Category: Capitalism
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The consequences of climate change are hitting us squarely in the face. Temperatures are soaring, drought conditions are spreading, and wildfires are raging across the UK and other countries around the globe. The world is quite literally burning. Meanwhile millions of workers are forced to live and work in sweltering heat, in the knowledge that…
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I recently reached something of a milestone in my career. In April this year, I passed the point at which I had been in full-time employment for exactly 20 years. I have done a variety of jobs during that time, but all of them have involved the same kind of work: setting up spreadsheets, writing…
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Capital in the 21st Century is a book written in 2013 by the French economist Thomas Piketty which focuses on wealth and income inequality in Europe and the United States since the 18th century. The book was an instant worldwide success, with over 2.5 million copies sold by the end of 2017. Piketty’s central thesis…
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As most people know, a major global financial crisis took place in 2008. The context for the crisis was the neoliberal boom of the late 90s and early 2000s, during which western governments claimed to have ended boom-and-bust. However a surface-level analysis is enough to make clear that ending boom-and-bust completely is not possible under…
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Neo-feudalism, or new feudalism, is a theorized contemporary rebirth of policies of governance, economy, and public life reminiscent of those present in feudal societies. It refers to the idea that capitalism is evolving, or has already evolved, into a modern socio-economic system that bears similarities to the feudal social orders of ancient times, but with…
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In a previous blog post I suggested that Israel convinced the US to bomb Iran because Israel wants to turn Iran into a failed state. That’s not to suggest that the US doesn’t also want to attack Iran. On the contrary, the US has wanted to attack Iran ever since the Iranian revolution of 1979.…
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I have suffered from depression for most of my life; and I am not alone. According to data from the Office for National Statistics, approximately 1 in 6 adults in the UK experience mental health problems like depression or anxiety in any given week. Furthermore, according to data from the NHS Business Services Authority, around…
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US and Israeli missiles are currently raining down on Iran. Neither Donald Trump nor Benjamin Netenyahu are motivated by ending the suffering of the Iranian people, despite what they might claim. Instead, both are motivated by distracting the citizens of their respective nations from their growing disaffection. Reports are emerging that the US is attempting…
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A recent post on twitter caught my attention as I thought it perfectly summed up the absurdity of the working world. The post went like this: “Wake up early to go to a job you don’t care about. Work all day doing things that don’t matter to you, for people who wouldn’t care if you…
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If 2026 has had a theme so far, it has been US imperialism. The year has already seen US interventions in Venezuela and Iran, and threats of future interventions elsewhere, such as in Colombia and Greenland. Many seem to be surprised by these events, but they really shouldn’t be. The US has a long history…
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It’s end-of-year review time at the company where I work. This is always a stressful time and one which inevitably leads to disappointment for many people, particularly those who don’t get the rating / pay rise / promotion they were hoping for. Thankfully I am not one of them, having long ago given up any…
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We Marxists talk about class a lot. Specifically, we like to talk at length about how under capitalism there exists two classes – the working class and the capitalist class – whose interests are diametrically opposed. But is this really true? In order to answer that question, we first need to define what we mean…
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Critics of socialism (or Marxism) love to point out how many people died in socialist countries. Particular examples they like to cite are the Soviet Famine of 1932-1933 which killed around 6 million people, and the Chinese Famine of 1959-1961 which killed around 30 million people. These numbers seem shocking, but as any quantitative social…
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The political situation across the Western world is looking pretty grim right now. In the US, far-right populist and wingnut Donald Trump recently began his second term as president and seems even more unhinged now than he did the first time round. In the UK, Nigel Farage’s far-right populist political party, Reform, is currently ahead…
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Capitalism is a system that requires continuous growth. Under capitalism, firms must compete to survive, which means they need to constantly expand and increase profits. To understand why this is so, we need to consider how firms operate. Any firm needs to invest before it can make a profit, and in order to invest, it…
