Erin McKean, a lexicographer writing in the Boston Globe, gives us a dictionary tour of today’s corporate capitalism and its private jargon that lights up a few interesting dark alleys. “The Word” of the day is “bonus” (as...
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Capitalism
THIS JUST IN! Word of the Day
Capitalism in Crisis: Reforms, Collapse — Or a Socialist Revolution?
The severe economic crisis has dominated newspaper headlines – day after day for at least the past six months – like no other story in recent history. The massive layoffs, losses and bankruptcies have grown as familiar as the daily death-count in Iraq and Afghanistan. The ranks of the unemployed are overflowing and...
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Five more benefits of not having money
We continue describing how things could be like in a socialist society, where there would be no need for money. 1. Environment Bear in mind the aim here is an excursion into the benefits of money totally disappearing from our lives; for all to have access to the necessities of life and in return...
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Why didn’t anyone wake me up while the revolution was going on? (Why we are not Leftists)
It is not uncommon to hear leftists talk knowingly of “ongoing struggles” when they project the day after tomorrow of an anti-capitalist revolution, as if it weren’t really over yet with the expropriation of the capitalist class. The working class must evidently “smash” the capitalist state and set up a “proletarian” régime holding...
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Capitalism Must Go
We are now in the middle of the biggest economic and financial crisis since the 1930s. In a world that has the potential to produce enough food, clothes, housing and the other amenities of life for all, factories are closing down, workers are being laid off, unemployment is growing, houses are being repossessed and...
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Banks, money and thin air
An urban myth is circulating on the internet that banks have been creating money out of thin air. Those who have seen the cult film Zeitgeist and its sequel Zeitgeist Addendum, popular amongst conspiracy theorists and others suspicious of governments and banks, will have heard recounted the argument that banks can somehow create money...
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Priorities in Capitalism
A lot of people think it would be nice to have a lot of money. No more worries about paying the mortgage, putting food on the table, affording an education for the kids, and so on. But their dreams are nothing compared to the realities of the world’s rich. Dubai’s Palm Island, which opened...
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This is Capitalism
“The ranks of low-wage working families increased by 350,000 between 2002 and 2006, raising their numbers to nearly 9.6 million, or more than one in four of the nation’s working families with children. The report by the Working Poor Families Project, an advocacy group that analyzed census data, defined low-wage families as those earning...
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A Booming Industry (even in a recession)
A recent issue of the magazine TIME (14 October) highlighted the immense profits to be made in capitalism even in a trade recession. ” Need to start a war? No problem. While stock markets grate and financial institutions (and even whole countries, like Iceland) teeter on bankruptcy, one global industry is still drawing plenty...
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Globalization versus National Capitalism
In 1648 the first modern diplomatic congress established a new political order in Europe, based for the first time on the principle of “national sovereignty.” This principle drew a sharp dividing line between foreign and domestic affairs. Each “national sovereign” was given free rein within the internationally recognized borders of his state. No outsider...
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