It is unfortunate that whenever someone mentions Karl Marx, eyes glaze over and instant rejection ensues. But Marx was extremely insightful and warned us of impending trouble. In 1848 he told us that, over time, a vastly disproportionate share of wealth would be amassed by the most powerful and most capable in society, the...
“Marxism is one of the things people are reading now. I know of universities in the US where the students have formed Marxist Study Circles to understand capitalism,” Ali, who is based in London, told reporters here. Marx is “bestseller in Europe again because young people are talking about him”, said Ali, 68, who...
… Having paid the value of labor power, what a capitalist receives in return is a worker’s exertion of labor power for the duration of the working day. If it turns out that a worker’s exertion of labor power over a day results in the production of more output (value) than is necessary to...
Eagleton is particularly good at highlighting the contradictions in the other side’s arguments, here are a few examples among many: “Critics of Marx might find this stress on class interests distasteful. But they cannot claim in the same breath that he has an impossibility rosy view of human nature.” (p 79) or “Marxists do...
Here are some of Grantham’s finer points: • Capitalism too heavily discounts the future value of cash flows as it seeks to raise debts: “Your grandchildren have no value.” • Companies foolishly reward executives for taking on debt: “Total remuneration … for senior officers … rose as a percentage of the average worker’s pay...
…At the moment, while the democratic petty bourgeois are everywhere oppressed, they preach to the proletariat general unity and reconciliation; they extend the hand of friendship, and seek to found a great opposition party which will embrace all shades of democratic opinion; that is, they seek to ensnare the workers in a party organization...
… Marx communism was not to be the goal for ethical reasons; rather, Marx viewed the transition from capitalism to socialism as being justified on historical grounds — with full communism being the end of humanity’s historical progression leading into history proper. … For Marx, the crux of capitalism’s doom is a concept known...
From The Downfall and Future of Socialism 1. Communists distinguish themselves from other supporters of socialism in that their conceptions of the future social order and the path leading to it are based upon a theory of history,historical materialism, the essence of which was worked out by Marx, Engels, and Lenin. The theoretical content...
From Kapitalism101: In late January of 2012 I interviewed Andrew Kliman about his new book on the economic crisis, “The Failure of Capitalist Production.” I am still working on getting a good method of recording Skype interviews so the audio is a bit scratchy, but still useable. It’s a great interview, full of insights...
Today there is clearly a growing popular sentiment that the economic exploitation of ourselves and of natural resources is approaching a limit. We simply cannot go on like this. It’s time we stepped back from the abyss and began to put people before profit. It’s an obvious sentiment that few people today – or...
Monthly Review
Science and Society
Arguments For Socialism
Albert Einstein: Why Socialism?