Capitalism is not in a position to solve the social and ecological crisis that it is causing. An open-ended transformation of the system is inevitable, and a struggle for transformation will be waged – especially against the fascist threat. Conscious reflection on the systemic crisis is the best antidote to the conspiratorial crisis talk of the New Right.
Russia's victory in an economic war (tags)
If perspectives for ways out of the increasingly worsening crises of capitalist socialization are to emerge, it is indispensable to look at the whole of conditions and their complex entanglements. It is necessary to break with the myths and life lies of the 'free West' as well as with those of a mission for a Russian empire or any other autocratic fundamentalism.
Climate catastrophe and `freedom of consumption' (tags)
It is not five to twelve, but five past twelve, as philosopher Slavoj Žižek writes. The fact that climate change is a fact (the details may well be debated) and poses a serious threat to humanity is something that the last fool should have realized by now.1 It is also clear that the emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gases must be radically and rapidly reduced.
Loss of reality and bellicism (tags)
Ukraine is "worn out" here while it is supposed to fight a proxy war "until the last Ukrainian" and is equipped for this with weapons, ammunition, financial means, etc.... None of this is even remotely realistic.
The contradictory capitalist mode of production is thus not only the driving force[11] behind the mounting debt and economic crises,[12] it is also the cause of the unfolding climate catastrophe. “Man-made” climate change is in large part the result of the social system.
Pause for Thought: Money without Value in a Rapidly Disintegrating World (tags)
The tanking economy is the cause of these “misfortunes”. What we are sold as external threats is in fact the ideological projection of the internal limit of capitalist modernity. In systemic terms, emergency addiction keeps the comatose body of capitalism artificially alive
"One must expect a tsunami of global inflation, further impoverishment and mass migration (of cheap labor) - and all of this will be blamed on Putin. One must expect the return of pandemic threats that support ongoing efforts to globalize vaccine passports and the digitization of life."
The subjectless rule of capital and Working class hero (tags)
Fortunately, his death did not silence him. The opposite is the case. Because John Winston Lennon became more immortal through the assassination than he already was as a member of the most successful band of all times. Not a martyr - but a working class hero.
The attacks on Nord Stream and the elephant in the room (tags)
In an interview with Berliner Zeitung, U.S. economist Jeffrey Sachs said that destroying Nord Stream would be contrary to Russia's interests; the country would lose "income, financial assets & bargaining power." The U.S., would "benefit strategically and financially."
Spiral downward and No exit! (tags)
The austerity dictates imposed on the Eurozone are only exacerbating the crisis they are supposed to be fighting. The austerity measures are leading to a collapse in domestic demand.
Total Competition or Repressive Administration of People (tags)
An awareness of the monstrosities of our glorious capitalist society is the first prerequisite for thinking beyond that society.:..The regularities of capitalist society are not laws of nature, so they can be abolished in principle. With such abolition, a new society can become possible.
Hysterical Populism and the Appetite of Leviathan (tags)
The relationship between economy and social order has been turned upside down: economy is no longer a function of an overarching culture, but conversely, "human society has sunk to being an accessory of the economic system" (Karl Polanyi). RK was founder of Exit & Krisis blogs.
Making yourself comfortable in capitalism (tags)
"Whoever has a wife should behave as if he had none, ... whoever buys as if he were not the owner, whoever makes use of the world as if he did not use it" (1 Cor 7:29f). Paul is speaking here to people who were "called" as slaves into the messianic church (1 Cor 7:21).
Myths of the Crisis and Enemy Images in the Media (tags)
The Ukrainian ambassador was quoted in the FAZ as saying: "All Russians are now our enemies". This rhetoric is classic enemy image cultivation... This homogenization is so pre-Enlightenment and always wrong.
A new quality of crisis (tags)
From the systemic urge to self-destruction arises the survival necessity of the emancipatory overcoming of capital. The capitalist regime of constraint must be transformed into history. The struggle for the transformation of the system has to be the central moment of left practice.
Labor fetish and anti-semitism (tags)
"Work makes you free" was written above the gate of the Auschwitz death camp. How did the Nazis come up with that? Isn't work something meaningful, something good? What does it have to do with Auschwitz, of all places? Because work and meaningful activity are, two different things.
Ukraine: A war for the disintegrating world order (tags)
The consequences of rearmament and economic sanctions are foreseeable: among other things, the aggravation of crises through higher economic burdens. They can already be seen in the form of price increases for heating oil, fuel and gas.
A radical peace movement is needed more than ever (tags)
The prevention of Ukraine's integration into NATO is likewise not a snap idea of an irrationally acting Russian President Vladimir Putin, but a basic consensus within the Russian state oligarchy.
Interview on The Black Book of Capitalism (tags)
The book is: 1) a history of the three great industrial revolutions (introduction of the manufacturing system with the steam engine at the beginning of the 19th century, Fordist “self-mobilization” with the assembly line and the rationalization and the microelectronic revolution.
The Last Stage of the Middle Class (tags)
Money capital is fleeing into the speculative financial markets because investments in new factories have become unprofitable. While growing parts of society are impoverished or even impoverished outside of production, only a simulative accumulation of capital through financial bubbles takes place...
Capital is losing its capacity for productive investment and is turning to the financial markets, which are more profitable. It is with this money that the war machine and the trade deficit are financed. The US is under great pressure to constantly show that it is in control.
System Transformation or Barbarism (tags)
Overcoming capital is thus a necessity for survival. Consequently, the climate question is not a question of burden sharing, it is not a question of social security. The global exploitation process of capital, in which resources and energy are burned to make more money...
Capitalist crisis policy is ultimately in a crisis trap... The central banks' billion-dollar "quantitative easing" may have prevented the collapse of the world financial system in 2020, but it is only a postponement of the crisis.
Criminal banks and criminal capitalism (tags)
Since the 1970s, the real economy and the financial economy have been increasingly diverging. Gigantic assets vagabond around the globe, desperately looking for profitable investment opportunities.
Alternatives to capitalism: Buen vivir (tags)
Capitalism is seen primarily as a system of institutional and racist oppression, and it implies a way of life that sees nature only as a raw material to be exploited. The claim is thus to break with the capitalist mode of production and life in order to create "other forms of life."
The Last Stage of the Middle Class (tags)
The emancipatory overcoming of the modern commodity-producing system and the associated separation requires a social intervention on a high level. The second article "The Collapse of Modernization" was published in Oct 2004. Robert Kurz, editor of the German leftist Krisis journal, died too early at 69.
The discussion about Corona (tags)
Corona can only become a kairos if we gain the theoretical capacity of recovery and create the conditions for a transformation. Taking the healthcare system away from the markets and obliging large companies to be oriented in the common good would be steps to infrastructure socialism.
The System Question as a Survival Question (tags)
A fundamental social alternative to the permanent capitalist chaos is sought. A rational social discourse on system alternatives would be an antidote to populism and to the irrational identity-mania that spreads. The public discusses headscarves while late capitalism sinks in crisis
Work and Digitalization and A Corpse Governs Society (tags)
On the 2018 Day of Labor, many were worried. No one can deny digitalization affects work. Artificial intelligence greatly changes professions and whole branches. Well-paid jobs become scarcer. Rebuilding the social state seems necessary. Capitalism's blind flight through history is ending.
"We live in an unstable world, and the instability is going to increase. it is a world where a billion people feel hungry everyday, and the hunger is going to increase. In mid 2007, a number of banks suddenly discovered they could not balance their books and stopped lending..."
Self-Determination Means Market Determination (tags)
We face the continuing dissolution of traditional types, forms and rules, not a new type, a new form or a new rule... What was once called estrangement or objectification should appear as workers' own interest. .. Karl Polanyi spoke of a dis-embedded economy.
Financial Market Inflammation (tags)
Bubble formation covered up a period of long-lasting stagnation... Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers even spoke of stagnation as a "new normality"... The crisis consequences are shifted to other subjects. Unemployment and indebtedness are exported.
Capitalism as a Secularized Religion (tags)
It is never too early or too late to challenge the dominant narrative. Capitalism is a fetish social formation, a demolishing of being not a reform of being. Capitalism may be the first case of an indebted cult, not an atoning cult, possibly the most bloodthirsty cult of humanity's history.
Against Growth Mania and Fair Redistribution (tags)
How can we rebuild our society so we manage with less growth and not collapse when growth does not occur? Consumption beyond a certain level is pathological, a compensation or substitute for missed life (cf. Erich Fromm).
"The barbaric core of capitalist socialization is on full display in the present system crisis. The propagandists of totalitarian economism come in the mask of democrats. Economic-profitability thinking is imposed on society. Our society has long been viewed as a business."
The End of the "Golden Age" of Capitalism and the Rise of Neoliberalism (tags)
"The central point is that the financial sphere has the potential of developing into an autonomous subsystem of the whole economy with an enormous capacity of self-expansion..Like cancer, it has no internal control mechanism. It can only be brought under control by external interventions"
Between Austerity Mania and Megalomania (tags)
The more capitalism invokes its rationality, the more irrational it seems to be. Fewer and fewer persons handle more and more tasks. This savings mania was forced to the detriment of quality controls. The economy should be a part of life, not a steamroller crushing self-determination
The End of Illusion and the Beginning of the Future (tags)
Elite democracy with its corruption of wealth distribution, language and community is not the last word. The future could be a human future of a social contract, not a war of wolves against each other. Access could replace excess.
Miguel d'Escoto's Last Address as President of the 63rd UN General Assembly (tags)
A new world is possible and a new economics is necessary! As prejudice and narcissism can be gradually overcome, breaking the chains of profit worship, monopoly capital and empire building can bring hope and a new day for all people.
From Obsuristan to Absurdistan: Barbarism or Human Future (tags)
Individual security can be emphasized so global vision fades. Half-truths and fish stories carry the day. "Communism is oppression of many by man and capitalism is just the reverse." Our challenge is to reawaken wonder and interdependence, to consider the way of nonviolent resistance.
From Real Estate Speculation to Collapse of Global Deficit Economy (tags)
Joy to the world, the world of fallen idols and bubble transfer. The truth will set us free but the truth is a process, not a cudgel or stimulus. After the dot-com bubble, trillions were "invested" in real estate speculation. The crisis of the work society is the background for low interests.
Today's internationalization of capital is part of a drastic crisis process.. In the 1970s, several hundred so-called multis existed worldwide. Today there are 60,000 multi-national businesses with 50 million employees.