The Nation
October 1, 2008

This year marks the 160th anniversary of The Communist Manifesto and capitalism — a k a “free enterprise” — seems willing to observe the occasion by dropping dead. On Monday night, some pundits were warning that the ATMs might run dry and hinting that the only safe investment left is canned beans. Apocalypse or extortion? No one seems to know, though the populist part of the populace has been leaning toward the latter. An e-mail whipping around the web this morning has the subject line “Sign on Wall Street yesterday,” and shows a hand-lettered cardboard sign saying, “JUMP! You Fuckers!” (Keep reading…)

MRZINE September, 2008

Just over a year since the beginning of the worst U.S. financial crisis since the Great Depression, and only six months after the federal bailout of Bear Stearns, the seizing up of credit markets continues. The failure of eight U.S. banks this year, including IndyMac, and the recent instability that struck the two government-sponsored mortgage giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, requiring a special government rescue operation, has had the entire financial world on edge. Mortgage-related losses by themselves “could cause a trillion dollars in credit to vaporize,” according to a special July 28, 2008, Business Week report. The downside effects of financial leveraging (the magnification of results associated with borrowed money) mean that each dollar lost by financial institutions could lead to reductions in lending of fifteen dollars or more, creating a shockwave so massive that it could reveal structural weaknesses throughout the economy. Already the economy is reeling, with faltering growth, a deep slump in housing, massive job losses, rapidly rising oil and consumer goods prices, and a falling dollar. (Keep reading…)

World Socialist Web Site 16 September 2008

The end of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, two of the largest Wall Street investment banks, one week after the government takeover of the mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, marks a new stage in the convulsive crisis of American capitalism. (Keep reading…)

Special to Canadian Dimension September 4, 2008

In 776BC, the Greeks first allegedly celebrated physical beauty alongside skill, courage, strength and will. The ethical character of their naked athletes would honor Zeus, top dog in the pantheon of Gods. Slaves did not qualify, of course, but Greek rulers offered an olive crown — peace — to the ancient equivalent of today’s metal medal winners. During the games, warring nations took a time-out. The TV competitor for the 2008 games featured war between Russia and Georgia. But the Olympic charter still calls for “sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.” (Keep reading…)

Monthly Review July/August, 2008

The 2007 assessment report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms that it is virtually certain that human activities (mainly through the use of fossil fuels and land development) have been responsible for the global warming that has taken place since the industrial revolution. Under current economic and social trends, the world is on a path to unprecedented ecological catastrophes.1 As the IPCC report was being released, new evidence emerged suggesting that climate change is taking place at a much faster pace and the potential consequences are likely to be far more dreadful than is suggested by the IPCC report. (Keep reading…)

Monthly Review June 2008

In trying to comprehend the virus of Islamophobia now infecting Europe, the small country of Denmark offers powerful insights. Shakespeare‚s phrase that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark” seems appropriate to describe the transformation taking place in this former bastion of tolerance and conviviality. (Keep reading…)

MRZINE June 9, 2008

The fact that Marx finally began with the composition of his long-planned economic work in the winter of 1857/1858 was directly occasioned by the economic crisis that broke out in the autumn of 1857 and the concomitant expectations of a deep trauma from which capitalism would no longer recover. “I am working like mad all night and every night collating my economic studies so that I at least get the outlines clear before the deluge,” wrote Marx to Engels in a letter from December of 1857 (MECW 40, p.217). The crisis of 1857/1858 was in fact the first true global economic crisis of modern capitalism, which involved all major capitalist countries of that time (England, the USA, France, and Germany). In the Grundrisse that emerged during this period, one can find the sole unambiguous passage of Marx’s work that can be understood as a theory of capitalist collapse (MECW 29, p.90 et sqq.). This collapse, Marx was convinced, would unleash revolutionary movements. In a letter to Ferdinand Lassalle from February of 1858, he even expressed his fear that in light of the expected “turbulent movements” his work would be finished “too late” and thus “find the world no longer attentive to such subjects” (MECW 29, p. 271). Marx was right about the fact that he wouldn’t finish his work (the first volume of Capital was published nine years later), but this first global crisis of capitalism led neither to a collapse of capitalism nor to any sort of revolutionary movement. The crisis had already been overcome in the early summer of 1858, and the capitalist system even came out of it enormously strengthened. Marx learned a lesson: in capitalism, crises function as brutal acts of purification. The destruction wreaked by crises removes previous impediments to accumulation and frees up new possibilities for capitalist development. (Keep reading…)

Climate and Capitalism April 1, 2008

“Climate change is both a threat and an opportunity to bring about the long postponed social and economic reforms that had been derailed or sabotaged in previous era” (Keep reading…)

World Socialist Web Site 7 March 2008

The richest four hundred American taxpayers have amassed immense wealth, and that amount is steadily increasing, according to figures reported by the Wall Street Journal Wednesday. (Keep reading…)

Asia Times January 24, 2008

The military adventurers of the George W Bush administration have much in common with the corporate leaders of the defunct energy company Enron. Both groups of men thought that they were the “smartest guys in the room”, the title of Alex Gibney’s prize-winning film on what went wrong at Enron. The neo-conservatives in the White House and the Pentagon outsmarted themselves. They failed even to address the problem of how to finance their schemes of imperialist wars and global domination. (Keep reading…)