Chávez’s Economics Lesson for Europe

Hugo Chávez's rejection of the neoliberal policies dragging Europe down sets a hopeful example to Greece and beyond By Richard Gott May 16, 2012 "The Guardian" -- Some years ago, travelling on the presidential plane of Hugo Chávez of Venezuela with a French friend from Le Monde Diplomatique, we were asked what we thought was happening in Europe. Was there any chance of a move to the ...
Posted on May 18 2012 Keep Reading...

IMPOVERISHING EUROPE

  The crisis is not relinquishing its grip on Europe.  From autumn 2008 to early 2009 the world market experienced the deepest slump in economic output since the Second World War.  This is a global crisis.  Even in emerging economies like China, Brazil, or India economic growth declined and could not compensate for the recession in the North Atlantic region.  For the first time since the ...
Posted on May 18 2012 Keep Reading...

Living in an Epoch of Revolution

  Foreword by John Bellamy Foster to István Mészáros book : “Structural Crisis of Capital” published by Monthly Review Press, 2009 If I were asked to sum up the significance of István Mészáros for our time in a phrase I would have to follow President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela in referring to him as the “Pathfinder of Socialism.”1 His work, in such writings as Marx’s Theory of Alienation (1970), The Power of Ideology (1989), Beyond ...
Posted on May 17 2012 Keep Reading...

The Substance of the Crisis

  A new kind of society will only make sense and be truly emancipated if its vital functions are effectively exercised autonomously by the freely associated producers and not by an external, extraneous body in control of those functions by Richard Antunes “The obvious question we must now address concerns the nature of the globally unfolding crisis and the conditions required for its feasible re solution” -- Meszaros I. Much has been written ...
Posted on May 17 2012 Keep Reading...

Marx’s Ecology and the Understanding of Land Cover Change

    “Recovery of Marx’s ideas could help improve ecological science itself, since there is a lack of understanding of the dialectical character of the social metabolism between humanity and nature. Marx’s work also helps us to recognize that the negative dynamics of resource use under capitalism must be replaced by the rational-scientific planning of production with the object of satisfying people’s needs and promoting the conservation ...
Posted on May 17 2012 Keep Reading...

Socialism: the Goal, the Paths and the Compass

  Marx had a very clear vision. It was a vision of a society which would permit the full development of human beings – a society which allowed everyone to develop their potential. And, that would occur not because of gifts from above but, rather, as a result of the activity of human beings. Michael A. Lebowitz There's an old saying that if you don't know where you ...
Posted on May 17 2012 Keep Reading...

The Commitment of the Intellectual

What is an intellectual? The most obvious answer would seem to be: a person working with his intellect, relying for his livelihood (or if he need not worry about such things, for the gratification of his interests) on his brain rather than on his brawn. Yet simple and straightforward as it is, this definition would be generally considered to be quite inadequate. Fitting everyone who ...
Posted on May 11 2012 Keep Reading...

Top 20 Indian firms hold $80 billion in assets abroad

  Twenty top Indian companies together hold assets worth $80 billion (about Rs.4 lakh-crore) abroad with the top five among them holding a major share of $50 billion. Reliance Industries, Tata Group, Hindaclo, Infosys and Wipro figure among the top five transnational companies (TNCs) along with the public sector oil major Oil and Natural Gas Corporation. The total foreign revenues of these 20 companies are estimated at ...
Posted on May 11 2012 Keep Reading...

Capital loses control of society

  “Given the massive inertia generated by capital's vested interests in the privileged capitalist countries and reformist labor's consensual complicity in their self-serving development, a triggering social upheaval is much more likely to take place in Latin America than in the United States or Western Europe, with far-reaching implications for the rest of the world.” István Mészáros, The Structural Crisis of Capital. Monthly Review Press 2010. Reviewed ...
Posted on May 11 2012 Keep Reading...

World economy: Contradictions deepen

István Mészáros, The Challenge and Burden of Historical Time: Socialism in the Twenty-First Century. Monthly Review Press 2008. By Tapani Lausti So Karl Marx is back. The international financial and economic crisis has sent a great number of people to bookshops to buy his most famous book Capital. Well, fine. Personally I would recommend István Mészáros's Beyond Capital (Merlin Press 1995) and this new book ...
Posted on May 10 2012 Keep Reading...