Militarization and rearmament must be confronted (tags)
Mysticism always fertilizes the political through its transcending power. What is meant by this is that it not only points beyond the status quo, but also questions the conditions in their foundations and overall architecture. Mystical thinking always introduces a hint of how things could be.
8 points for a global agenda of structural change in the COVID-19 pandemic (tags)
"We can have democracy or concentration of wealth, not both," said Justice Louis Brandeis, the longest-serving Supreme Court justice."
Is Economic Speculation a Form of Structural Violence? (tags)
According to neoclassical economic theory, the financial markets return to equilibrium. Problems only occur because of state intervention. The roaring twenties led to an enormous stock euphoria. In 2018, companies inflate their stocks in a $70 billion stock buy back program.
Growing Inequality Harms the Political Economy (tags)
Neoliberalism and finance market capitalism encourage creating money out of thin air, exploding inequality, precarious work and environmental destruction. Wages are not only a cost factor but an important demand factor leading to either investments or social blight.
Labor Solidarity in Neoliberal Structural Change (tags)
The self-regulating market and the invisible hand were neoliberal theories of Frederick August von Hayek and Milton Friedman. Submission to the market was described as a natural law, as natural and self-evident as the rotation of the planets. Solidarity and unions were decried as barriers.
The Competition Ideology - the Greatest Evil of our Age (tags)
The competition ideology has been hammered into our heads for thirty years. Claiming better outcomes are generally realized when everything is poisoned by the competitive is pure ideology. Competition that exceeds the limits of its useful fields orders murderous measures.
The Keynesian past is past: Nostalgia is not the future (tags)
Keynesianism would be much better than austerity, but would do nothing to solve the underlying structural crisis of capitalism.
The IMF Dictates More Than Ever (tags)
"Many developing countries that were independent in food production at the start of the 1980s import food necessary for their populations today. The subsidized agriculture of western countries has flooded the cou9ntries of the South. Haiti imports the rice that it once cultivated.."
When I was recently named chairman of the Committee on Overseas Workers’ Affairs of the House of Representatives of the Philippines, I was approached by members of the press for my views on migrant labor. I remembered a speech I delivered last year at the Global Forum for Migration and Development in Athens, Greece. The thrust of the speech was that migrants’ rights have to be addressed on two fronts: ending the neoliberal policies that are responsible for creating poverty in their home countries, thus forcing them to emigrate, and demanding that they are given full rights in their host countries.
The "return of the state" as crisis administrator (tags)
The prodigious inflation in the financial markets over the last 30 years was not caused by wilful or incorrect political decisions, but is the expression of a structural crisis of the valorisation of capital, a crisis that began with the end of the post-war Fordist boom.
IMF out of the Philippines and South countries now, protesters demand (tags)
On the occasion of the Annual Meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) together with the World Bank in Singapore, the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC) and other civil society organizations blame “the Fund” for being the single most influential factor for the worsening poverty in the Philippines and other countries in the South.
The Meaninglessness of Actiivism/Slacktivism (tags)
Do you (or anyone else out in the mental wasteland known as the world leader, the beacon of democracy, the land of opportunity – Nazi America) have a view, a perspective, a politics, an interest, a truth, a belief, - or anything you will stand for, die for?
George Orwell in "1984" warned that criticism ahnd dissent would be expunged from memories and children would be born for Big Brother. In capitalism's last phase, the myth of the self-healing market drowns out alternatives of a future-friendly economy.
Former Bush Team Member-WTC Collapse Likely A Controlled Demolition (tags)
author: Greg Szymanski Highly recognized former chief economist in Labor Department now doubts official 9/11 story, claiming suspicious facts and evidence cover-up indicate government foul play and possible criminal implications.
Globalization and the Sex Trade:Trafficking and the Commodification of Women and Children (tags)
In this important article, Richard Poulin, professor of sociology at the University of Ottawa (Canada), argues that the sex industry, previously considered marginal, has come to occupy a strategic and central position in the development of international capitalism.
The social construction of consciousness (tags)
This paper gives a theoretical discussion of the source and methodology of the social construction of consciousness. The first section introduces the piece. The second establishes the relationship between "interests" and "consciousness." The third describes growing inequality in the US. The fourth develops the structural source of consciousness. The fifth details the interlocking nature of politics and economy in the US. The sixth section discusses how our consciousness can be constructed. The final section offers some solutions.
Seizing the Historical Moment - Anuradha Mittal, Food First (tags)
Anuradha Mittal, co-director of Food First, has been studying the effects of structural adjustment abroad for years. In this interview, she takes on structural adjustment at home, the relationship between the conventions and the larger global movement, corporate media’s effects, building solidarity globally and the power of independent media.