capitalism

The stalemate of two economic models - Robert Kurz

In this 2012 article, Robert Kurz discusses the crisis management strategies implemented by the US and Europe, their seemingly paradoxical reversal of roles (neoliberal policies vs. welfare state) and the ineluctable fate they will ultimately share: “Whoever wants to save the financial system has to eliminate demand, and whoever wants to save demand has to ruin the financial system”.

The Stalemate of Two Economic Models - Robert Kurz

Robotics and labor: the nightmares of reified consciousness - Robert Kurz

A short 2010 article by Robert Kurz, reflecting on the crisis of abstract labor in capitalism and the development of productivity through robotics and automation, considered in the context of the depletion of fossil fuels and the simultaneous economic-environmental crisis.

Robotics and Labor: the Nightmares of Reified Consciousness – Robert Kurz

Winning the war of position: working-class hegemony and class unionism

This article makes a number of arguments about the direction the IWW should take in its organizing, including taking a longer-term perspective than the next few years.

It is readily apparent to any working-class person that the economic oppressions of capitalist society, numerous though they may be, are only one facet of the system of social control exercised by bourgeois society. The dominant culture is one of homogenous individualism, materialism, and intellectual vapidity.

Is capitalism a market society?

German libertarian communist group Wildcat examine if capitalism is really a market society.

“Just and peaceful labor relations”: Why the U.S. government supported collective bargaining

Submitted by Recomposition on Aug 11 2012 06:53

This post gives a brief account of some of the history of the capitalist state’s sponsorship of contracts for unions in the United States, with an emphasis on the reasoning that politicians and judges gave for their support of collective bargaining. The piece argues that what the U.S. government wanted out of introducing state support for collective bargaining was, in the words of the National Labor Relations Act, to ‘Promote the flow of commerce’ through ‘friendly adjustment of industrial disputes.’

The U.S. government increasingly promoted collective bargaining in the early part of the 20th century. To take one important example: In 1919, economically disruptive disputes escalated between the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU) and capitalists in the textile industry.

Are free individuals the necessary prerequisites for a successful struggle for freedom? - Anselm Jappe

In this text written in late 2011, Anselm Jappe criticizes the popular slogan “We are the 99%” in the context of a discussion of the “anthropological regression” induced by capitalism that has attenuated humanity’s capacity and desire for freedom, emphasizes the continuing relevance of the core concepts of value analysis for the understanding of the current capitalist crisis, and maintains that the present task of revolutionaries “… confronted by the disasters caused by the permanent revolutions unleashed by capital … is to ‘preserve’ some of the essential acquisitions of humanity and to attempt to cultivate them so that they assume a higher form”.

Are Free Individuals the Necessary Prerequisites for a Successful Struggle for Freedom? – Anselm Jappe

Wage-labour and capital - Karl Marx - audiobook

Orignally written as a series of newspaper articles in 1847, Wage-Labour and Capital was intended to give a short overview, for popular consumption, of Marx’s central threories regarding the economic relationships between workers and capitalists. Recorded as an audiobook by LibriVox.

These theories outlined include the Marxian form of the Labour Theory of Value, which distinguishes “labour” from “labour-power”, and the Theory of Concentration of Capital, which states that capitalism tends towards the creation of monopolies and the disenfranchisement of the middle and working classes.

International exchange and the law of value (conclusion) - Isaak Dashkovskij

Gold money value Marx communism bars New York Federal Reserve

Dashkovskij wrote a 3-article series on international trade. The present article is the conclusion. Under the Banner of Marxism, 59-91, no. 5, 1927. See also the translation of the preceding part (no. 4, 1927).

1 Money and international commodity circulation.

1. Editorial note. The editors do not share some of the positions of the article of c. Dashkovskij.

International exchange and the law of value - Isaak Dashkovskij

David Ricardo Marx International free world trade value pod znamenem marksizma

Second part. Under the Banner of Marxism, p. 131-151, no. 4, 1927 Also see concluding third article.

The first part, titled 'On the theory of the development of the world market and world economy', appeared in issue no. 1 of 1927, but is not available (at least for now).