Esteban Mercatante discusses how recent global shifts in processes of capital accumulation have contributed to China’s rise, the new (and old) mechanisms big powers use to plunder the Global South, and its implications for anti-imperialist and working-class struggles today.
economics
Michael A. Lebowitz — The law of value works in mysterious ways. For some Marxists, it underlies everything we need to know about capitalism. But, just as Marx claimed he was not a Marxist, so too might he have said, “that’s not my law of value.”
Mike Treen — Inflation is back worldwide, and with it the blame game. So what is the truth behind the claims and counterclaims being made?
John Smith, author of "Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis", discusses the realities of imperialism today and what it means for those fighting for a socialist future.
Ashley Smith interviews Michael Roberts about the system’s seemingly intractable crisis, the looming threat of war between great powers, and the desperate need for international working-class solidarity against militarism.
The crisis in the banking industry has sent stock markets around the world into gyrations. What caused all of this? Is this a passing crisis? What impact will it have on the real economy? Ashley Smith interviews Michael Roberts.
Mike Treen - The key questions for Marx were understanding why capitalism operates the way it does and whether capitalism is a historically limited system that will reach a limit and need to be superseded.
The return of high inflation after the global pandemic poses a major political and analytical challenge for labour and the left. On top of cuts to real wages resulting from the wide gap between inflation and pay, high and rising inflation has led central banks, including the Bank of Canada, to hike interest rates sharply. This is raising the debt servicing costs of households, businesses and governments and making new borrowing more expensive.
By Lisbeth Latham
October 7, 2020 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Revitalising Labour — The current COVID pandemic has caused massive financial damage to the global economy, damage which has been felt viscerally by working people in the form of dramatically reduced incomes and the loss of millions of jobs. As we progress through the pandemic and look hopefully towards its ending and eventual recovery, minds have begun to look towards what the eventual rebuilding of the economy might look like. Whilst capital, and its representatives in governments, are already looking towards an, even more, deregulated labour market and a general deepening of the neoliberal model, on the other hand, alternative models for recovery are being forward, most particularly that proposed the by the Australian Council of Trade Unions which draws its inspiration from the post-war recovery globally and most particularly in Australia post the Second World War. While this example has understandable appeal, it is well known, it refers to a period of massive and sustained economic growth. It is a deeply problematic model for recovery to the current period of crisis as it fails to understand the roots of the recovery post Second World War which will not be easily replicated but more importantly fails to recognise the broader reality of the global climate crisis that also confronts us, and which should mean we are wary of productivist solutions to this crisis.