Capitalism

The debt dilemma

11 May 2020 - by Michael Roberts

I have mentioned many times on this blog that rising global debt reduces the ability of capitalist economies to avoid slumps and find quick way to recover (and see ‘Debt Matters’ in my book, The Long Depression and also in World in Crisis). As Marx explained, credit is a necessary component in (...)
Franck Gaudichaud: “Look at Chile to understand the kind of world they want us to live in”

22 April 2020 - by Jérôme Duval, Franck Gaudichaud

Franck Gaudichaud* returned a few weeks ago from a stay in Chile and gave us an interview to talk about more than six months of social unrest that shook the country. The Chilean uprising began in October 2019 and spread like wildfire in the student movement after the Piñera government’s (...)
Covid-19: Likely financial conflagrations to come

21 April 2020 - by Eric Toussaint

The coronavirus pandemic will have lasting and dramatic consequences on people’s living conditions, as graphically described by Adam Hanieh https://www.cadtm.org/This-is-a-Global-Pandemic-Let-s-Treat-it-as-Such. Humans are affected differently depending on their social class, their gender and (...)
The post-pandemic slump

15 April 2020 - by Michael Roberts

The coronavirus pandemic marks the end of longest US economic expansion on record, and it will feature sharpest economic contraction since WWII. The global economy was facing the worst collapse since the second world war as coronavirus began to strike in March, well before the height of the (...)
Call of the indigenous peoples, afro-descendants and peoples’ organizations of Latin America

3 April 2020 - by CADTM, Collective

We publish in English a Latin American and Caribbean appeal launched on 1 April 2020 by a large number of popular movements and political organizations. It calls for a radical response to the crisis linked to COVID-19. This call is supported by the CADTM of Latin America and the Caribbean (...)
This Changes Everything

31 March 2020 - by Amandla Editorial

For many, the lockdown of 21 days will be a severe test. For some it will in effect be impossible. Imagine being under lock-down for 21 days in a one bedroom shack with six or seven others. Tensions and violence are bound to rise, and it is women who will bear the brunt. Great anger is brewing (...)
“The Coronavirus pandemic is part of a multidimensional crisis of capitalism”

31 March 2020 - by Eric Toussaint, Henri Wilno

You wrote in a recent article: “The coronavirus was the spark or trigger of the stockmarket crisis, not its cause.” Can you be more specific? While governments and mainstream media keep claiming that the stockmarket crisis is a consequence of the coronavirus pandemic, I pointed out that all (...)
The Coronavirus, public debt and life

30 March 2020 - by Lujan Miranda

Some questions for our initial reflection! What virus is this that causes so much dread, destruction and death? What system is this that causes so much insecurity, greed, destruction and death and allows a virus to panic and quarantine a large part of the planet’s population? What debt is this (...)
To confront capitalism’s multifaceted crisis the bankers must be expropriated and the banks socialised

26 March 2020 - by Eric Toussaint

Bank shares have been plunging since mid-February 2020. If the big and institutional holders are selling these urgently, it must be because they are at risk. Governments and banking authorities systematically lie about the results of banks’ stress tests. Mainstream media relay the false (...)
The Capitalist Pandemic, Coronavirus and the Economic Crisis

19 March 2020 - by Eric Toussaint

Translation in bengali for Bangladesh and West Bengal (India) A public health crisis The coronavirus pandemic is a serious public health problem and the human suffering caused by the spread of this virus will be enormous. If it massively affects countries of the Global South with very fragile (...)
No, the coronavirus is not responsible for the fall of stock prices

5 March 2020 - by Eric Toussaint

We are witnessing a big crisis in the stock markets of the Wall Street, Europe, Japan and Shanghai, and many blame the coronavirus for it. In the last week of February 2020, the worst week since October 2008, the Dow Jones fell 12.4%, the S&P 500 fell 11.5% and the Nasdaq Composite fell (...)
Who really ‘state-captured’ South Africa? Revealing silences in poverty, inequality and structurally-corrupt capitalism

2 March 2020 - by Patrick Bond

The ‘state capture’ of South Africa’s parastatal agencies and government departments typically has been seen in a binary mode, with a narrative critical of two competing factions (‘Zuptas’ and ‘WMC’) within the African National Congress. A review of post-apartheid financial and corporate influences (...)
International situation and Radical Alternatives

18 February 2020 - by Eric Toussaint

On 18 February 2020, in Colombo, 8th CADTM South Asian workshop We are facing a multidimensional crisis of the global capitalist system Economic crisis : Stagnation or recession in Europe; recession in Japan; slowdown in the US economy; slowdown in India and in China; deep crisis in the car (...)
« We are at the beginning of the end of neoliberalism in Chile »

19 November 2019 - by Franck Gaudichaud

Franck Gaudichaud is a specialist of contemporary Chile, president of the association France Amerique Latine and member of the editorial board of Contretemps. He is a political scientist and teaches Latin American history at the University of Toulouse Jean Jaurès, France (1). Here he develops (...)
Another look at the Federal Reserve’s panic in September 2019 and solutions to the crisis

28 October 2019 - by Eric Toussaint

You may recall that from 17 September 2019, the United States Federal Reserve injected massive amounts of liquidity into banks due to a quite abnormal situation on the repo market [1]. The repo market designates a mechanism used by banks to obtain short-term financing. They sell securities they (...)
The China Factor

22 October 2019 - by Eric Toussaint, Patrick Bond, Ishmael Lesufi, Lisa Thompson

The most crucial factor in whether South African SEZs succeed may well be the complicated role of China. There are three aspects worth discussing: overall demand; Chinese incoming FDI to South African SEZs (such as is driving Coega and Musina-Makhado); and Chinese-financed and built (...)
A global manufacturing recession

2 October 2019 - by Michael Roberts

As we enter October, the global recession is with us – in manufacturing. The PMI (Purchasing Managers’ Index) manufacturing activity indexes for most of the major economies are below 50, the threshold for expansion or contraction. These are only surveys of corporate managers asking them about (...)
The Credit Crunch is Back and the Federal Reserve Panics on an Ocean of Debt

25 September 2019 - by Eric Toussaint

In a state of panic and under pressure from big capital and President Trump, on Tuesday 17 September 2019, the Fed (the US Federal Reserve) pumped $53.2 billion into the banks because they were short of day-to-day funding available from the Interbank Lending Market or the Money Market Funds (...)
How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean

12 July 2019 - by Peter James Hudson

The expansion of banks such as Citigroup into Cuba, Haiti, and beyond reveal a story of capitalism built on blood, labor, and racial lines. This essay is featured in Boston Review’s Spring 2019 issue Racist Logic. Buy a copy and receive a free digital edition of Race, Capitalism, Justice. (...)
Care debt: patriarchy and capital on the offensive, feminist economics as a proposal

10 April 2019 - by Blanca Bayas

In recent years, the concept of “care debt”, associated with the time and work women have devoted to domestic and care tasks, has been widespread, thus sustaining the impact of the current crisis and making the functioning of the capitalist and patriarchal system viable. What does the idea of (...)
South Africa Suffers Capitalist Crisis Déjà Vu

3 April 2019 - by Patrick Bond

A year ago, the majority of South Africans stared into the abyss. They faced either a continuation of corrupt misrule by a stereotypical kleptocrat—Jacob Zuma—whose anti-imperialist rhetoric failed to disguise worsening austerity, or a potentially dramatic change of political direction toward (...)
The Economic Crisis and the Central Banks

25 March 2019 - by Eric Toussaint

Everything is in place for a new international financial crisis to occur. We don’t know exactly when it will break out. But it will, and its impact will be felt all over the planet. The major factors contributing to the crisis situation are: first, the very large increase in corporate private (...)
#MeToo: A movement for women workers too!

8 March 2019 - by Sonia Mitralias

It has been more than two years since the emergence of the Me Too movement that unveiled the enormous extent of sexual harassment in the workplace and gender-based sexual violence around the world! Not at all ephemeral, this movement does not stop surprising us. Not only does it persist and now (...)
Tourism: the false fix – concentration of profits and social debt

5 March 2019 - by Marta Ill Raga

This ODG research starts to look at the relationship of debt and financialisation with tourism, and how they act though this industry, that is deeply affecting life in cities (and other places) around the world. This report aims to review the impacts of the tourism industry on the city of (...)
Battling bankers: grassroots insights on financial power

14 February 2019 - by Transnational Institute

Three inspiring activists — from Spain, UK and Kenya — share their experiences of taking on bankers and the lessons and insights from their ongoing struggles. This essay is part of the Transnational Institute’s “State of Power 2019” report. Worldwide, countless activists are engaged in (...)