Economist Richard Wolff joins Bill Moyers to shine light on the disaster left behind in capitalism's wake, and discusses how to battle for economic justice. A noted professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and now visiting professor at Manhattan's New School, Wolff has written many books on the effects of rampant capitalism, including Capitalism Hits the Fan.
Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story comes home to the issue he’s been examining throughout his career: the disastrous impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans (and by default, the rest of the world). But this time the culprit is much bigger than General Motors, and the crime scene far wider than Flint, Michigan. From Middle America, to the halls of...
The worsening social pains of government austerity programs now intensify the vast social suffering caused by the crisis since 2007. Beyond this especially severe business cycle, longer-term trends show capitalist mega-corporations moving blue and white collar work to lower wage regions far from the former centers of capitalist production (US and western Europe especially). Profit and...
Chances are if you are reading this, you have spent a fair amount of time discussing the [Occupy Wall Street movement]. Anyone with a basic familiarity with the protests is aware that the demonstrators represent a broad spectrum of ideologies, beliefs and goals. Ordinarily, there is nothing inherently negative about his fact. Since the 1970′s, America’s top capitalists have...
Talk by Naomi Klein author of "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" given September 27, 2007 at Town Hall Seattle. The Shock Doctrine retells the story of the most dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman’s free market economic revolution. In contrast to the popular myth of this movement’s peaceful global victory, Klein shows how it has exploited moments of shock and...
In recent years, populist explanations for world events have become common and often taken the form of anti-establishment conspiracy theories. The contradiction between how people believe the world should be, according to the mainstream propaganda pertaining to liberty and democracy, and how it is in this time of crisis leads people to search for easily digestible answers. It’s easy...
Being a libertarian means opposing the use of force to restrain peaceful, voluntary exchange. That doesn’t mean it should be understood as involving support for capitalism. Whether this claim makes any sense at all depends, of course, on what you mean by “capitalism.” For some people, perhaps, the term just refers to free exchange. And if that’s all you intend when...
Defenders of freed markets have good reason to identify their position as a species of “anti-capitalism.”[ 1 ] To explain why, I distinguish three potential meanings of “capitalism” before suggesting that people committed to freed markets should oppose capitalism in my second and third senses. Then, I offer some reasons for using “capitalism” as a label...
Economics of Prout covers the basic economic principles of Prout, which offers a viable alternative to the materialistic, anti human philosophies of Capitalism and Communism.
A great illustration on how Goverments take control of countries, and how capitalism drives the expansion of the Military Industrial Complex.
This is a film based on the book "Death of the Liberal Class" by journalist and Pulitzer prize winner, Chris Hedges. It charts the rise of the Corporate State, and examines the future of obedience in a world of unfettered capitalism, globalisation, staggering inequality and environmental change. The film predominantly focuses on US corporate capitalism, but it is my hope that...
Update 8/6, a clarification. The below article's quotes were taken a bit out of context: http://www.rt.com/news/bolivia-coca-cola-ban-770/ In a symbolic rejection of US capitalism, Bolivia announced it [hopes to] expel the Coca-Cola Company from the country at the end of the Mayan calendar. This will mark the end of capitalism and usher in a new era of equality, the Bolivian govt says...
It is time to try to describe, at first abstractly and later concretely, a strategy for destroying capitalism. At its most basic, this strategy calls for pulling time, energy, and resources out of capitalist civilization and putting them into building a new civilization. The image, then, is one of emptying out capitalist structures, hollowing them out, by draining wealth, power, and meaning...
Is greed all that's wrong with capitalism? No. It is not enough to attack capitalists for being greedy, although this is a common tactic. I hope to explain why in this short essay. Consider a small business family who work longer hours than do their employees, who live frugally, keeping just enough of the income from the business to support their modest lifestyle, paying the rest out...
A leader in the revolutionary left in the US should feel like a fox in a chicken coop. Increasingly large capitalists (Walmart, Enron, Wall-Street) are being exposed as so destructive to our society. The Bush administration created global chaos and suffering. Attacks on democratic rights are expanding. Thoughtful people in all strata of our society realize that there are dangerous trends that...
A fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work (Part 1) Last year in Lansing, Michigan, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union leadership fought a pitched battle with the Lansing City Council to push capitalist real estate developers to use union labor. When discussing the fight, Joe Davis, the union representative, proclaimed, “It’s important to...
The Freeman editor Sheldon Richman, speaking at George Mason University, raised the question of just what mainstream libertarians mean when they call a country “capitalist.” What qualifies a country as “capitalist”? A lot of countries with relatively low indices of economic freedom (including those ranked as “mostly unfree”) are conventionally regarded as...
Peter Schiff, a self-described member of the 1%, discusses and promotes the benefits of capitalism and takes questions and comments from people at Occupy Wall Street.
A little background on Don Regan, former Merrill Lynch CEO, White House Chief of Staff and advocate of Reaganomics. In this video he orders President Reagan to "Speed it Up"... Do presidents still receive orders from Wall Street? Content from Michael Moore's film "Capitalism: A love story".
Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth. Directed by Ian MacKenzie http://ianmack.com Produced by Velcrow Ripper, Gregg Hill, Ian MacKenzie READ THE BOOK http://sacred-economics.com HELP ADD...
From diarist alien abductee DailyKos: "Michael Moore's Capitalism, A Love Story has revealed a deep dark secret to the intrepid reporters of ABC News and the show Good Morning America - so-called Dead Peasant Insurance, the practice of companies taking out secret life insurance policies on their low-level employees, with the benefits paid out to the company upon the employee's death, even if...
"The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching plan, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole...Their secret is that they have annexed from governments, monarchies, and republics the power to create the world's money..."
Directed by Jonas Cuaron. Alfonso Cuarón, director of "Children of Men", and Naomi Klein, author of "No Logo", present a short film from Klein's book "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism."
FDR's Lost tape of his proposal for a second bill of rights for economic security for all americans. This excerpt is can also be seen in Michael Moore's film "Capitalism: A love story"
The main purpose of this book is to try to persuade revolutionaries to shift the sites of the anticapitalist struggle and to select new battlefields. I identify three strategic sites for fighting - neighborhoods, workplaces, and households - that I believe will not only enable us to defeat capitalists but also to build a new society in the process. The advantage of this shift is that it...
Let me begin with a good quote from a bad economist: This, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes politically inevitable. So wrote Milton Friedman, in his 1982 preface to the twentieth anniversary edition of his famous manifesto, Capitalism and Freedom, first published...
An investigation of "disaster capitalism", based on Naomi Klein's proposition that neo-liberal capitalism feeds on natural disasters, war and terror to establish its dominance. If you are a non-US viewer y ou can still watch US-restricted videos using Security Kiss.
In a word, no. While " anarcho "-capitalists obviously try to associate themselves with the anarchist tradition by using the word " anarcho " or by calling themselves "anarchists" their ideas are distinctly at odds with those associated with anarchism. As a result, any claims that their ideas are anarchist or that they are part of the anarchist tradition or move
Capitalism is presented as a 'natural' system, formed a bit like mountains or land masses by forces beyond human control, that it is an economic system ultimately resulting from human nature. However it was not established by 'natural forces' but by intense and massive violence across the globe . At its root, capitalism is an economic system based on three things...
The city has been shut down. Bridges and subways and airports are closed. There is no school, no shopping, no work. The stock exchange is shuttered. The circuits of capital are disrupted indefinitely. A state of emergency--but not the sort we had hoped for on May Day. This is not a General Strike but a Climate Strike. The banks are lined with barricades. But they are not there to...
One of the most entertaining yet unsurprising aspects of Occupy Wall St has been the response from traditional media. Whether intentionally playing dumb or genuinely clueless, the mainstream media has failed to inform the public and substantially address the key issues. But why did tens of thousands of people risk arrest all over the world to set up encampments and protest the status quo?...
Episode 1: Winner Take All Politics Bill Moyers explores how America's vast inequality didn't just happen, it's been politically engineered. Episode 2: Crony Capitalism Bill Moyers and former White House budget director David Stockman on the all-too-cozy relationship between Washington and Wall Street. Episode 3: How Big Banks are Rewriting the Rules of Our Economy Big...
REAL ESTATE 4 RAN$OM outlines a genuine alternative to the global property speculation that forced so many into debt. Doubling the pressure, the tax game has become just that, with tax havens a favoured option for the wealthy. The result - we are taxing the wrong things, causing more problems whilst bankrupting once proud economies. Fast edits and funky music help to lift the world of...
Ethos, a powerful new documentary hosted by Woody Harrelson, is an investigation into the flaws in our systems, and the mechanisms that work against democracy, our environment and the the common good. With a stunning depth of research and breadth of analysis, this film delves deep into the inter-connected worlds of Politics, Multi-National Corporations and the Media. Most of us have...
'Capitalism and Other Kids Stuff' tries to find answers to why we live the way we do and possible alternatives. Created on one freezing Saturday afternoon in a church hall at Hebburn in the north east of England on a budget of £80, the film may be rough and ready but it's hoped that it says something real to you. The ideas it proposes are ones you're unlikely to see on any TV show, art...
We funded the boom. We funded the bank bailout. Now we're expected to fund the recovery. But we cannot shop our way out of the long term problem: Over-consumption contributes to almost all global challenges. As nice as our luxury lifestyles are, we cannot ignore the elephant in the room much longer. Green capitalism and green consumerism isn't going to cut it. We have to consume less . Visit...
Two years after his last critique of the nation’s governing bodies in 2007’s ‘Sicko,’ agitprop documentarian Michael Moore is back with a new movie — and this time, his target is the economy. In a just-released teaser clip for Capitalism: A Love Story, Moore puts on his trademark baseball cap to go after corporate America. “It’s a crime story,” Michael Moore says of his latest documentary, in...
The Kingdom of Survival is an interdisciplanary documentary combining speculative travelogue and investigative journalism in order to trace possible links between survivalism, spirituality, art, radical politics, outlaw culture, alternative media and fringe philosophy. Circling through themes of utopianism, globalized capitalism, anarchism, intellectual and spiritual self-defense, religion and...
A hard look behind the curtain, stopping the corporatocracy, revolution and political reality. About Class War Films: We have one mission: to expose, explain, attack, and dismantle the myth of American Exceptionalism, the mask and disguise of Predatory Capitalism. We have no loyalty to any politics or party, dogma or philosophy, and our one governing principle is justice for all...
Inspired by the uprisings of the Arab Spring, filmmaker Rodrigo Dorfman embarks on an exploration of his roots in 1970s Chile, where as a child he witnessed the first peaceful socialist revolution in history. Fascinated by the transformative power of art, Dorfman uncovers the power and legacy of his father’s controversial book How to Read Donald Duck, which the military junta burned and...
There is no alternative ("Tina") to capitalism? Really? We are to believe, with Margaret Thatcher, that an economic system with endlessly repeated cycles, costly bailouts for financiers and now austerity for most people is the best human beings can do? Capitalism's recurring tendencies toward extreme and deepening inequalities of income, wealth, and political and cultural power require...
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has defended his company's 'immoral' tax policies, saying of the internet giant's evasions to get out of paying billions of dollars: "It's called capitalism." News reports this week revealed that Google avoided paying at least $2 billion in taxes in 2011 by siphoning off $10 billion in profits to a Bermuda shell company. The figure is almost double...
The word “libertarian” is becoming an increasingly popular descriptor of political ideology in the US, though many in the US incorrectly associate libertarianism only with the capitalist Libertarian Party. Historically libertarianism was a term used most commonly by anti-authoritarian socialists to describe their political philosophy. In fact, in most countries the term is...
Starting with the occupation of a park next to Wall Street on September 17, a new movement is spreading across the country in which people gather in public spaces in protest against social inequalities. We’ll present a full analysis of this phenomenon here shortly; in the meantime, here’s an open letter to the occupation movement, engaging with some of the issues that have...
“…everyone but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor, or they will never be industrious.” —Arthur Young; 1771 Our popular economic wisdom says that capitalism equals freedom and free societies, right? Well, if you ever suspected that the l
A(A)A. Anon Anarchist Action In the last few years, Anonymous has gained increasing notoriety for its action against websites, agencies and organizations that promote censorship and control. It has helped spread information and supported protestors demanding freedoms and rights. But the popularity of the movement, the attention it brings along, and the structure it has engendered...
Since last Saturday, a situation has escalated around the UK, with eruptions of long-repressed anger in most major cities. Whilst this anger may have certainly, at times, taken on forms that we disapprove of, we all know where this anger comes from. We are all suffering at the moment. Trying to make ends meet can be a living nightmare – benefits, jobs and healthcare going down the drain...
Is mass media used to manipulate the public? Yes, undoubtedly so. Examples to illustrate this are so numerous and backed up by intellectuals like Noam Chomsky , Norman Solomon , and those that actively engaged in this manipulation, like Edward Bernays , that this fact is not a
Consider this: thousands of diverse, locally-rooted, grassroots economic projects are in the process of creating the basis for a viable democratic alternative to capitalism. It might seem unlikely that a motley array of initiatives such as worker, consumer, and housing cooperatives, community currencies, urban gardens, fair trade organizations, intentional communities, and neighborhood...
There are over 7 billion people on this planet; (1,2) * 3 billion are living below the poverty line (less than $2US a day) * 1 billion are starving * 1% of the population own 40% of global assets * The richest 10% of individuals account for 85% of the world’s total assets * An estimated 30,000 children die each day due to poverty. That’s one child every 3...