This category is for Marxist economic theory and economic history. For news and analysis of the present-day economy, head to Economy.
Every Easter, millions of people tuck into inadvisable quantities of chocolate eggs. But crack the yummy surface and you’ll find a gooey core of brutality underlying the history of the sugar and cocoa trade. As Joe Attard of the KCL Marxists explains, those who desire guilt-free guilty pleasures need to support the revolutionary cause!
The board game Monopoly is a useful tool for understanding the transformation of ‘free market’ capitalism into monopoly capitalism. Under socialism, the monopolies can be nationalised and run for the benefit of the whole of society – not a tiny handful of capitalists.
Universal basic income (or UBI), an unconditional payment to all citizens, has become part of the economic zeitgeist in recent times, embraced by advocates on both the Left and the Right as a solution to the symptoms and sores of the crisis-ridden capitalist system. But who is actually raising the proposal – and in whose interest?
We are now in an era that many imagined would be a period of prosperity for all. And yet, far from living in the technological utopia once imagined, we are increasingly living in a dystopian nightmare of eye-watering inequality and poverty amidst plenty. Hugo Robles looks at the contradictions of automation and machinery under capitalism.
Today’s global economy is full of dangers, one of the most precarious being the Silicon Valley tech sector; in particular, the impending stampede of “unicorns”. This term has come to describe the primary threat facing the tech sector, with the possibility of a cataclysmic repetition of the 1999 dot-com bubble.
In the final part of his series on the history and development of money, Adam Booth explores how monetary theories and systems have changed over time in response crises, and looks at the “solutions” proposed to overcome the contradictions facing the money system today. How do we break the spell of the so-called “root of all evil” and free ourselves from these “chains of gold”.
In the fourth part of his series on the history and development of money, Adam Booth examines the factors lying behind inflation and explores the role of gold as the basis for an international monetary system. As the collapse of the gold standard – and more recently the European single currency – demonstrate, the contradictions of capitalism will eventually always come to the fore.
In the third part of his series on the history of money, Adam Booth looks at the growth of finance, the development of banking, and the role of credit within capitalism. As Adam stresses, the economic problems we face today lie not with an overbloated finance sector, greedy bankers, or a lack of credit, but with the anarchic, chaotic, and crisis-ridden capitalist system.
In the second part of his series looking at the role of money within capitalist society, Adam Booth explores the questions of value, alienation, and profit in order to develop a more in-depth understanding about the nature of money.
In the first of a five-part series analysing the role of money within capitalist society, Adam Booth looks at the origins and evolution of money. By applying the Marxist method to this question, we can strip away the mysticism of this seemingly omnipotent power – “the root of all kinds of evil” – and understand the solution to removing its grip over us.
In the final part of his series on the rise of the sharing economy, Adam Booth reviews Paul Mason’s new book, PostCapitalism, about the impact of information technology and its contradictory contribution within the crisis-ridden capitalism system. How can we truly utilise the abundance of technology and wealth we see around us today?
In the second part of his article on the rise of the sharing economy, Adam Booth examines the impact that new technologies and business models will have on the nature of work and jobs. The trend under capitalism is towards more precarious employment and rising inequality.