Shrinkage means the voluntary downsizing of the national economy, including a reduction in gross domestic product. "Voluntary" here indicates a preference for voluntaristic solutions - though not as individualistic and unplanned where well-to-do opt out of the consumerist market model.
Video: David Harvey explains the "Crisis of Capitalism," 11 min (tags)
Unlike a chair, an idea can be shared by a whole people. Capitalism contains crisis as rain clouds contain rain (Jean Jaures, 19th century French socialist).
Post-capitalist Perspectives (tags)
Capitalism is winning to death. The exit from the overheated machine of capitalism represents an enormous challenge. We cannot avoid the question about common property in the search for alternatives.Can greater social equality be achieved without changing property relations?
Ethics and the Profit System: Global Change of Values Necessary (tags)
Profit-making is not profit-maximizing. From the magic word profit-mongering is derived the absurd unequal distribution of wealth, cheating of consumers, the exploitation of workers and ultimately the abolition of democracy. An invisible hand makes business profit into common good
Neoliberal Indoctrination (tags)
Neoliberalism tells the poor and weak that they are responsible for their misery. The true extent of social poverty barely reaches the public. A re-feudalization bomb rages and investors seek privatizing the public education system. People are atomized. Fragmentation is intentional.
Austerity Urbanism, 28 pp (tags)
Without the social contract (Roussieu), we become wolves to each other (Hobbes).
How Neoliberalism Gained Hegemony (tags)
The pressing question is why do the masses vote against their own interests and applaud those who champion goals opposed to their well-being or welfare? Ideas prevail because power is on their side, not because they are better. Neoliberalism went from sect to cultural hegemony
The US Occupy Movement - Since the Eviction from the Squares (tags)
Robert Ogman studied social theory at The New School in New York and was active in the alterglobalisation movement. Following the evictions of the Occupy encampments in late 2011, he met with and interviewed participants. Today he lives in Berlin.
What is the Origin of Wealth? (tags)
"Europe faces the choice of falling apart in the crisis or taking steps to another economic model," 50 scholars from the advisory board of Attac Germany declared. They make the connection between the chaos of the financial markets and the scandalous distribution of wealth
Video: Who Killed Economic Growth? (tags)
Once 90% of investment was productive. Now 90% of investment is speculative. States become errand boys of the banks. The real economy falls by the wayside. the financial sector must be shriveled.
On the Failure of the Mainstream Economy (tags)
The neoliberal mainstream economy and its political backers experienced their Waterloo with the most serious financial and economic crisis in eight decades. States bailed out banks and banks made money by lending back to states. A policy of reduced working hours is necessary.
Video: Ha-Joon Chang - "23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism" (tags)
Ha-Joon Chang is a professor of economics at Cambridge and author of "Bad Samaritans" and "23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism." This eight-part interview is presented by www.therealnews.com.
The Shift of Power to the East and South (tags)
The shift of political and economic power from West to East and North to South and the rapid development of technological innovations have created a completely new reality..The claim of the US and Europe to being masters of the universe must be ended.
Video: Crisis of Capitalism (tags)
David Harvey says it's time to look beyond capitalism toward a new social order that would really allow us to live within a system that could be rational, just and humane.
In the US, people have lived above their means for years and now must permanently lower their living standard. In America as in Europe, economists expect a tremendous rise in unemployment in the fall. This does not mean people will shop more.
We Fight Capitalism, Not the Crisis of Capitalism (tags)
Capitalism is a social system, not a natural law. Capitalism has proven it cannot end wars, prevent crises or make possible a good life for all people. Instead of solidarity, the capitalist social system teaches us envy and egoism. Now those who privatized the state cry for state bailout packages.
Self-Abandonment of the System (tags)
The banks are seemingly on Victory Street and taxpayers face bankruptcy. Bailing out banks by printing money is a dubious recovery. Paulson, Bernanke, Summers and Geithner are the architects of a policy of easy money. The money given to banks does not reach the economy.
The Fleecing of America (tags)
Public and private looting.
Announcing a new open course.
Bill Clinton's "Killer Prison Blood" Scandal - (tags)
BAD BLOOD Canadian media, including the Calgary Sun and Ottawa Citizen, are reporting that tainted blood from Arkansas prisons made its way to a Montreal blood broker in the 1980s when Bill Clinton was governor. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are investigating. At the time, American sources were not accepting prisoners' blood because of possible HIV contamination. OTTAWA CITIZEN
FILIPINOS IN THE U.S.A. AND AROUND THE WORLD: WHENCE AND WHITHER? (tags)
About ten million Filipinos are now scattered in the U.S. and around the world, chiefly as exploited migrant labor. Meanwhile, 85 million Filipinos--with the exception of a tiny privileged minority--are sufffering and resisting the current repressive regime in a rapidly deteriorating neocolonized social order. The Philippines has one of the most durable and vibrant revolutionary traditions in the whole world--the first Asian people to revolt against Western colonialism. 4.1 million Filipinos died opposing U.S. domination in the Filipino-American War at the turn of the last century. Today Filipinos are engaged in a popular democratic revolutionary process against U.S. imperialism and its local agents. Can overseas Filipinos contribute to the radical transformation of a world afflicted by the atrocities and terrors of global capitalism?
GATS as a Political Project (tags)
The goal of GATS is the worldwide liberalization in trade and investments for the service sector.. Call 1-800-828-0498 and urge your senators to reject any budget reconciliation that includes Medicade cuts.
Inflationary Deflation or the Dominance of the Global Financial Markets (tags)
"When real interests are above real growth rates of the GDP, debtors are structurally overstrained. The debt crisis of the 1980s and the financial crises of the past decade suggest that a kind of post-modern `plundering capitalism' is arising.."
We won't deny our consciences - A MUST READ and ACT (tags)
American citizen war resistance speeds - PeaceMakers, sign your Petition Please!