Richard D. Wolff, Author at ZNetwork
https://znetwork.org/author/richarddwolff/
Independent Left News, Analysis, Vision and StrategyTue, 20 May 2025 18:53:00 +0000en-US
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1 https://znetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/cropped-Z_logo_512-32x32.pngRichard D. Wolff, Author at ZNetwork
https://znetwork.org/author/richarddwolff/
3232Trump Is Trying to Reverse the New Deal
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-is-trying-to-reverse-the-new-deal/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-is-trying-to-reverse-the-new-deal/#respondTue, 20 May 2025 18:40:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1283981After the end of World War II, the U.S. employer class—the capitalists—faced overlapping threats, both domestic and foreign. On the domestic side, a coalition of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), two socialist parties, and a communist party had grown large and powerful during the 1930s Great Depression. Together, they pushed hard and successfully for [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/trump-is-trying-to-reverse-the-new-deal/feed/0Billionaires Salivate Over Plan to Privatize the Post Office
https://znetwork.org/zvideo/billionaires-salivate-over-plan-to-privatize-the-post-office/
https://znetwork.org/zvideo/billionaires-salivate-over-plan-to-privatize-the-post-office/#respondWed, 02 Apr 2025 17:23:29 +0000Trump, Musk, and the billionaires are trying to privatize the Post Office among several other government services. Brian Becker and Prof. Richard Wolff discuss the real story behind these attacks.]]>https://znetwork.org/zvideo/billionaires-salivate-over-plan-to-privatize-the-post-office/feed/0A Cruel Hoax: The Political Economy of Anti-Immigration
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-cruel-hoax-the-political-economy-of-anti-immigration/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-cruel-hoax-the-political-economy-of-anti-immigration/#respondFri, 28 Feb 2025 15:00:12 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1280358Deporting immigrants may deliver electoral wins to politicians if voters have been sufficiently cultivated by years of demonizing and scapegoating them. For its victims, the cruelties involved are horrific. Yet such deportation makes little sense economically. It represents a nationally self-destructive program based on a faulty grasp of immigration economics. What once “made America great” [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-cruel-hoax-the-political-economy-of-anti-immigration/feed/0United States in 2025: Social Problems Denied via Rhetorics of Refusal
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/united-states-in-2025-social-problems-denied-via-rhetorics-of-refusal/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/united-states-in-2025-social-problems-denied-via-rhetorics-of-refusal/#respondSat, 18 Jan 2025 14:17:21 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1278585Societies survive and grow when they successfully navigate their contradictions. Eventually, however, accumulating contradictions overwhelm existing means of navigating them. Then social problems arise that persist or worsen inside such societies because they are unsuccessfully navigated or go unattended. Sometimes, the dominant conscious reaction to such social problems is denial, a refusal to see them. [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/united-states-in-2025-social-problems-denied-via-rhetorics-of-refusal/feed/0Political Economy Contradictions as We Lurch Into 2025
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/political-economy-contradictions-as-we-lurch-into-2025/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/political-economy-contradictions-as-we-lurch-into-2025/#respondSat, 21 Dec 2024 12:55:35 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1277400The Republicans (GOP), traditionally the U.S.’s anti-tax party, now promise to use tariffs to wage trade wars, to massively deport immigrants, and to stop drug traffic. But tariffs are simply the name of one kind of tax (on imported goods and services). So the GOP becomes both anti-tax and pro-tax. Likewise, the traditional party of [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/political-economy-contradictions-as-we-lurch-into-2025/feed/0A Reformist Program on Immigration (or What Harris Might Have Said)
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-reformist-program-on-immigration-or-what-harris-might-have-said/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-reformist-program-on-immigration-or-what-harris-might-have-said/#respondTue, 26 Nov 2024 17:00:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1275952The immigration issue has split and/or weakened both center and left parties and movements across many nations in recent years. Serious economic and social problems afflicting national working classes have been “managed”—at least temporarily—by scapegoating immigrants as if they were responsible for those problems. Leaders on the left fear that many among their supporters are [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-reformist-program-on-immigration-or-what-harris-might-have-said/feed/0U.S. and China — Why Not a Deal?
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/u-s-and-china-why-not-a-deal/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/u-s-and-china-why-not-a-deal/#respondFri, 18 Oct 2024 17:51:29 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1273892An old theme within social theory holds that societies with very unequal distributions of wealth can sustain their social cohesion so long as total wealth is growing. Such total growth enables all who get a distributed share of that wealth—even those with the smallest shares—to experience at least some increase. The rich with the biggest [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/u-s-and-china-why-not-a-deal/feed/0The Decline of the U.S. Empire: Where Is It Taking Us All?
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-decline-of-the-u-s-empire-where-is-it-taking-us-all/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-decline-of-the-u-s-empire-where-is-it-taking-us-all/#respondSat, 07 Sep 2024 15:32:26 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1272011The evidence suggests that empires often react to periods of their own decline by over-extending their coping mechanisms. Military actions, infrastructure problems, and social welfare demands may then combine or clash, accumulating costs and backlash effects that the declining empire cannot manage. Policies aimed to strengthen empire—and that once did—now undermine it. Contemporary social changes [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-decline-of-the-u-s-empire-where-is-it-taking-us-all/feed/0Why Poverty Reduction Under Capitalism Is a Myth
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-poverty-reduction-under-capitalism-is-a-myth/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-poverty-reduction-under-capitalism-is-a-myth/#respondTue, 27 Aug 2024 15:53:41 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1271415From its beginnings, the capitalist economic system produced both critics and celebrants, those who felt victimized and those who felt blessed. Where victims and critics developed analyses, demands, and proposals for change, beneficiaries, and celebrants developed alternative discourses defending the system. Certain kinds of arguments proved widely effective against capitalism’s critics and in obtaining mass [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-poverty-reduction-under-capitalism-is-a-myth/feed/0Capitalism’s Unequal Distribution Deprives You of True Freedom
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/capitalisms-unequal-distribution-deprives-you-of-true-freedom/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/capitalisms-unequal-distribution-deprives-you-of-true-freedom/#respondThu, 08 Aug 2024 16:43:21 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1270527As the French economist Thomas Piketty most recently exposed, capitalism, across time and space, has always tended to produce ever-greater economic inequality. Oxfam, a global charity, reported that 2022’s 10 richest men together had six times more wealth than the poorest 3.1 billion people on earth. The lack of democracy inside workplaces or enterprises is both a cause [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/capitalisms-unequal-distribution-deprives-you-of-true-freedom/feed/0The Undemocratic Reality of Capitalism
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-undemocratic-reality-of-capitalism/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-undemocratic-reality-of-capitalism/#respondSat, 03 Aug 2024 15:20:52 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1270318Fans of capitalism like to say it is democratic or that it supports democracy. Some have stretched language so far as to literally equate capitalism with democracy, using the terms interchangeably. No matter how many times that is repeated, it is simply not true and never was. Indeed, it is much more accurate to say [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-undemocratic-reality-of-capitalism/feed/0Tariffs Don’t Protect Jobs. Don’t Be Fooled.
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/tariffs-dont-protect-jobs-dont-be-fooled/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/tariffs-dont-protect-jobs-dont-be-fooled/#respondWed, 10 Jul 2024 21:33:58 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1269138Both Trump and Biden imposed high tariffs on imported products made in China and other countries. Those impositions broke with and departed from the previous half century’s policies favoring “free trade” (less or minimal government intervention in international markets). Free trade policies facilitated “globalization,” the euphemism for the post-1970 surge in U.S. corporations’ investing abroad: [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/tariffs-dont-protect-jobs-dont-be-fooled/feed/0A Professor on “Authorities” Who Order Police to Crush Student Protests
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-professor-on-authorities-who-order-police-to-crush-student-protests/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-professor-on-authorities-who-order-police-to-crush-student-protests/#respondThu, 30 May 2024 15:50:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1267131The Washington Post’s journalists recently exposed what many already suspected or knew. Donors from society’s richest 1 percent pressured university administrators and political leaders to use police and other means to crush peaceful student protests. The students wanted a change in United States and Israeli policy and action to secure an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Growing numbers [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-professor-on-authorities-who-order-police-to-crush-student-protests/feed/0A Class Analysis of the Trump-Biden Rerun
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-class-analysis-of-the-trump-biden-rerun/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-class-analysis-of-the-trump-biden-rerun/#respondFri, 12 Apr 2024 17:26:37 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1264926By “class system” we mean the basic workplace organizations—the human relationships or “social relations”—that accomplish the production and distribution of goods and services. Some examples include the master/slave, communal village, and lord/serf organizations. Another example, the distinctive capitalist class system, entails the employer/employee organization. In the United States and in much of the world, it [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-class-analysis-of-the-trump-biden-rerun/feed/0Empire Decline and Costly Delusions
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/empire-decline-and-costly-delusions/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/empire-decline-and-costly-delusions/#respondThu, 07 Mar 2024 16:52:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1263267When Napoleon engaged Russia in a European land war, the Russians mounted a determined defense, and the French lost. When Hitler tried the same, the Soviet Union responded similarly, and the Germans lost. In World War 1 and its post-revolutionary civil war (1914-1922), first Russia and then the USSR defended with far greater effect against [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/empire-decline-and-costly-delusions/feed/0What Is to Be Done?
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-is-to-be-done/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-is-to-be-done/#respondTue, 09 Jan 2024 17:30:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1260433In 1863, the Russian social critic, Nikolay Chernyshevsky, published a novel entitled “What Is to Be Done?” Its story revolves around a central heroine, Vera Pavlovna, and her four dreams. It brilliantly intertwines her personal life and the social turmoil of Russia’s transition at the time from feudalism to capitalism. Chernyshevsky, a revolutionary imprisoned by [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/what-is-to-be-done/feed/0Socialism’s Self-Criticism and Real Democracy
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/socialisms-self-criticism-and-real-democracy/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/socialisms-self-criticism-and-real-democracy/#respondWed, 06 Dec 2023 17:00:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1258906Democracy is incompatible with class-divided economic systems. Masters rule in slavery, lords in feudalism, and employers in capitalism. Whatever forms of government (including representative-electoral) coexist with class-divided economic systems, the hard reality is that one class rules the other. The revolutionaries who overthrew other systems to establish capitalism sometimes meant and intended to install a [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/socialisms-self-criticism-and-real-democracy/feed/0Why Capitalism Cannot Finally Repress Socialism
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-capitalism-cannot-finally-repress-socialism/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-capitalism-cannot-finally-repress-socialism/#respondWed, 25 Oct 2023 16:45:09 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1256277Socialism is capitalism’s critical shadow. When lights shift, a shadow may seem to disappear, but sooner or later, with further shifts of light, it comes back. Capitalism’s ideologues have long fantasized that capitalism would finally outwit, outperform, and thereby overcome socialism: make the shadow vanish permanently. Like children, they bemoan their failure when, in the [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-capitalism-cannot-finally-repress-socialism/feed/0G7 Versus BRICS: Power Struggles Are Not Class Struggles
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/g7-versus-brics-power-struggles-are-not-class-struggles/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/g7-versus-brics-power-struggles-are-not-class-struggles/#respondTue, 17 Oct 2023 16:30:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1255892Class struggles interact with but are different from power struggles. The ancient conflicts between city-states Athens and Sparta were power struggles, while within each, slaves and enslavers engaged in class struggles. Britain and France were absolute monarchies in late European feudalism fully engaged in power struggles. At the same time, class struggles between lords and [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/g7-versus-brics-power-struggles-are-not-class-struggles/feed/0Artificial Intelligence: Profit Versus Freedom
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/artificial-intelligence-profit-versus-freedom/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/artificial-intelligence-profit-versus-freedom/#respondSat, 23 Sep 2023 14:32:30 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1254773https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/artificial-intelligence-profit-versus-freedom/feed/0U.S. Leaders Are Split on China Policy
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/u-s-leaders-are-split-on-china-policy/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/u-s-leaders-are-split-on-china-policy/#respondFri, 04 Aug 2023 21:05:43 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1250411https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/u-s-leaders-are-split-on-china-policy/feed/0Why Capitalism Is Leaving the U.S., in Search of Profit
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-capitalism-is-leaving-the-u-s-in-search-of-profit/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-capitalism-is-leaving-the-u-s-in-search-of-profit/#respondThu, 20 Jul 2023 15:45:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1249697Early U.S. capitalism was centered in New England. After some time, the pursuit of profit led many capitalists to leave that area and move production to New York and the mid-Atlantic states. Much of New England was left with abandoned factory buildings and depressed towns evident to this day. Eventually employers moved again, abandoning New [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-capitalism-is-leaving-the-u-s-in-search-of-profit/feed/0The World Economy Is Changing—the People Know, but Their Leaders Don’t
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-world-economy-is-changing-the-people-know-but-their-leaders-dont/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-world-economy-is-changing-the-people-know-but-their-leaders-dont/#respondWed, 07 Jun 2023 16:27:16 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1247271The year 2020 marked parity between the total GDP of the G7 (the U.S. plus allies) and the total GDP of the BRICS group (China plus allies). Since then, the BRICS economies grew faster than the G7 economies. Now a third of total world output comes from the BRICS countries while the G7 accounts for [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-world-economy-is-changing-the-people-know-but-their-leaders-dont/feed/0‘Market Fundamentalism’ Is an Obstacle to Social Progress
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/market-fundamentalism-is-an-obstacle-to-social-progress/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/market-fundamentalism-is-an-obstacle-to-social-progress/#respondSun, 21 May 2023 15:10:07 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1246351Yet markets are just one among many social means of rationing. Anything scarce relative to demand for it raises the same question: Who will get it and who must do without it? The market is one institutional way to ration the scarce item. In a market, those who want it bid up its price leading [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/market-fundamentalism-is-an-obstacle-to-social-progress/feed/0The Debt Ceiling Debate Is a Massive Deception Against the Public
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-debt-ceiling-debate-is-a-massive-deception-against-the-public/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-debt-ceiling-debate-is-a-massive-deception-against-the-public/#respondTue, 09 May 2023 16:30:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1245764Future historians will likely look back at the debt ceiling rituals being reenacted these days with a frustrated shaking of their heads. That otherwise reasonable people would be so readily deceived raises the question that will provoke those historians: How could this happen? The U.S. Congress has imposed successive ceilings on the national debt, each [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-debt-ceiling-debate-is-a-massive-deception-against-the-public/feed/0Behind The ‘Economic Policy’ Façade, It’s Class War
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/behind-the-economic-policy-facade-its-class-war/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/behind-the-economic-policy-facade-its-class-war/#respondTue, 30 Aug 2022 16:24:45 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1201740https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/behind-the-economic-policy-facade-its-class-war/feed/0The Truth About Markets, Pillar of Capitalist Ideology
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-truth-about-markets-pillar-of-capitalist-ideology/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-truth-about-markets-pillar-of-capitalist-ideology/#respondSat, 13 Aug 2022 14:11:00 +0000https://znetwork.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1198954“Market mechanisms” and “market solutions”: politicians, bureaucrats, media pundits, and academics like to refer to them as if they were somehow politically and ideologically neutral, above partisanship. They are not. Or as if they were uniquely fair and optimally efficient, which they are not either. The market is just another human institution invented and reinvented [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-truth-about-markets-pillar-of-capitalist-ideology/feed/0Fed Rate Hikes Are “Body Blow” to Workers Reeling from Pandemic, Growing Inequality
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fed-rate-hikes-are-body-blow-to-workers-reeling-from-pandemic-growing-inequality/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fed-rate-hikes-are-body-blow-to-workers-reeling-from-pandemic-growing-inequality/#respondThu, 28 Jul 2022 18:31:00 +0000https://zcomm-staging.work/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1197680AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. This week, the United States is facing what Politico calls a Category 5 economic storm as analysts debate whether the U.S. economy is in a recession and how to respond. Today, the Federal Reserve is announcing another interest rate hike, which it says [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fed-rate-hikes-are-body-blow-to-workers-reeling-from-pandemic-growing-inequality/feed/0On Prime Day, Declare Independence from Amazon
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/on-prime-day-declare-independence-from-amazon/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/on-prime-day-declare-independence-from-amazon/#respondMon, 11 Jul 2022 11:51:00 +0000https://zcomm-staging.work/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1067364As we reflect on our just-completed July 4 celebrations, Amazon’s Prime Day approaches; it’s actually two days, July 12 and 13. Amazon needs — and we need — to think about and act on what connects the Fourth of July and the e-commerce and tech behemoth. July 4 celebrates independence from the British Empire. A [...]]]>https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/on-prime-day-declare-independence-from-amazon/feed/0The Role of Capitalism in the War in Ukraine
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-role-of-capitalism-in-the-war-in-ukraine/
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-role-of-capitalism-in-the-war-in-ukraine/#respondWed, 13 Apr 2022 11:51:18 +0000https://zcomm.org/?post_type=znetarticle&p=1057126https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/the-role-of-capitalism-in-the-war-in-ukraine/feed/0
After the end of World War II, the U.S. employer class—the capitalists—faced overlapping threats, both domestic and foreign. On the domestic side, a coalition of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), two socialist parties, and a communist party had grown large and powerful during the 1930s Great Depression. Together, they pushed hard and successfully for [...]]]>
Trump, Musk, and the billionaires are trying to privatize the Post Office among several other government services. Brian Becker and Prof. Richard Wolff discuss the real story behind these attacks.]]>
Deporting immigrants may deliver electoral wins to politicians if voters have been sufficiently cultivated by years of demonizing and scapegoating them. For its victims, the cruelties involved are horrific. Yet such deportation makes little sense economically. It represents a nationally self-destructive program based on a faulty grasp of immigration economics. What once “made America great” [...]]]>
Societies survive and grow when they successfully navigate their contradictions. Eventually, however, accumulating contradictions overwhelm existing means of navigating them. Then social problems arise that persist or worsen inside such societies because they are unsuccessfully navigated or go unattended. Sometimes, the dominant conscious reaction to such social problems is denial, a refusal to see them. [...]]]>
The Republicans (GOP), traditionally the U.S.’s anti-tax party, now promise to use tariffs to wage trade wars, to massively deport immigrants, and to stop drug traffic. But tariffs are simply the name of one kind of tax (on imported goods and services). So the GOP becomes both anti-tax and pro-tax. Likewise, the traditional party of [...]]]>
The immigration issue has split and/or weakened both center and left parties and movements across many nations in recent years. Serious economic and social problems afflicting national working classes have been “managed”—at least temporarily—by scapegoating immigrants as if they were responsible for those problems. Leaders on the left fear that many among their supporters are [...]]]>
An old theme within social theory holds that societies with very unequal distributions of wealth can sustain their social cohesion so long as total wealth is growing. Such total growth enables all who get a distributed share of that wealth—even those with the smallest shares—to experience at least some increase. The rich with the biggest [...]]]>
The evidence suggests that empires often react to periods of their own decline by over-extending their coping mechanisms. Military actions, infrastructure problems, and social welfare demands may then combine or clash, accumulating costs and backlash effects that the declining empire cannot manage. Policies aimed to strengthen empire—and that once did—now undermine it. Contemporary social changes [...]]]>
From its beginnings, the capitalist economic system produced both critics and celebrants, those who felt victimized and those who felt blessed. Where victims and critics developed analyses, demands, and proposals for change, beneficiaries, and celebrants developed alternative discourses defending the system. Certain kinds of arguments proved widely effective against capitalism’s critics and in obtaining mass [...]]]>
As the French economist Thomas Piketty most recently exposed, capitalism, across time and space, has always tended to produce ever-greater economic inequality. Oxfam, a global charity, reported that 2022’s 10 richest men together had six times more wealth than the poorest 3.1 billion people on earth. The lack of democracy inside workplaces or enterprises is both a cause [...]]]>
Fans of capitalism like to say it is democratic or that it supports democracy. Some have stretched language so far as to literally equate capitalism with democracy, using the terms interchangeably. No matter how many times that is repeated, it is simply not true and never was. Indeed, it is much more accurate to say [...]]]>
Both Trump and Biden imposed high tariffs on imported products made in China and other countries. Those impositions broke with and departed from the previous half century’s policies favoring “free trade” (less or minimal government intervention in international markets). Free trade policies facilitated “globalization,” the euphemism for the post-1970 surge in U.S. corporations’ investing abroad: [...]]]>
The Washington Post’s journalists recently exposed what many already suspected or knew. Donors from society’s richest 1 percent pressured university administrators and political leaders to use police and other means to crush peaceful student protests. The students wanted a change in United States and Israeli policy and action to secure an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Growing numbers [...]]]>
By “class system” we mean the basic workplace organizations—the human relationships or “social relations”—that accomplish the production and distribution of goods and services. Some examples include the master/slave, communal village, and lord/serf organizations. Another example, the distinctive capitalist class system, entails the employer/employee organization. In the United States and in much of the world, it [...]]]>
When Napoleon engaged Russia in a European land war, the Russians mounted a determined defense, and the French lost. When Hitler tried the same, the Soviet Union responded similarly, and the Germans lost. In World War 1 and its post-revolutionary civil war (1914-1922), first Russia and then the USSR defended with far greater effect against [...]]]>
In 1863, the Russian social critic, Nikolay Chernyshevsky, published a novel entitled “What Is to Be Done?” Its story revolves around a central heroine, Vera Pavlovna, and her four dreams. It brilliantly intertwines her personal life and the social turmoil of Russia’s transition at the time from feudalism to capitalism. Chernyshevsky, a revolutionary imprisoned by [...]]]>
Democracy is incompatible with class-divided economic systems. Masters rule in slavery, lords in feudalism, and employers in capitalism. Whatever forms of government (including representative-electoral) coexist with class-divided economic systems, the hard reality is that one class rules the other. The revolutionaries who overthrew other systems to establish capitalism sometimes meant and intended to install a [...]]]>
Socialism is capitalism’s critical shadow. When lights shift, a shadow may seem to disappear, but sooner or later, with further shifts of light, it comes back. Capitalism’s ideologues have long fantasized that capitalism would finally outwit, outperform, and thereby overcome socialism: make the shadow vanish permanently. Like children, they bemoan their failure when, in the [...]]]>
Class struggles interact with but are different from power struggles. The ancient conflicts between city-states Athens and Sparta were power struggles, while within each, slaves and enslavers engaged in class struggles. Britain and France were absolute monarchies in late European feudalism fully engaged in power struggles. At the same time, class struggles between lords and [...]]]>
Early U.S. capitalism was centered in New England. After some time, the pursuit of profit led many capitalists to leave that area and move production to New York and the mid-Atlantic states. Much of New England was left with abandoned factory buildings and depressed towns evident to this day. Eventually employers moved again, abandoning New [...]]]>
The year 2020 marked parity between the total GDP of the G7 (the U.S. plus allies) and the total GDP of the BRICS group (China plus allies). Since then, the BRICS economies grew faster than the G7 economies. Now a third of total world output comes from the BRICS countries while the G7 accounts for [...]]]>
Future historians will likely look back at the debt ceiling rituals being reenacted these days with a frustrated shaking of their heads. That otherwise reasonable people would be so readily deceived raises the question that will provoke those historians: How could this happen? The U.S. Congress has imposed successive ceilings on the national debt, each [...]]]>
“Market mechanisms” and “market solutions”: politicians, bureaucrats, media pundits, and academics like to refer to them as if they were somehow politically and ideologically neutral, above partisanship. They are not. Or as if they were uniquely fair and optimally efficient, which they are not either. The market is just another human institution invented and reinvented [...]]]>
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González. This week, the United States is facing what Politico calls a Category 5 economic storm as analysts debate whether the U.S. economy is in a recession and how to respond. Today, the Federal Reserve is announcing another interest rate hike, which it says [...]]]>
As we reflect on our just-completed July 4 celebrations, Amazon’s Prime Day approaches; it’s actually two days, July 12 and 13. Amazon needs — and we need — to think about and act on what connects the Fourth of July and the e-commerce and tech behemoth. July 4 celebrates independence from the British Empire. A [...]]]>