Tag: capitalism

Capitalism & Slavery

This book does an excellent job of showing exactly how the development of British capitalism was dependent on slavery. The author is Eric Williams, an obscure PhD student at the time of writing, but later in life to become Prime Minister…
Read more

The only possible system

Capitalism, we are told, is the only possible system. Anything else is impractical dreaming. Capitalism delivers prosperity, stability, growth… except when it doesn’t. The credit crunch is nothing new – remember the Asia currency crisis, the Russian debt crisis, Black…
Read more

“Anarchy” by Errico Malatesta

With the G20 protests engulfing London this week, and anarchy briefly replacing terror as the bogeyman du jour, I thought it would be a good time to take a look at what anarchism is really all about, according to Errico…
Read more

The Shock Doctrine

New Left Review 48 carries an interesting review by Michael Hardt (co-author of “Empire”) of Naomi Klein’s new book The Shock Doctrine. Makes me want to read the book. Klein, according to Hardt, draws a parallel between the electric shock…
Read more

Marxism 2007: Day Four (Sunday)

“Cuba after Castro” was a great talk, with one small problem: it wasn’t about Cuba after Castro. The speaker, Mike Gonzalez, focused most of his talk on Cuba under Castro, and spent only the last few minutes talking about Cuba…
Read more

The crime of compassion

Sometimes I think I have become so cynical that I am no longer capable of feeling true outrage. I have come to expect fascism, brutality and heartlessness from my elected leaders as a matter of course. But every now and…
Read more

How we used to be

You may remember the vague speculation in my earlier Cutty Sark post about community being traditionally much more important to human beings than competition, and therefore being something we always reach back to even though contemporary society has more or…
Read more