By Marx! Capitalism’s Chickens Are Coming Home to Roost!

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/201154/20110820/roubini-nouriel-roubini-dr-doom-financial-crisis-economy-jobs-gdp-earnings-debt-europe.htm?cid=2

So the main thing that I wanted to focus on was this linear path that seems to drive Marx’s theory.  He constantly proclaims that feudalism led to capitalism, and capitalism eventually will lead to socialism.  Capitalism caused a “political centralization” which eventually will lead to an accumulation of capital that the capitalist system itself will not be able to maintain; similar to the way the feudal system became incompatible with the changing productive forces.  Marx writes this in 184:

A similar movement is going on before our own eyes.  Modern bourgeois society with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such a gigantic means of production and exchange, is like a sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.”

This article reads:

“All of the nations that have seen social unrest and demonstrations ‘are all driven by the same issues and tensions: growing inequality, poverty, unemployment, and hopelessness. Even the world’s middle classes are feeling the squeeze of falling incomes and opportunities,’ Roubini said.”

Maybe Marx was correct albeit a little late in his predictions.  Could capitalism be facing the rising tide of socialist revolution?

The Crisis of Capitalism and the Return of Marx

You know the economy is going pretty badly when financial experts on Wall Street start reading and citing Karl Marx, perhaps the greatest critic of capitalism.

Here this article.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the Marx quote:

“At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within this framework of which they have operated hitherto”.
Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Karl Marx (1859)

Poor Economics

Poor Economics

The author of Poor Economics discusses the iimpact of Aid in poor countries. THis relates to our readings because

Under-development in the “Developed” world.

The following is text of a speech delivered by Danny Glover at the Higher Ground Hurricane Relief benefit concert, an all-star jazz concert Live at Lincoln Center on Sept. 17, 2005.

“When the hurricane struck the Gulf and the floodwaters rose and tore through New Orleans, plunging its remaining population into a carnival of misery, it did not turn the region into a Third World country, as it has been disparagingly implied in the media; it revealed one. It revealed the disaster within the disaster; grueling poverty rose to the surface like a bruise to our skin.”

Graphing Global Inequality

Graphs of global inequality

What do these different graphs tell you about global inequality?

What trends do you see globally?

How do you think the measures of inequality in the first graph relate to changes in labor and production in the last three?

 

“Development” here at home

What is the difference between the “developed” world and the “developing” or “underdeveloped” world?  To which category does Hawaii belong?

Here is an article about a proposed development project in Ewa.

Here is a link to the developers website regarding the project.

Here is a link to an anti-development site against the project.

What are the different arguments being advanced regarding the development plans for Ho‘opili?  How do these arguments frame the issue?