critique of capitalism

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"Unemployment has to jump 40-50%. We need some pain in the economy. We need to remind people that they work for the employer, not the other way around. "

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Just how rich are the super rich (eattherichtextformat.github.io)
submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

cross-posted from: https://feddit.de/post/645858

Wealth shown to scale - Mind your scroll-wheel/thumb...

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submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
 
 

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/180514

Summary

On paper, the U.S. government is free to legislate its path and determine its policies. In principle, there is little to prevent a resolute U.S. administration from challenging the power of the country’s dominant capital and clip the wings of its largest firms.

But it would be good to remember that the U.S. government---like most other governments---has become part and parcel of an increasingly global state of capital. This integration has undermined the de facto autonomy of governments everywhere. Whether willing or reluctant, many if not most policymakers have become pawns of a global mode of power they cannot control and that forces them to tranquilize the increasingly vulnerable population that dominant capital helps create. Government spending has inflated, but this inflation betrays weakness, not strength.

Larger-yet-weaker neoliberal governments are the alter-ego of bigger-and-meaner dominant capital. It is hard to think of any important sector or aspect of society, in the United States and elsewhere, where dominant capital does not dominate. It is true that, faced with increasing resistance, the rising power of dominant capital in the United States has slowed down significantly over the years and seems to have stalled completely in recent times (Figure 1). But the level of this power is still greater than ever, and it is yet to show any meaningful decline. Finally, and importantly, the stalling advance of U.S. dominant capital makes it extra vigilant against any serious challenge.

Prediction: if the current U.S. government delivers on its promise to curtail the might of the country’s largest corporations, it will face the wrath of the most powerful megamachine the world has ever seen.

---Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan, authors of the Capital as Power, the power theory of value

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"We don’t just take it apart for the phallus symbol of a megalomaniac billionaire. Not without a fight"

A Facebook group filled with Rotterdam residents angry that their historic bridge might be pulled apart to get Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ nearly half a billion pleasure craft to sea have a plan: they will unleash their displeasure with a bombardment of rotten eggs.

It all started when it was reported that Bezos’ mega yacht is being built in the shipbuilding city of Alblasserda by the company Oceanco. The problem arises when trying to navigate the massive 417-foot mega yacht to the sea. When it hits the waves, it will be the largest such vessel in the world. It has to pass under the Koningshavenbrug bridge, also known as the De Hef, in Rotterdam, however the masts on the sailing vessel are far too high to pass under the bridge... (more)

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