Tag Archives: capitalism

I cannot stress enough that this elitist attitude towards society is a learned mindset, that comes with a sense of extreme entitlement, and not some inherited tendency. As it succeeds it can become contagious among those who are morally weak and easily influenced. Some good quotes. Jesse's Café AméricanAudacious Oligarchy: The Rules Are For the Little People Jesse

Milton Friedman was wrong. Capitalism doesn't foster freedom — it produces autocratic workplaces and tyrannical billionaires.... Another paradox of liberalism that arises from economic liberalism and affects social and political liberalism, too.JacobinCapitalist Freedom Is a Farce Rob Larson

This is a good historical backgrounder and it should be read for that reason alone. But Michael Roberts also brings up other issues that follow upon this history that are relevant to the current debate, at least some of which that have been brought up previously in the comments here. Highly recommended. As Maria Ivanova has shown, there remains a blind belief that the crisis-prone nature of the latter can be managed by means of ‘money artistry’, that is, by the manipulation of money,...

Big! We really need to be talking about this and examining assumptions and presuppositions that act as hidden assumptions. Yanis is a systems thinker. The Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages, Oxford University, kindly invited me to deliver the 2019 Taylor Lecture on 12th February 2019. I chose the topic of Realistic Utopias versus Dystopic Realities – my aim being to highlight the manner in which really-existing capitalism is marketed as a utopian science fiction that has nothing to...

More numbers sleight of hand. It should perhaps come as no surprise that, as capitalism has been called into question and socialism generated increasing interest during the past decade, capitalism’s defenders have resorted to a long historical view. Look, they say, how capitalist growth has decreased poverty and led to improvements in people’s lives around the globe. Just stick with it and all will eventually be well. That’s why, as Jason Hickel points out, the above infographic, based on...

A perennial question for Marxists is how to overturn capitalism. Will institutional changes that improve the lot of workers but fall short of ending capitalism immediately help or harm this cause? To the extent that social struggle is a learning-by-doing process, it may be that the securing of small gains can whet the appetite for more significant gains and that institutional reforms of a transformational nature can place revolution on a more secure footing if and when it does occur. But...

Capitalism is an economic system that favor capital (ownership) over labor (people) and land (the environment) because capital formulation generates growth and "a rising tide lifts all boats" (trickle down). Socialism is an economic system that favors labor (people) and land (the environment) over capital (ownership) because the economic system is the life-support system of society and needs to be subjected to the comprehensive needs of society, which are social and political in addition...

Nice find.The Case for Concerted ActionJason Hickel — A Letter To Steven Pinker (And Bill Gates For That Matter) About Global PovertyV. Ramanan

The image below summarizes Marx's works in a nutshell: his societal development model goes through several stages, from some early societies (e.g. slavery) to feudalism, to capitalism, to socialism, and finally to communism. At a very high level, this model is correct. Two "communists", Lenin and Mao, capitalized on this model more than anybody else. Both eventually failed for the same reason: They jumped from feudalism to socialism via a violent revolution that destroyed capitalism,...

This essay is based upon arguments made in Chapter 2 (“Some Theoretical Considerations”) of my book, Can the Working Class Change the World? Good article by Marxian Michael D. YatesI would say that if it has any failing, it understates the dystopian effect of "capitalism" as a system that favors capital (ownership) over labor (people) and land (the environment). That kind of system, which takes many forms, e.g., classical economic liberalism and contemporary neoliberalism, is is a recipe...