-
A tale of two austerities
Theresa May’s recent claim that austerity is over is exposed as a lie as communities in the UK experience the horrible effects of the roll out of Universal Credit. In Ontario, austerity is a work in progress. What must be understood is that this attack doesn’t only impact the poorest people. It is a ruthless strategy to increase the supply of super exploited workers and, in doing so, depress wages generally.
-
Why capitalism must be attacked with equal force on every front
If we want a social system that is not alienating then we must look at what we have now as a whole, as an interconnected set or processes and institutions that are utterly alienating. They must be rejected root and branch, attacked all at once and all the time.
-
Neoliberalism’s dark path to fascism
Neoliberalism as economic theory was always an absurdity. None of its vaunted promises were even remotely possible. Concentrating wealth in the hands of a global oligarchic elite while demolishing government controls and regulations always creates massive income inequality and monopoly power, fuels political extremism and destroys democracy.
-
Conjuring up the next depression
This manufactured financial tsunami will transform the United States, already a failed democracy, into an authoritarian police state. Life will become very cheap, especially for the vulnerable who will be demonized and persecuted for the collapse. The elites, in a desperate bid to cling to their unchecked power and obscene wealth, will disembowel what is left of the United States.
-
Doug Ford’s new ‘poor laws’ replace basic income
The decision of the new Tory Government in Ontario to terminate the basic income pilot project confirms that the right is as divided as the left on this issue of social policy. The Doug Ford Tories form part of an international right wing opposition to BI that does not share the view of those within the neoliberal order that this form of income support could serve the needs of capitalist exploitation.
-
Energy economics
Entire cities are now running out of water, while others are violently flooded with far too much of it. Wildfires, droughts, pestilence, famines: climate change is already making these disasters bigger, stronger and more frequent. We are facing simply unprecedented levels of death, misery and collapse in already Dickensian living standards. Unless, of course, we take truly radical action.
-
The pharmaceutical industry in contemporary capitalism
The pharmaceutical industry has remained near or at the top of the list for profitability for many decades. The myth is that its profits come from producing and selling the many therapeutic advances that industry research has generated, but the reality is far different.
-
Canada’s five giant banks ought to be nationalized, not bailed out
Canada’s banking system is on the edge of a crisis, once again, with a collective debt of $1.8 trillion—and the public will be on the hook for most of it, sooner than most think. Last week, the Bank for International Settlements said Canada, Hong Kong and China’s banking systems are the world’s most at-risk of a severe crisis.
-
The next financial crisis will be worse than the last one
We’ve made it through 2017. The first-season installment of presidential Tweetville is ending where it began, on the Palm Beach, Fla., golf course of Mar-a-Lago. Though we are no longer privy to all the footage behind the big white truck, we do know that, given the doubling of its membership fees, others on the course will have higher stakes in the 2018 influence game.
-
Skip the Dishes: Poster child for precarious work
Low pay and instability keeps workers wondering if there isn’t a better deal somewhere else. Capitalism from the beginning has been driven by monopoly and efficiency. The digital job brokers of the sharing economy embody that same ethos. So while companies like SkipTheDishes suggest the inevitability of indentured digital labour, it’s up to the rest of us to organize and demand a future where technology and work are not needlessly contradictory terms.