Covid-19 exposes capitalism’s gross inability to meet human needs. We must demand immediate measures to help people survive and recover.
Interview with Fred Magdoff
Archive | Capitalism
Reading matters
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, April 2020
Six important new books: The Return of Nature … Deaths of Despair … Rebel Cinderella … August Bebel … The Green New Deal and Beyond … The Triumph of Doubt
Pandemic
Pulverized: Capitalism, Africa and Covid-19
In the Global North it is a ‘novel threat.’ In the South, it extends the common experience of brutal assaults accompanied by waves of illness and death
Disaster capitalism
‘Venture philanthropists’ seek climate change profits in Myanmar
The last remaining underexploited economy in southeast Asia offers new opportunities for capital accumulation with a green veneer
Agribusiness kills
Capitalist agriculture and Covid-19: A deadly combination
A socialist biologist explains the tight links between new viruses, industrial food production, and the profitability of multinational corporations.
Earth is burning
Capitalist roots of the environment crisis
What’s behind the breakdown of the relationship between human society and the natural world on which we depend?
Behind the noise
The phony war over inequality statistics
Methodological nitpicking obscures the undeniable fact that a ludicrously small number of individuals hold the same amount of wealth as billions of others
Great Transition Debate
‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ is a hoax
CSR is a public replations framework that lets corporations greenwash their public images, pretending to change so that everything can remain the same
Deadly growth
Capitalism versus Life on Earth
Environmental destruction isn’t driven by human nature or mistaken ideas. It is an inevitable consequence of a system built on capital accumulation.
Book Review
Essays on the New Global Capitalism
‘Into the Tempest’ argues for a transnational popular project that leads to globalization from below
There is no third way
Socialism is the only realistic solution to climate change
Capitalism will not and cannot prevent climate disaster. A socialist response at governmental and societal level is an historic necessity.
Creating an Ecological Society
Fred Magdoff on Climate Change, Capitalism, and Socialism
Video: What would a just and ecologically sustainable society look like? If the current economic system can’t respond, what strategies will advance our struggle?
Book Review
Environment, Labor, and Capitalism at Sea
A compelling first-hand study shows that fishing is a deadly occupation because capitalism forces workers to take terrible risks in order to survive.
Capitalism fouls things up
Fine dust and fossil capital in Korea
There is a good reason why there are blue skies in much of the United States while those of us living in Northeast Asia are choking — most of their factories have moved over here.
New books for reds and greens
Ecosocialist Bookshelf, May 2019
Two views of food and farming. The origin of climate science denial. The high cost of living well. And a socialist who mostly disagrees with ecosocialism
Book review
Biofuels: A pseudo-green scam that only enriches agribusiness
Ethanol and biodiesel boost corporate profits while doing nothing to solve the world’s growing social and environmental crises
Perspectives
If capitalism must end, what should replace it?
By keeping these simple ideas in mind in all our struggles, we can begin to create a world worthy of our best instincts and desires
Inequality rising
An open letter to Steven Pinker (and Bill Gates, for that matter) about global poverty
Defenders of capitalism claim global poverty is declining. Their arguments are intellectually dishonest and unsupported by facts.
Book review
‘Dust Bowls of Empire’ exposes capital’s global assault on the land
The 1930s Dust Bowl presaged today’s global ecological crises. Hannah Holleman’s brilliant new book shows how and why capital destroys the soil that all life depends on.
Book Review
Can the working class change the world?
A superb popular account of what’s wrong with capitalism and what working people must do to get rid of it. Highly recommended!