J. EDGAR, I HARDLY KNEW YA You will never hear an economist argue that increases in productivity are bad. But where do you think the government ever got all that nifty surveillance technology from? From the surveillance industry, of course. If you’re wondering why there was no surveillance industry in 1917 (Pinkertons, yes! police spies, yes!), it’s because the capitalist class then didn’t have all the lovely surplus value floating around looking for investment opportunities that it does now. All the wages employers figured those overpaid workers didn’t need have gotten funneled increasingly into first building a National Security...
Big Pharma: pushing harmful drugs
Last year I wrote about the rebellious teenagers ‘diagnosed’ with the newly invented Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and the highly profitable industry that has grown up to ‘treat’ – that is, abuse – them (MW, January 2012). The American Psychiatric Association has included ODD in the latest edition of...
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