finance

Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies: The Madness of a Highly Speculative Capitalism

Submitted by Internationalis... on Aug 15 2021 18:05

Capitalism finds itself in a tricky situation. Since the end of the post-war boom in the 70s, despite the restructuring of production, and the attacks on the daily working conditions of millions upon millions of proletarians, it has become more difficult than ever to find profitable reinvestments for capital. This crisis of valorisation of capital is only one of the many symptoms of the more profound crisis of capitalism: the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. This fall in the rate of profit is accompanied by attempts of the capitalists to postpone the crisis, to look elsewhere for short-term methods of making profit, or to save their own skins by any means necessary.

Forever in Debt

Article on the stranglehold that debt has on working class communities, with some suggestions on resistance.

From Black Flag #220 (2001).

Lies, Damn Lies and Economics – Black Flag

Joan Robinson once said that the point of studying economics was to be able to work out when economists were lying. Being a left-wing Keynesian, she was immune to the usual ideological (if not religious) biases of mainstream economics. Her point is both correct, and usually ignored because economics has far more to do with ideology than facts, belief than science.

Capitalism's New Economy: The Booming Financial Sector

Submitted by Internationalis... on Jul 31 2019 13:42

Part three of this series was published in 2005, two years or so before the great financial crash when the economic pundits were lauding the move away from manufacture to 'business and financial services'.

Amazon: A new business model better able to manage the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production

An attempt to understand the functioning of one the world's most powerful companies using marxist categories - explaining how Amazon manages to combine the functions of productive, comercial and finance capital. The intention is, of course, to try to work out the implications for class strugle...