The work of Richard Wolff and Stephen Resnick contains some insights for socialists but it is not Marxian economics and is not socialist. The late twentieth-century saw the demise of many governments that viewed themselves as heirs of the ideas of Karl Marx. The failure of these regimes was...
It is hard to tell what is real in the ongoing Korean ‘crisis’ and what is contrived. Up to a point – after all, it is in no one’s interest to frighten the markets too badly – it suits both sides to foster a sense of crisis. For Kim...
To understand capitalism Marx employed three key concepts: constant capital (c), variable capital (v), and surplus value (s). By “constant” capital he meant that part of a firm’s capital invested in workplace buildings, plant, machinery, raw materials and energy. He called this “constant” because the value of these products...
Below is an interview with a comrade of ours who explains his progression from being a member of the IRA, through Trotskyism to a World Socialist position. Discussion between Richard (Dick) Montague and Ciaran Crossey Belfast, 21 November 1987 CC I was given your name as a socialist activist...
Well, I just had to do it: go see this movie everyone was talking about. Let’s just say that Argo has more in common with Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream than with Jason and the Argonauts searching for the golden fleece. The film features a fake movie (“Argo”) “produced”...
“I treat the ridiculous seriously when I treat it with ridicule.” Marx explained in “On Freedom of the Press and Censorship.” Born on 5 May 1818, Karl Marx died 14th March 1883 after a long illness, his end undoubtedly being hastened by the death of his wife in 1881...
The formula ‘socialism of the 21st century’ encapsulates the hopes that many leftists throughout the world placed in President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and his so-called ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ or ‘Bolivarian Process’. (‘Bolivarian’ refers to Simon Bolivar, commander of the army that defeated the Spaniards in 1821 and won independence...
It is now 2 years since Syrians began to demand change and foreign governments are exploiting the chaos of Syria’s populist uprising to gain influence in the region. And Syrians—70,000 of whom have been killed in the conflict and almost a million have been displaced —are paying the price....
Despite the defence of land-grab by the Ethiopian embassy in a recent issue of the Indian newspaper, The Hindu, the prime focus of the policy of the government of Ethiopia is NOT ensuring food security of its citizens but faciliating the export of food to accrue profit. Nor is the...
PROFIT HOTEL (dirty gossip about the capitalist mode of production!)
The dismal art? After the socialist revolution, will economics be demoted to an art form? Is economics even “soft science”? There is one small problem … A recent article in Science News notes: Annual forecasts of currency values from December 2001 to December 2010, which guided banks’ investment decisions, missed the mark nine out of 10 times, says psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. Banks incorrectly foretold the fates of the dollar and the euro in the years leading up to, during and after the recent financial crisis. [Bruce Bower, “Banks confuse...
Read more »