From each according to his abilityTo each according to his needs* If you did not know the source of this you could easily mistake it for a description of the family. After all in a family the family unit takes care of all of your needs from birth, and as
Continue readingTag: Karl Marx
Northern Currents : Should Leftists and Progressives trust Pfizer and Big Pharma?
The Left has always had a strong tradition of emphasizing the importance of science and empirical understanding of the world. Remember that foundational socialists such as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels considered their approach to economics as “scientific socialism.” Marx himself admired the scientific advances made possible by
Continue readingNorthern Currents –: Leftists should abandon the term “Anthropocene” in discussing the climate crisis
With the facts in front of us — with even further evidence that corporations overwhelmingly produce the majority of our global greenhouse gas emissions — it’s clear that responsibility for the effects of climate change is not universal like the Anthropocene narrative claims. The post Leftists should abandon the term
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Leo Panitch, intellectual pillar of the Canadian left, dead at 75 of COVID-19
Leo Victor Panitch, one of the intellectual pillars of the Canadian left and a leading scholar of the global depredations of neoliberalism, died Saturday from COVID-19. He was 75. Born into a working class Jewish family in Winnipeg in 1945, Dr. Panitch was a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Death toll from fall of Montreal statue still stands at zero, but apoplectic Wexiters may be at risk
The death toll from the fall of John A. Macdonald’s statue in Montreal Saturday still stands at zero, the gods be praised. One would have thought it was much higher, however, given all the outraged virtue signalling from Conservative politicians and their “issues managers” here on the western edge of
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: And This, Kids, Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things
It’s not just that governments don’t tax enough. It’s that they don’t tax big incomes and big wealth nearly enough. Economist and professor Richard Wolff argues that modern global capitalism is theft on a massive scale. In modern capitalism, governments routinely borrow money. They do this to finance budget deficits
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Roubini – When the Next Crash Comes
Economist Nouriel Roubini skyrocketed to fame as the first to foretell the crash of 2007/2008 (a claim that overlooks the even earlier warnings from Stiglitz and Krugman). In 2011 Roubini sparked controversy by writing that capitalism was self-destructing, much as Karl Marx predicted. Now, writing in The Guardian, Roubini warns
Continue readingDead Wild Roses: Dialectical Materialism – Not So Spooky After All.
Information and education break folks. Let’s take a peek at what Dialectical Materialism actually is and help shoo away some of the bogymen people like to propagate when discussion Marxist thought. “This article outlines Marx’s method, dialectical materialism, a theory and manner of understanding change. It is a theory
Continue readingAlberta Politics: How far is the United Conservative Party prepared to go to be tolerant of intolerance? Quite far, apparently
MLA Richard Gotfried defeated candidate Cindy Ross last night for the United Conservative Party nomination in the Calgary-Fish Creek Riding. Mr. Gotfried, narrowly elected as a Progressive Conservative candidate in a tight three-way race in the May 2015 Alberta election, has detractors within the UCP. Still, his victory has to
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Rehabilitation of Marx. Happy 200th, Karl!
Tomorrow is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx. I first encountered the Communist Manifesto in officer school. I understood almost none of it but I discovered that dismissing it as “Commie crap” was enough for a passing grade. Small mercies. It was almost seven years ago that
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Was the UCP practicing ‘cultural Marxism’ when it fled the Legislature to avoid the ‘Bubble Zone’ debate?
We’re all “cultural Marxists” now, I guess. Consider Jason Kenney and the Legislative caucus of the ephemerally named political entity known as the United Conservative Party. (By which I mean, like a bad homebuilder, whenever Alberta Conservatives are caught doing stuff voters don’t approve of, they adopt a new name
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Thanks to Donald Trump, the post-war American imperium that’s run like a Swiss watch is coming unsprung!
PHOTOS: U.S. President Donald Trump’s inaugural parade makes its way through Washington, D.C., on Jan. 20, 2017, just before the stuff hit the fan and everything went to hell in a handbasket. (Photo: United States Navy.) Below: President Trump, former president Barack Obama, the late Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ANDREW WHO? Oh, wait! I grabbed the wrong picture from the file cabinet!
PHOTOS: Andrew Scheer … I mean Joe Clark, a then-almost-unknown MP from Alberta, celebrates his victory in the Tory party leadership contest with his wife, Maureen McTeer, on Feb. 22, 1976. (Photo: Toronto Public Library.) The real Andrew Scheer, seen below, an almost-unknown MP from Saskatchewan, was doing the same
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Madmen in the White House … this time it’s a thing, not just a ‘strategy’
PHOTOS: U.S. President Richard Nixon pointing the way to the exit for Donald Trump’s benefit. Below: Mr. Nixon about to board the helicopter that would take him away from Washington for the last time in an official capacity; a recent photo of President Trump; the sinister Dr. Henry Kissinger, then
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Stop. Obeying. The. Rich. NOW!
Once upon a time, we were taught to envy and respect our “betters,” like the rich. No more. They’re taking our money and throwing us under the bus every day. And it’s not even just the super-rich or those in America, it’s the aspirational rich; they’re just as toxic. This
Continue readingPolitical Eh-conomy: Economic history in the present: The wage fund and the minimum wage
How many bushels of wheat do you make a year? While this is not the most relevant question to be asking about wages today, some of the discussion around the minimum wage is taking inspiration from a very old economic idea according to which questions like this would be right
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Capitalism: Swing Your Sledgehammer
It’s all about vision and hope, in an effort to envision how economics and markets can exist after the toxicity of capitalism is gone, gone gone. Are you up for it? Last night, John Holloway, author of Crack Capitalism, was the SFU Institute for the Humanities‘ guest lecturer, skyped in
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Cheap T-Shirts Keep Harper in Power
Whenever I read stories about corporations wanting to do the right thing, I never hold my breath. Clothing corporations, the sector where “sweatshops” originates, want us to believe they care. They don’t. Read what nonsense they are trying to peddle to get us off their back for exploiting people so
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Economic Growth? I Prefer Steady State
Economic growth suggests that infinite growth is possible. Even with a growing earth population and increasing climate breakdown, people still think we can continue growing. I like using the seasons analogy to describe that human economic activity ought follow the cycle of seasons, with a steadying imperative. This is why
Continue readingPolitics, Re-Spun: Fried Squirrels
It’s a crisp, foggy November Saturday morning in the south side of the city. Seventeen people sit in the large open area at the back end of an organic fair trade coffee shop run by a workers’ co-op inspired by the Mondragon movement in Spain. Meet-ups like this are quite
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