Capitalism and Its Crisis Proclivity (tags)
The liberal economists of the 19th century claimed no crises could occur in capitalism since every supply creates its demand. On the other hand, Marx and Engels recognized early on the causes for crises in capitalism. The contradictions of the accumulation process lead to crises.
In the Towrope of the Financial Markets (tags)
"High growth has a well-known hook. Surpluses are only possible when natural resources from clear water to rare earth are available, when the energy supply is guaranteed and when the pollutant sinks are sufficient.. The debtors are now those states that had to become indebted.."
Cooperatives and the Good Life (tags)
The rights of businesses in exploiting resources end in the rights of nature according to the constitution of the bien vivir. This understanding of the person-nature relation surpasses the rationalist model of rule over nature realized in capitalism's globalized praxis. Art 395 of Ecuador's constitution affirms sustainability.
The financial crisis became an economic crisis and mutated into a state budget crisis when trillions were given to "system relevant" banks and private losses became public burdens. What is Plan B?How can the financial sector be shriveled? Can state banks (like NDakota) be a model?
Life after the Peak: Capitalism and the Market Economy (tags)
All over the world there are experiments with renewable energy, solidarity economies and non-profit economic forms. A growth acceleration law will be absurd when fossil energy runs out. We will need a growth de-acceleration law.
Political countervailing power of the G-millions against the economism of the neoliberals can only be formed with a long breath.. The grass grows from below; words fall empty from the top.
Risk Development and Dollar Inflation (tags)
Two articles by emeritus professor Elmar Altvater reveal the contradictions of credit or bubble prosperity in the counter-revolution of capital. As work cannot define us, competitiveness and profit maximization do not define the human experience Speculation could bring a new feudalism..
Calories on the Table, not in the Tank (tags)
For decades nearly all countries of the third world had to follow the "Washington Consensus"-a strategy of opening to the world market.. Wheat and corn land in the tank, not on the table. All of our dependence on the car appears here most perversely.
Capitalism changed into "finance-driven" capitalism. The profit rates for industrial capital fell in the past decades. Washington could be paralyzed under the debt yoke like Japan in the early 1990s. After decades of market idolization, the US has rediscovered political power.
"The End Game" by Elmar Altvater (tags)
Exodus from the fossil energy regime may not be entrance into a nuclear energy regime since that could lead to catastrophe. No one can exclude a new Chernobyl with 1300 new nuclear reactors by 2050. Elmar Altvater is an emeritus professor at the Free University of Berlin.
A redirection toward regenerative sources of energy is our ownly option. A conversion of energy production and a change of our way of life are indispensable. Energy autonomy is only possible with smaller units and democratic procedures of self-determined energy policy.
A skillful foreign policy keeps options open and avoids falling into cul-de-sacs.. German Middle East policy is more than unskillful. It is a catastrophe for everyone, for Germany, Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinians.
Another world is possible. This is directed against the famous and thoughtless assumption of the impossibility of alterna-tives at the "end of history".. The substance of societies is tapped for financial institutions.
The Fifth World Social Forum (tags)
In the debates hardly any doubt existed in Porto Alegre that this alternative solidarian economy cannot be an island in the furious ocean of the capitalist world market. Thisalternative economy needs state assistance.
Attention must now shift from security of the state to security of the people-human security The UNDP sees expansion of the security concept as a step to more peace and more prosperity and sets human security in the context of human development and hu rights.
Inflationary Deflation or the Dominance of the Global Financial Markets (tags)
"When real interests are above real growth rates of the GDP, debtors are structurally overstrained. The debt crisis of the 1980s and the financial crises of the past decade suggest that a kind of post-modern `plundering capitalism' is arising.."