Category Archives: Economics

“We shall seek to portray this as simply and popularly as possible, and shall not presuppose a knowledge of even the most elementary notions of political economy. We wish to be understood by the workers.” — Karl Marx, Wage Labor & Capital

Kautsky – The crisis of capitalism and the shortening of working time

By Karl Kautsky, translated by Noa Rodman In former times we had a saying in Germany: “When the peasant has money, everyone has.” That was perfectly true wherever the great majority of the people were peasants or farmers. It is no … Continue reading

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Commentary and Discussion to the Syriza Victory in the Greek Referendum

The imminent victory of Syriza over the concerted efforts of European politicians and Greek media moguls — the former cutting off the country’s financial sources as punishment for it voting incorrectly, in the language of Wolfgang Schäuble, the latter spreading … Continue reading

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Is Class Real? Some Empirical Contributions from Econophysics

The idea that society is divided into two major groups under capitalism: Working class (or proletarian) and Capitalist class (or bourgeoisie) has been out of favour for quite a while. There are many more common interpretations of what the import … Continue reading

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“Tax is the Lifeblood of Democracy”: An Interview with John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network

Recently, I sat down to talk with John Christensen of the Tax Justice Network, to talk about his organisation and what it does. Topics as wide ranging as state subsidies of corporations and the role of the OECD as “a … Continue reading

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Review: Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century

Thomas Piketty’s new book, Capital in the 21st Century, or “Capital” for short, has made a massive impression in the media. He has been elevated to something of an economic super-star status. People who never were interested in economics have … Continue reading

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What is at stake with the Labour Theory of Value

Marx has been getting a lot of media attention recently, with articles exploring his relevance in the New York Times, The New Yorker, Time Magazine, Forbes and many others. A quick search on Google trends for “was Marx right” shows … Continue reading

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Working Class Hero

There is a fairly widespread argument concerning the working class that goes something like this: The Working class is now only a small fragment of the population. The old class politics is therefore permanently dead and can not be resuscitated. … Continue reading

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The Transition

The period of transition between our current capitalist economic and social system and a socialist economy is a very controversial subject among socialists. Maintaining an active dialogue and critique of this period is absolutely critical to our strategic and tactical … Continue reading

Posted in Economics, Politics | 4 Comments

An End to Musical Chairs: A Rumination on the Basic Income

Since everyone is welcome aboard the train of life, don’t we all deserve a ticket? I was walking toward the central transit hub of my town recently, when, shortly prior to passing over the railroad tracks that the train I … Continue reading

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The European Monetary Union and the Left

Recently a 45 page report written by Heiner Flassbeck and Costas Lapavitsas was issued by Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, “The systemic crisis of the euro – true causes and effective therapies”. They later popularised their report in a Guardian article. The … Continue reading

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Tendency of the rate of profit to exasperate

A few years back Deloitte issued a report that had a long term analysis of the rate of return on various measure, investment capital, equity and assets. In all three cases there was a fairly clear downward trend. Deloitte come … Continue reading

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Interview With Rob Dietz of CASSE, co-author of “Enough is Enough”

Rob Dietz recently published the book Enough is Enough with co-author Dan O’Neill. The gist of the book is that the growth-oriented consumer culture in places like the United States and Europe, where, even in the recent crisis, people are … Continue reading

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An Uncritical Critique of The Critical Net Critic

Recently a friend in a reading group suggested that we read The Critical Net Critic. While the piece is somewhat long and meandering it is also very good at helping to answer some of those fundamental questions about what is … Continue reading

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A Call for a Leftist Front a la Mont Pèlerin

  Friedrich Hayek ends his famous essay The Intellectuals and Socialism with the question of whether the intellectual revival of liberalism occurring in some places in the post-WWII world (notably in Germany and the Anglophone countries) was “in time”. It … Continue reading

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