Tag: capitalism

Capitalism Has Left the Building. Enter Technofeudalism

MARK LESSERAUX – Over the last four or five years, like just about everyone else, I’ve been feeling that some kind of huge shift, some sort of sea change has taken place that I haven’t quite been able to define. There were certainly occurrences that stood out. There was the Trump presidency, there was the COVID pandemic, there are the horrible wars in Ukraine, in Gaza and elsewhere, etc.. However, none of these phenomena held up, by themselves or in conjunction with one another, as a satisfying answer to my query — What is Technofeudalism and what are its components that are vanguishing capitalism?

Empire Decline and Costly Delusions

RICHARD D. WOLFF – The last 40 to 50 years of the economic history of the G7 witnessed extreme redistributions of wealth and income upward. Those redistributions functioned as both causes and effects of neoliberal globalization. However, domestic reactions (economic and social divisions increasingly hostile and volatile) and foreign reactions (emergence of today’s China and BRICS) are undermining neoliberal globalization and beginning to challenge its accompanying inequalities. U.S. capitalism and its empire cannot yet face its decline amid a changing world. Delusions about retaining or regaining power at the top of society proliferate alongside delusional conspiracy theories and political scapegoating (immigrants, China, Russia) below.

Competing with Nature: COVID-19 as a Capitalist Virus

ASHLEY SMITH – The COVID-19 pandemic shows no signs of abating as the death toll climbs ever higher around the world. Spectre’s Ashley Smith interviews epidemiologist Rob Wallace about the global capitalist roots of the current pandemic, the likelihood of future pandemics, and the types of organized resistance necessary to prevent them.

Trayvon Martin: A Jewish Response

RABBI MICHAEL LERNER – This article by a leading Rabbi connects the travesty of acquitting killer George Zimmerman with climate change and other environmental disasters through Jewish theology, and challenges us all to take personal responsibility for healing, repairing and transforming the world.

Hope is for the Lazy: The Challenge of Our Dead World

ROBERT JENSEN – In 2005, I preached on the ecological crisis in a sermon I titled “Hope is for the Weak: The Challenge of a Broken World.” Looking back, I realize that I had been far too upbeat and optimistic, probably trying too hard to be liked. Today I want to correct that. Hence, my updated title: “Hope is for the Lazy: The Challenge of Our Dead World.”

Defense Act is Unconstitutional

BRIAN J. TRAUTMAN – Each year, Congress authorizes the budget of the Department of Defense through a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The NDAA of 2012, however, is unlike any previous ones. This year’s legislation contains highly controversial provisions that empower the Armed Forces to engage in civilian law enforcement and to selectively suspend due process and habeas corpus, as well as other rights guaranteed by the 5th and 6th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, for terror suspects apprehended on U.S. soil.

Bloomberg Personifies What the Occupation Opposes

GLEN FORD – It was never in the cards for a plutocrat mayor to long tolerate a movement whose essential logic is the dissolution of his class. “If the Occupy Wall Street movement has been about anything, it is the absolute necessity to rid the nation – and the world – of the collective tyranny of the Bloombergs, the dictatorship of the moneyed classes.” The next phase of the movement must more self-consciously “have, at least, the goal of shutting down the infernal machines of capital.”

Your Taxes Fund Anti-Muslim Hatred

CHRIS HEDGES – News personalities, politicians, self-appointed experts on the Muslim world, and law enforcement and intelligence officials, as well as the Christian right, have successfully demonized Muslims in the United States since the attacks of 2001. It is acceptable to say things openly about Muslims that could never be said about any other ethnic group.

The Values That Underlie Peace

ROBERT RACK – I happened into a conversation with man sitting next to me on a plane ten or fifteen years ago that today seems almost prophetic. It was one of those gradual conversations that can happen when you’re in a car or maybe in a stuck elevator for a long time with someone, where there’s no agenda or expectations and plenty of time to quietly think about what each other is saying.