I suspect that more than a few people would accept as historic fact that Stalin created May Day, and to checkmate Stalin’s evil, communist attempt to influence US workers, FDR initiated Labor Day. Two utopias in conflict: the Workers’ Paradise vs.
Recent scientific research has definitively demonstrated that the notion of capitalism as the natural result of the human species quest for aggrandizement on all levels has no validity. Not only is our species empathetic and cooperative, but also this aspect of life extends deep into our ancestry – actually, as some say, life itself down to cells is defined by cooperation.
In the April 23rd issue of the New Republic Tim Wu published a review of Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler’s book Abundance: The Future is Better than You Think and compared its theme – “more is better” – with Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney.
Social Text’s Periscope web page currently features a number of essays on “Work and Idleness in the Age of the Great Recession.”
This special issue of Periscope on “Work and Idleness in the Age of the Great Recession,” reconsiders our sense of what qualifies as work or idleness when there is little or no work to be had.
The quadrennial abuse visited upon us by the boosters of the State, and their supplicants, grows worse. This electoral circus (to be clear, I am not limiting my scorn to that baroque institution, the Electoral College, ridiculed by all, even those, worldwide, who genuflect to what they perceive to be more sophisticated governing structures), this circus, I repeat, solidified after years of debate in the United States at the end of the 18th Century, when the assumption that control of unruly social forces belonged to wealthy white men (who, alone, had the franchise), was imposed, though not necessarily obeyed (rebellions repeatedly threatened the new rulers of the former colonies), and amounts to nothing more than a counter-revolutionary culmination of a bloody uprising – erroneously termed The American Revolution – that, itself, foreclosed Thomas Paine’s revolutionary vision.
The people who claim that they are adversely affected by the economic consequences of policies that perpetuate the US distribution of wealth have, in fact, no alternative economic option to choose. While some politicians try to create the illusion of a wide spectrum of viable approaches to alleviating poverty, we know that they serve up these schemes only to burnish their liberal brand.
Today we begin our fundraising campaign for a long over due tribute to the world-class economic insights of Karl Marx.
The proposed Museum of Marxism will be an interactive center incorporating the latest cutting-edge museum technology.
Visitors will be able to walk through the Hall of Materialism and see large screen displays of the history of labor’s struggle for a democratic society.
A picturesque town in the Basque region of Spain has become a Mecca for progressive pilgrims, videographers and journalists. And every few months a glowing report announces that this town, nestled in a lush valley encircled by wooded mountains, holds the future.
The popular slogan “People before Profit” adopted by worker co-operatives begs the question how people, in this case members of worker co-operatives, can trump profit in a profit-driven economy. The predictable response is that the democratic organization of co-operatives, where decisions are guided by the interests of the members and not exclusively by the imperatives of capital, amply validates the truth of the slogan.
In the waning moonlight, three bands of sullen men with ash-blackened faces stealthed through the woods and dales of central Yorkshire, one of the first counties in England to industrialize.
Quietly, the three groups, each traveling from different villages, picked themselves through paths they traversed since childhood and assembled in a clearing near their target.