The Sacrificial Altar of Extractive Capitalism: Notes on Abolition and Transition

As was the case with the British Empire, today’s global form of extractive capitalism is a system of human sacrifice hidden in plain sight. A critical look at the palm oil industry reveals both the violence of this trajectory in an exemplary way and the challenges for a transition into a just world, social thinker… Read More The Sacrificial Altar of Extractive Capitalism: Notes on Abolition and Transition

Truss is frantically blowing on the embers of neoliberalism. But it is a funeral pyre

Andy Beckett Neoliberalism, the belief that free markets, low taxes and a state with little or no interest in equality will produce the best economic and social outcomes, has fallen out of fashion even among the business elite and their chroniclers. In the Financial Times this week, the columnist Rana Foroohar argued that the west… Read More Truss is frantically blowing on the embers of neoliberalism. But it is a funeral pyre

‘Neoliberalism’ isn’t a left-wing insult but a monstrous political system of inequality

First posted July 22, 2017 Sam Kriss Neoliberalism is not particularly hard to define. It’s not only an ideology or a set of principles; it’s a system of practices, and an era, the one we’re living in now. What it means, over and above everything, is untrammeled ruling-class power, an end to the class-collaborationism of… Read More ‘Neoliberalism’ isn’t a left-wing insult but a monstrous political system of inequality

Brazil’s Indigenous peoples mobilise against encroachment on their lands

Deni Farm, owner Edilson Pereira Duarte”; “Mato Grosso Farm, owner Vanderlei Martins de Oliveira”. These two signs, incorporating the Brazilian flag, are nailed to trees on either side of the road leading to Kapot village, in the Capoto/Jarina Indigenous Land, northern Mato Grosso state. A barrier spans the road leading into Kapot. Drivers must get… Read More Brazil’s Indigenous peoples mobilise against encroachment on their lands

World’s central banks financing destruction of the rainforest

Andrew Downie in São Paulo Some of the world’s biggest central banks are unwittingly helping to finance agri-business giants engaged in the destruction of the Brazilian Amazon, according to a report published on Wednesday. The Bank of England, the US Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank are among the institutions that have bought millions of… Read More World’s central banks financing destruction of the rainforest

The Publicity-Shy Funds Backing Gautam Adani’s Massive Empire

Andy Mukherjee – Bloomberg Gautam Adani’s rise to the No. 2 spot in global wealth rankings, crafted chiefly from shares traded in the local market, deserves to be in the spotlight – as much as a poster child of Narendra Modi’s “Make in India” self-reliance as an opportunity for some much-needed transparency about the tycoon’s… Read More The Publicity-Shy Funds Backing Gautam Adani’s Massive Empire

Multinational Corporations and COVID-19: Intellectual property rights vs. human rights

PUBLIC GOODS  •  September 1, 2021  •  Peter Rossman he multilateral trading system anchored by the WTO is not confined to cross-border trade in physical goods. It was also designed to protect corporate knowledge monopolies. Developing countries were told that strict adherence to the rules of ‘free trade’, codified and enforced by the WTO, would enhance their… Read More Multinational Corporations and COVID-19: Intellectual property rights vs. human rights

Understanding Capitalism

K. VELA VELUPILLAI A review article around Anwar Shaikh’s ‘Capitalism’, now turning into a classic Capitalism: Competition, Conflict, Crises by Anwar Shaikh ‘Capitalist history is played out on a moving stage.’- Shaikh, 2016, p. 50 (see also p. 5; italics added). The Book 1  by Anwar Shaikh 2  which is reviewed here was published a little over six years ago;… Read More Understanding Capitalism

Walter Benjamin: Capitalism as Religion (1921)

One can behold in capitalism a religion, that is to say, capitalism essentially serves to satisfy the same worries, anguish, and disquiet formerly answered by so-called religion. The proof of capitalism’s religious structure – as not only a religiously conditioned construction, as Weber thought, but as an essentially religious phenomenon – still today misleads one… Read More Walter Benjamin: Capitalism as Religion (1921)