Essays on economic crisis, decoding dominant ideologies and creating a better world
Class warfare continues to be waged incessantly. And that war’s offensives continue to be more intense. In just the past year, the world’s working people have seen more attacks on the rights of free speech and assembly, more attacks on civil liberties, more arrests and imprisonments, more refusals to engage in collective bargaining with unions … … Continue reading →
When he ran for president in 2012, Mitt Romney famously declared that corporations are people. What brought laughter then has begun to be reality today, however. A little noticed court decision in Delaware confirmed that corporations have the right to vote in that state. I wish this was a joke. But it’s not funny at … … Continue reading →
The annual climate summits attended by government officials and fossil fuel representatives have long been a farce. Lots of talking, followed by vows to finally do something meaningful about global warming although doing little of actual substance. The last one, held in Belém, Brazil, was particularly dispiriting with Saudi Arabia leading the petrostates seeking to … … Continue reading →
What are we voting for when we participate in elections? This question seems particularly pertinent these days for Left political activists in light of the recent victories of self-proclaimed democratic socialists, most notably the successful mayoral campaigns of Zohran Mamdani and Katie Wilson. Socialism is not something that can be voted in. The attempt of … … Continue reading →
Ever since Eric Williams published his book Capitalism and Slavery, which demonstrated to those more inclined to weigh evidence rather than ideology that slavery was a crucial prop to the Industrial Revolution, there has been a continual pushback. There is no surprise in that. The fiction that capitalism is a “natural” manifestation of “human nature” … … Continue reading →
Another climate summit has mercifully ended. As with past summits, nothing of substance happened. The United States did not participate, meaning that the Trump administration technically could not thwart any attempt to block meaningful decision-making, but that was no problem for the Trump gang as Saudi Arabia was there to pick up the ball. Any … … Continue reading →
Increasingly, the United States and the European Union leverage their dominance in the world capitalist system to impose sanctions on other countries. Political leaders who impose these sanctions sometimes argue that sanctions are a “more humane” alternative to war. But that is not necessarily so. Sanctions are war by another name. How deadly are sanctions? … … Continue reading →