Thursday, Sep 2nd 2010
An analysis by the Research Section of the Workers’ Party
The global background
The current global crisis emerged from the workings of the capitalist class structure, initially in the USA and subsequently around the world. Since the mid-1970s, workers’ average real wages in the USA stopped rising partly because the computerisation of production displaced workers and partly because [...]
‘The injustice of time - rendered obsolete.’
Rain falls on the snow. The Contagion has taken hold. Ghosts from the old Dead Republic are emerging everywhere as the day of judgement approaches.
On Black Tuesday a guilt ridden political functionary runs from his job burying bodies in the city. He is tortured by voices of reproach as [...]
Why I use ‘middle class’ as an insult | Cath Elliot
For the vast majority of people, well those who haven’t read Marx anyway, class is increasingly defined by how much material wealth a person has, and by that definition I’m decidedly middle class. My husband and I have a mortgage for instance; we also [...]
David Harvey | Guardian Business Podcast
David Harvey on the Guardian Business podcast talking about his new book The Enigma of Capital, crisis within capitalism and other things such as the current debt crisis in Europe, the economic powerhouse of China, the inability of Obama and the Democrats to challenge the “Party of Wall Street”, the [...]
In its usual stuffy way the Irish Times editorial today trots out of the old nag of moral indignation, mounts it like a cavalry officer and proceeds to spout absolute garbage on the ethics of certain Wall Street banks.
What brought this on of course, is the indictment of Goldman Sachs for marketing as a good [...]
I was asked to write something up about my book, Manufacturing Discontent. I thought that I would share it with you. Any comments would be be appreciated.
Of all my books, Manufacturing Discontent may seem to have the least links with Marxism. After I published The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History [...]
It was almost inevitable. Following Kraft’s acquisition of Cadbury, the US food giant has gone back on its guarantee not to close the Cadbury plant in Somerdale with the loss of 400 jobs. According to the BBC, Cadbury employs 4,500 people in the UK. Kraft has yet to announce plans for its Bournville factory in [...]
As Kevin Doogan mentioned in a comment on the ILR post about his article in the New Humanist, he has written about whether or not globalization, technological change, and the new corporate economy has changed the nature of work itself in his book New Capitalism? The Transformation of Work. Using a substantial amount of empirical [...]
The latest Socialist Register, which was published in October 2009, is called Morbid Symptoms: Health Under Capitialism. As one of the editors, Colin Leys says, the aim was to show that health is a subject that currently isn’t but needs to be considered as part of Political Economy and should be something that is an [...]
Thinking Allowed: An Anthropological Study of Wall St.
Anthropology in an unusual setting: Wall Street. Laurie Taylor talks to the anthropologist who gave up her academic life for over a year to become an investment banker in order to study life on Wall Street. She explains why she immersed herself in the culture of high [...]