economics
Articles on economics and political economy.
The biggest ‘october surprise’ of all: a world capitalist crash - Loren Goldner
Loren Goldner's analysis of the recent global financial crisis.
Loren Goldner
October 2008
“There will be periods of 30 years which will pass with the seeming importance of a single day, and single days with the importance of 30 years.” (old Marxist maxim)
Inflation: rising prices and the 2% pay ceiling
An analysis of the use of inflation to attack workers' conditions.
If the government were to announce that it was cutting the wages of all workers - public and private sector - there would presumably be uproar. And yet this is exactly what they have done by calling for ‘pay restraint’ and insisting all wage rises are capped at 2%. Make no mistake, a sub-inflation pay ‘rise’ is a pay cut. No amount of statistical trickery changes this simple fact.
UK: One in four will live in fuel poverty
Over 14 million people could find themselves in fuel poverty in the near future, if new figures from gas giant Centrica predicting a 70% rise in gas prices prove accurate - nearly a quarter of the population.
Around 4.5 million households are currently living in fuel poverty, equating to around 10.4 million people according to the government’s 2002 figures from the Household Survey, but another 1.6 million homes are likely to be added as prices continue to rise.
The permanent crisis: Henryk Grossman’s interpretation of Marx’s theory of capitalist accumulation - Paul Mattick
Mattick's classic work on the economic theories of Henryk Grossman and the dynamics behind the inevitable downfall of capitalism.
Introduction
Modern capitalism and revolution - Paul Cardan
Paul Cardan (Cornelius Castoriadis) attempts to describe and analyse the features and dynamics of the fully-industrialised capitalist societies of the early 1960s.
About the text
Burma: International power play?
Rob Ray looks at the economics surrounding the ‘Saffron Revolution’ in gas-rich Burma for Freedom newspaper
In the aftermath of the Burmese protests, in which hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets alongside Buddhist monks, there has been mounting international pressure on China and India to pull back their substantial economic support to the country.
Private Equity: a vicious new breed?
Rob Ray looks at the recent manoeuvrings of Private Equity and asks what relevance its growth may have
In scenes reminiscent of the 80s pre-stock market crisis, a major row has blown up over the attempted Private Equity takeovers of high-street giants Sainsbury’s and Boots.
A prole's guide to the recession: economics with the truth - Wildcat (UK)
A guide to the language of economics and recession as it relates to workers, as opposed to abstract mystifying jargon.
A redefining of some economic terms.
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A PROLE'S GUIDE TO THE RECESSION
- Economics With The Truth
Going east: Direct investments in Eastern Europe
Article looking at the flow of investments from Germany (and elsewhere in Western Europe) to countries further east.
“Then I will leave and go to the east!”
What some decades ago might have been a defiant outcry of desillusioned lefty teachers, under the threat of dismissal due to their CP membership, is now taken up again and realised by the ‘class enemy’.
Foreign investments in the Czech Republic: Boom or fall? 2004
Article analysing foreign investment and business in the Czech Republic since 1989 and recent changes which are occuring.
Transformation towards private capitalism, which started after 1989, was at the beginning mainly affected by the struggle inside the old-new ruling class for the actual character of this change. Already in 1990 the Czech faction of bourgeoisie led by Vaclav Klaus, who was minister of finance and who later became the prime minister and who is now the present president, got the strongest position.
