Capitalism

As Food Prices Rise, Study Finds Market Power Drove Pandemic Inflation

May 4, 2023 Claire Kelloway, Food & Power. Educate! Capitalism, Class Struggle, Food and Agriculture, Inflation

On earnings calls last week, major food brands bragged about their ability to keep raising prices. Soda and snack giant PepsiCo told investors that it raised prices 16% last quarter, bringing in 18% more profit. Nestle announced a 10% price hike and Unilever said its food brands cost 13% more. In all these cases, higher prices helped food giants increase profits even as their sales decreased. Food giants keep raising prices even though well-publicized cost pressures, like fuel costs, rising wages, and supply chain disruptions, have largely subsided. On Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal landed on an explanation for persistent food inflation that many consumer groups and economists (including the Open Markets Institute) provided months ago: corporate greed.

Private Equity Is Out Of Control And Looting America

May 3, 2023 Lynn Parramore, Scheer Post. Educate! Book Review, Capitalism, Economic crisis, Private Equity, Wall Street

One of my favorite NYC restaurants had become understaffed and dirty – a shadow of its former self. I learned an interesting fact: a couple of years ago, a private equity firm had bought the local chain. The same type of firm that had already ruined my beloved neighborhood grocer. The kind that was rapidly taking over vet clinics, dental offices, and gyms on every block – though you wouldn’t know it unless you did some sleuthing. Price hikes, deteriorating conditions, and poor service — along with a certain slickness of marketing — could be signs that ownership of a business you count on has transferred to one or more firms in a rapidly-expanding Wall Street industry.

The Revelations Of ‘Black Earth Wisdom’

May 3, 2023 David Bollier. Create! Black Farmers, Book Review, Capitalism, Food Sovereignty

The book showcases the history of African-American farming, including struggles for land tenure in the face of land theft, and the distinctive wisdom of Black agricultural science, spiritual traditions, folk practices, art, and culture. The overarching point is that our spiritual lives and the fate of the earth are intertwined. Sections of the book deal with our "ecological crisis as a spiritual plight"; the relationship between Black people and open space; the importance of and tenure and agrarianism; the pain of environmental racism and capitalism's assault on our land and waters; and the role of artists, writers and storytellers in bringing ecological truth to light.

Marxism And Anticolonialism: A Conversation With Vijay Prashad

April 24, 2023 José Ernesto Novaes, Resumen English. Educate! Anticolonialism, Capitalism, colonization, Marxism

Vijay Prashad (Calcutta, 1967) is above all a militant. His intellectual work is an attempt to understand and respond to some of the great challenges of our time. Of Indian origin, this Marxist historian has deployed an intense vital activity that has taken him to many countries, always in defense of the cause of humanity. He currently serves as executive director of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, a task he alternates with his work as a teacher and researcher at several universities, as well as with a prolific body of work in which we can highlight texts such as The Darker Nations, The Poorer Nations and the most recent The Retreat, written in conjunction with Noam Chomsky.

There Is No Capitalist Solution To The Overdose Crisis

April 23, 2023 Mike Pappas, Left Voice. Educate! Capitalism, Drug War, Health Care, Overdose Crisis

Overdoses are still soaring throughout the U.S. According to the National Institutes of Health, “More than 106,000 persons in the U.S. died from drug-involved overdose in 2021, including illicit drugs and prescription opioids.” From September to January 2022, almost 80,000 people died from overdose. And the epidemic goes beyond the overdose numbers. While most politicians talk about the risks of drugs laced with fentanyl, that is not the only risk. Thousands around the country are at risk of using drugs contaminated with dangerous additives such as xylazine, or “tranq,” as it spreads through the drug supply in various cities.

Death Of Over A Thousand Garment Workers In Bangladesh

April 21, 2023 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute For Social Research. Educate! Bangladesh, Capitalism, India, Worker Rights and Jobs

On Wednesday 24 April 2013, 3,000 workers entered Rana Plaza, an eight-story building in the Dhaka suburb of Savar in Bangladesh. They produced garments for the transnational commodity chain that stretches from the cotton fields of South Asia, through Bangladesh’s machines and workers, and on to retail houses in the Western world. Garments for famous brands such as Benetton, Bonmarché, Prada, Gucci, Versace, and Zara are stitched here, as are the cheaper clothes that hang on Walmart racks. The previous day, Bangladeshi authorities had asked the owner, Sohel Rana, to evacuate the building due to structural problems.

Peak Oil And The Flawed Logic Of Infinite Economic Growth

April 21, 2023 Lee Camp, Mintpress News. Resistance Report Capitalism, climate crisis, Degrowth, Environment

Join activist Keith Akers in a fascinating deep-dive interview on climate change and ecological sustainability. In his upcoming book, Embracing Limits, Akers asks tough questions about the impact of anthropogenic climate change and proposes a truly sustainable future with economic degrowth at its core. In this conversation, Akers discusses his personal journey in learning about climate change, including the concept of peak oil and the flawed logic of infinite economic growth. He explains how fossil fuel extraction technologies have pushed back the point of peak oil, but emphasizes that we need to revolutionize our relationship with natural resources to protect ecosystems, reduce waste, and improve the living conditions of the poor.

Universal Public Services: The Power Of Decommodifying Survival

April 18, 2023 Jason Hickel, Resilience. Create! Capitalism, Class Struggle, Energy, Food and Agriculture, Health Care, Public ownership, Water

One of the central insights emerging from research on degrowth and climate mitigation is that universal public services are crucial to a just and effective transition. Capitalism relies on maintaining an artificial scarcity of essential goods and services (like housing, healthcare, transport, etc), through processes of enclosure and commodification. We know that enclosure enables monopolists to raise prices and maximize their profits (consider the rental market, the US healthcare system, or the British rail system). But it also has another effect. When essential goods are privatized and expensive, people need more income than they would otherwise require to access them.

The True Dangers Of Long Trains

April 11, 2023 Dan Schwartz and Topher Sanders, ProPublica. Educate! Capitalism, Derailments, Deregulation, Railroads, worker safety

Just before 5 a.m., Harry Shaffer’s wife called to him from across the living room, where he’d fallen asleep on the couch, exhausted from installing an aboveground pool. Did he hear that sound, that metallic screeching from up the valley? She opened the door of their double-wide trailer and walked outside as Shaffer closed his eyes. A moment later came a thunderous crack of splintering lumber. Debris shot through the living room. Shaffer opened his eyes again to find a hulking train car steps from where he lay. It had shorn off the roof, exposing the murk of the pre-dawn sky. He jumped up and ran outside and saw the garage next door in flames.

February 19 VS March 18: Which Way For The Antiwar Movement?

April 8, 2023 Phil Wilayto, Popular Resistance. Strategize! Anti-war Movement, Capitalism, Racism, Right wing politics

An interesting thing has happened in the U.S. antiwar movement. After years of relatively small protests, two relatively large ones took place, both in Washington, D.C., both demanding that the U.S. government stop funding the war in Ukraine, And yet the two actions could not have been more different. On Feb. 19, about 1,500 people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial. This protest was cosponsored by the conservative Libertarian Party and the liberal People’s Party, which grew out of the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign of 2016. The event was dubbed Rage Against the War Machine. This was an example of what people are calling a “Right-Left” alliance.

Drought Profiteers: Wall Street Billionaires Snatch Up America’s Water

April 7, 2023 Lee Camp, Mintpress News. Resistance Report Capitalism, Environment, Profiteers, Water

It is time to stop calling the financial industry executives who are buying up freshwater “investors” or “hedge fund managers” and instead call them “drought profiteers.” I mean, you can also call them vultures and parasites. They all apply quite well. Come up with your own names for them. Get creative with it. Really listen to your heart. Water. We all need it to survive. It’s the main ingredient in alcohol. Just think of how many more people would be killed each year if we didn’t have alcohol to take the edge off. But here’s the problem: as the climate crisis causes drought around the world, the richest of the rich are snatching up all the fresh water.

Reject US Imperialism! Make Our Americas A Zone Of Peace

April 7, 2023 Teri Mattson, WtF is Going on in Latin America and the Caribbean. Podcast – WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean Capitalism, Colonialism, Latin America, Peace, US Imperialism

On Tuesday, April 4, The Black Alliance for Peace (BAP), along with key partner organizations, launched an effort to activate the popular movements in our region in support of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) 2014 call to make the Americas region a “Zone of Peace.” This campaign will be informed by the Black Radical Peace Tradition. With its focus on the structures and interests that generate war and state violence—colonialism, patriarchy, capitalism and all forms of imperialism—the fight for a Zone of Peace is an attempt to expel all of these nefarious forces from our region.

Reclaiming Our Country

April 5, 2023 Chris Hedges, Scheer Post. Educate! Capitalism, Class Struggle, Oligarchs, wealth inequality

We are undergoing the most vicious class war in U.S. history. Social inequality has reached its most extreme levels of disparity in over 200 years, surpassing the rapacious greed of the era of the robber barons. The legislative, executive and judicial branches of government, along with the media and universities, have been seized by a tiny cabal of billionaires and corporations who pass laws and legislation that consolidate their power and obscene wealth at our expense. We are sacrificial victims, whether on the left or the right, helpless before this modern incarnation of the Biblical idol Moloch.

Bailout Of Silicon Valley And Banks Is $300 Billion Gift To Rich Oligarchs

March 20, 2023 Ben Norton, Geopolitical Economy. Resistance Report Banking Crisis, Capitalism, Class Struggle, Silicon Valley Bank

The US government printed $300 billion in a week to save collapsing banks and bail out Silicon Valley oligarchs and venture capital firms, paying them all of their uninsured deposits. Meanwhile, some of the very same Silicon Valley tycoons who benefited from this bailout have tried to cynically rebrand themselves as subversive populists, claiming they are fighting against the big Wall Street banks with which they have closely collaborated. Three banks collapsed in the United States in the span of one week in March 2023: Silvergate Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, and Signature Bank.

The United States Is Literally Sucking The Blood Of The Poor

March 19, 2023 Lee Camp, Mintpress News. Resistance Report Capitalism, Class Struggle, Human Rights, Poverty

You already know things are not good for a lot of people in the United States. As of two months ago, 64% of the country said they’re living paycheck to paycheck. Even if we exclude the million or so homeless across the U.S., recent data shows that approximately 5.3 million households are behind on their home mortgage payments. Another report from 2018 showed that around 130 million people in the U.S. admitted an inability to pay for basic needs like food, health care, housing, or utilities. And those numbers are before the pandemic began, which is like saying it felt hot in here before a fire burned down the building.

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