? By Michael D. Yates Radicals of every stripe believe that capitalist economies are incompatible with human liberation. That is, while human beings have enormous capacities to think and to do, capitalism prevents the vast majority of people from developing these capacities. Therefore if we want a society in which the full flowering of human competencies can become a reality, we will have to bring capitalism to an end and replace it with something radically different. [READ ON] |
| The People review Joel Kovel's THE ENEMY OF NATURE: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World? by Joel Kovel [Zed Books] Joel Kovel's "The Enemy of Nature" offers a powerful and unflinching eco-Marxist critique of the capitalist system. Concluding that the path of accumulation must inevitably lead to a world wide ecological crisis, the author theorizes about the type of "ecosocialist" system that must supplant capitalism in order to ensure humanity's survival. [READ ON] |
| THE NEW FACE OF CAPITALISM | By the editors of Monthly Review | For a long time now, the U.S. economy and the economies of the advanced capitalist world as a whole have been experiencing a slowdown in economic growth relative to the quarter-century following the Second World War. [READ ON] |
| AMERICA'S GROWING FRINGE ECONOMY | By Howard Karger | Financial services for the poor and credit-challenged are big business. Ron Cook is a department manager at a Wal-Mart store in Atlanta. Maria Guzman is an undocumented worker from Mexico; she lives in Houston with her three children and cleans office buildings at night. Marty Lawson works for a large Minneapolis corporation.(The names have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals.) What do these three people have in common? They are all regular fringe economy customers. | [READ ON] |
ENEMY TO 9/10 OF HUMANITY DIES | Steve Gowans | Milton Friedman, who was instrumental in providing the intellectual justification capitalist classes needed to claw-back the reforms they had conceded to labor in the post-WWII period, has died. Friedman’s neoliberalism – the idea that enterprises and markets must be free, and if they’re not, governments must intervene to make them so -- has two bookends. [READ ON]>>>>>[FOR MORE ARTICLES, CLICK HERE] |
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The Insane Economy
Spotlight on capitalism and its inevitable consequences
