Tag: inequality

Economics, Politics & Culture

Morality & the Meaning of Money

Dreams of individual accomplishment and desires to contribute to the common good become firmly attached to waged work, where they can be hijacked to rather different ends: to produce neither individual riches nor social wealth, but privately appropriately surplus value. Kathi Weeks, “The Problem with Work” Capitalism lures us onward like the mechanical hare before the greyhounds, insisting that the economy is infinite and sharing … Continue reading Morality & the Meaning of Money

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Coronavirus, Economics, Politics & Culture

The Last Fiction – Part 3

History is not repeating itself, we are unfolding a new page in national life. The past has gone forever. There is no abiding present, it flies while we name it, and as it flies it is our duty to provide for the thick coming future. . . . We are to shape the future. We cannot escape the duty. — William D. “Pig Iron” Kelley … Continue reading The Last Fiction – Part 3

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Economics, Politics & Culture

Transparent Trojan Horse – Part 2

In Part 1, we confronted the uncomfortable reality that unequal societies like ours do not, unfortunately, fix themselves gradually or peacefully. Instead, conditions ossify and then worsen, until one of the Four Horsemen of violent upheaval comes galloping along to level the socioeconomic landscape. So at the very moment when we need maximum flexibility to confront the looming spectres of climate change, ecological devastation, and … Continue reading Transparent Trojan Horse – Part 2

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Economics, Politics & Culture

Transparent Trojan Horse – Part 1

The trouble with the eagerness to make a world is that, because the world is already made, what is there must first be destroyed.  –  Paul Shepard, ‘Nature & Madness’ Modern industrial societies have three fundamental features: they are stupendously successful, stupendously destructive, and stupendously unequal. It is the last facet, inequality, which prevents any meaningful action to mitigate the destruction or redefine success. Inequality, … Continue reading Transparent Trojan Horse – Part 1

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Economics, Politics & Culture

The Cerberus of Surplus Capital

“It is the nature of a new idea to confound current consensus.” William H. Whyte, Jr. In the previous post, we looked at the most daunting socioeconomic issue facing us today: the decline of labor value. Looking beyond a simple statistic like the unemployment rate, we can see the inescapable reality that technology, and the myriad systemic offshoots enabled by technology, will continue to reduce … Continue reading The Cerberus of Surplus Capital

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Economics, Politics & Culture

Something Ain’t Workin’

  The modern age has carried with it a theoretical glorification of labor, and has resulted in a factual transformation of the whole of society into a laboring society…. It is a society of laborers which is about to be liberated from the fetters of labor, and this society does no longer know of those other higher and more meaningful activities for the sake of … Continue reading Something Ain’t Workin’

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