The center will not hold (tags)
The existing late capitalist ideology in the center of society, the tattered national identity, is being driven to barbaric extremes in reaction to the crisis. Neo-liberalism, with its social Darwinism and economic nationalism, provided the springboards that the new right used.
Ukraine: Expansion of the battle zone (tags)
Russia is vastly superior in this type of warfare – which resembles an industrially operated process of destruction – because the Kremlin can draw on far greater reserves. Putin's gamble on a war of attrition is paying off. It is not just about the superiority of tanks, artillery and ammunition, or about the increasing Russian air superiority. It is above all about manpower.
Capitalism is not in a position to solve the social and ecological crisis that it is causing. An open-ended transformation of the system is inevitable, and a struggle for transformation will be waged – especially against the fascist threat. Conscious reflection on the systemic crisis is the best antidote to the conspiratorial crisis talk of the New Right.
Zombie movies are an apocalyptic genre, in which there is an inkling that the given social order cannot last & has reached its development limits. The first great wave of zombies hit the Western culture industry during the crisis period of the seventies of the 20th century, when the "Golden Age" of post-war capitalism, full employment and mass consumption came to an end.
Russia's victory in an economic war (tags)
If perspectives for ways out of the increasingly worsening crises of capitalist socialization are to emerge, it is indispensable to look at the whole of conditions and their complex entanglements. It is necessary to break with the myths and life lies of the 'free West' as well as with those of a mission for a Russian empire or any other autocratic fundamentalism.
Climate catastrophe and `freedom of consumption' (tags)
It is not five to twelve, but five past twelve, as philosopher Slavoj Žižek writes. The fact that climate change is a fact (the details may well be debated) and poses a serious threat to humanity is something that the last fool should have realized by now.1 It is also clear that the emission of CO2 and other greenhouse gases must be radically and rapidly reduced.
Welcome to post-democracy! (tags)
In the current systemic crisis, this capitalist pseudo-democracy is producing a real dystopia on a par with the nightmares of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley: the apparently responsible citizen (in reality a powerless object in the heteronomous process of capital exploitation) chooses the way in which his intensified exploitation and alienation is to be concretely organized and perfected.
Loss of reality and bellicism (tags)
Ukraine is "worn out" here while it is supposed to fight a proxy war "until the last Ukrainian" and is equipped for this with weapons, ammunition, financial means, etc.... None of this is even remotely realistic.
Can state-capitalist China inherit the USA as hegemon? (tags)
China's growth is also running on credit, and the People's Republic is similarly highly indebted as the descending Western centers of the world system.10 The Chinese deficit economy is generating even far greater speculative excesses than was the case in the U.S. or Western Europe,
Why China wont replace the US as hegemon. Chaos instead of hegemony (tags)
China's growth is also running on credit; the People's Republic is similarly indebted to the descending Western centers of the world system. This trend toward de-dollarization can only be properly understood against the backdrop of the imperial descent of the United States.
The contradictory capitalist mode of production is thus not only the driving force[11] behind the mounting debt and economic crises,[12] it is also the cause of the unfolding climate catastrophe. “Man-made” climate change is in large part the result of the social system.
Negotiated Solution - No Alternative! (tags)
NATO intervention seems unlikely so far, after U.S. President Biden ruled out direct military intervention even in the run-up to the war...Nevertheless, a further escalation of the war cannot be ruled out. At present, the powerless left has only the option of fighting for peace. (TKonicz)
Ukraine war - a new stage (tags)
One of the peculiarities of this war is that it remains a war of aggression by Russia, but some characteristics have changed. When Tsar Putin gave the order for war in February, the war was against fascism in Ukraine...Putin's order for partial mobilization is also good news. It means that nuclear weapons will probably not be used.
The necessary breach and Rackets and Rockets (tags)
The climate movement should not be afraid of being accused of radicalism. It is a matter of sheer collective will to survive to solve this monstrous problem. Capitalism, in its compulsion to grow, is incapable of reducing resource consumption and emissions.
Making yourself comfortable in capitalism (tags)
"Whoever has a wife should behave as if he had none, ... whoever buys as if he were not the owner, whoever makes use of the world as if he did not use it" (1 Cor 7:29f). Paul is speaking here to people who were "called" as slaves into the messianic church (1 Cor 7:21).
Myths of the Crisis and Enemy Images in the Media (tags)
The Ukrainian ambassador was quoted in the FAZ as saying: "All Russians are now our enemies". This rhetoric is classic enemy image cultivation... This homogenization is so pre-Enlightenment and always wrong.
A new quality of crisis (tags)
From the systemic urge to self-destruction arises the survival necessity of the emancipatory overcoming of capital. The capitalist regime of constraint must be transformed into history. The struggle for the transformation of the system has to be the central moment of left practice.
Is China in danger of collapse? and Anti-economics and anti-politics (tags)
In the process of modernization, the relationship between market and state can be boiled down to the formula of a general law: the more market, the more state... The bloated market and the bloated state can only live or die together.
USA under Trump: Back to Pinochet? (tags)
Only "political theater" is being staged to give Trump a "law and order" image in the election campaign. The president wants to make political capital out of the escalation, warned Governor Brown according to the news magazine Newsweek.
The economy for faith healers (tags)
Due to the sharpening contradictions of late capitalist socialization, barbarism, not reason, is increasing. Reason is not advancing in the overall historical movement, as once postulated by Hegel. Only the overcoming of this false whole, would offer humankind a chance of survival.
Is Capitalism Out of Order? (tags)
Growing debt is actually not a big problem in a growing economy as long as it does not grow faster than the gross domestic product (GDP). The debt mountain of the capitalist world system is growing much faster than the world economic output.
Bernie Sanders in Las Vegas: Being free, being high and eminent domain (tags)
The proclamation of a national climate emergency, the ban on oil and gas exports and the import of cheap medicines from Canada are to be implemented by means of the so-called "Executive Order"
There is outrage over the nationalist economic policy of "America First." The parallels to the 1929 system crisis are obvious. The unstable house of cards could now finally collapse. Credit-financed demand is created for a goods-producing system that suffocates in its own productivity.
TTIP: Trifling Economic Advantages at the Cost of Democracy and the Public Interest (tags)
TTIP represents a crisis for democracy and the constitutional state. Richard Trumka of the AFL-CIO describes the TTIP as “secret tribunals” where only “foreign investors” can sue. Frank Bsirske of the German Verdi service union said the TTIP is a “black box” transferring sovereignty.
This introduction to Tomasz Konicz' "On the Search for Alternatives to the Permanent Capitalist Crisis" (2014) is translated from the German. Empire could be replaced by republic as excess could be replaced by access and more by enough Capitalist contradictions/dislocations are signs.
Financial Market Inflammation (tags)
Bubble formation covered up a period of long-lasting stagnation... Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers even spoke of stagnation as a "new normality"... The crisis consequences are shifted to other subjects. Unemployment and indebtedness are exported.
In the Whirlpool of Deregulation (tags)
The economy changed from real- to finance capitalism since the 1970s. This was not an accidental development. The economic researcher Stephan Schulmeister sees a pattern where deregulation created problems that were fought with more deregulation.
Book Review: "The Greatest Predatory Attack of History" (tags)
The 1933 Glass-Steagal law created a firewall between commercial and investment banks and prevented speculators from gambling with the money of savers. Restoring Glass-Steagal would restore trust and public spirit. Profit-making is not profit-maximizing; speculating is not investing.
Tea Party: Extremism of the Middle (tags)
The Tea Party wants to return to an idyllic past that never really happened. The Tea Party wants to stop the accelerating descent of the white middle class by driving ideological ideas to the extreme. The right-wing hardliners believe capitalism could be reanimated if the state were shattered.
To Krugman, the increasing ideological blindness of German politicians can only be explained by their belief that "hard times must be the necessary punishment for earlier excesses." Krugman overlooks that the hard times and excesses do not concern the same people.
"The barbaric core of capitalist socialization is on full display in the present system crisis. The propagandists of totalitarian economism come in the mask of democrats. Economic-profitability thinking is imposed on society. Our society has long been viewed as a business."