Latest news with #FriedrichEngels
The Guardian
21-05-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Capitalism and Its Critics by John Cassidy review – brilliant primer on leftwing economics
Capitalism has a way of confounding its critics. Like one of those fairground punching bags, it pops right back up every time a crisis knocks it down. Friedrich Engels learned this the hard way. 'The American crash is superb,' he enthused in a letter to Karl Marx in 1857: this was communism's big chance. Well, not quite. The US Treasury stepped in, recapitalising banks with its gold reserves; in Britain the Bank Charter Act was suspended to enable the printing of money. The rulebook was torn up and capitalism saved. So it has always been. Every time we have teetered close to the precipice, big government has swooped down to save the day. The name of the game is 'managed capitalism' and it has been a going concern for more than 200 years. This is the theme of John Cassidy's new book, a marvellously lucid overview of capitalism's critics, written in good old-fashioned expository prose – if at times a touch workmanlike compared with some of his subjects, such as exhilarating stylists Marx and Carlyle. Half of the book is given over toMitteleuropa (where we meet Karl Polanyi and Rosa Luxemburg, both of whom are having a bit of a moment these days), India (JC Kumarappa, Gandhi's crony and pioneer of ecological economics), and Latin America (whose dependency theorists argued that the developed world was scooping up the benefits of rising productivity at the developing world's expense). Cassidy steers clear of the theoretical thickets of György Lukács and Louis Althusser as well as of the more idiosyncratic anti-capitalist paths taken by Milovan Djilas and José Carlos Mariátegui. Still, it would be churlish to complain about omissions in a book that finds room for 50 potted biographies. This is by far the best primer I have read on the luminaries of the economic left. Early socialists, Cassidy shows, had little faith in government and equated the state with upper-class corruption. Many of them were sentimentalists or oddballs. The utilitarian socialist William Thompson, for one, thought it was possible to kill the 'passion for individual accumulation' simply by substituting cooperation for competition; the humans he describes sound suspiciously like Sims characters. Carlyle's anti-capitalism ('Mammon-worship is a melancholy creed'), meanwhile, led him to a pro-slavery position. We owe the left as we know it to Marx and Engels, who railed against financialisation and monopolisation – the 'concentration of capital' – and defended planning and public ownership. The collapse of capitalism that they foresaw, however, never came to pass. From their vantage point of 1840, wages had flatlined even as profits had soared over the previous 50 years. This immiseration would surely bring about the system's downfall. Yet the following century reversed the trend: wages rose faster than profits, and capitalism found new champions among the workers. Unlike the factory-owning Engels, Keynes was no class traitor: 'The class war will find me on the side of the educated bourgeoisie.' His mid-century magic formula, low interest rates and tax-and-spend, led to astonishing growth and stability in the short run. Rachel Reeves could benefit from his counsel for countercyclical spending: 'the engine which drives Enterprise is not Thrift but Profit'. But Keynes, as Paul Sweezy complained, treated the economy as if it were a machine that could be sent for repair. There were 'political aspects of full employment' that Keynes had ignored, Sweezy's Marxist comrade Michał Kalecki elaborated. Low unemployment meant enhanced labour power, so more strikes and higher wages and inflation. A capitalist backlash would ensue, he predicted. That is precisely what happened in the 70s. Milton Friedman made the case for a 'natural rate of unemployment', by which he meant that more unemployment was needed in order to destroy labour power and push down wages. This confirmed Marx's observation that a 'reserve army' of desperate jobless workers was the best weapon capital had to cripple unionism. Where Nixon could call himself a Keynesian, his successors Carter and then Reagan turned to neoliberalism. High interest rates and anti-union legislation followed. After a brief mid-century egalitarian blip in which economic growth exceeded the rate of return on capital, the opposite has once again become true in our own gilded age. This was Thomas Piketty's insight, demonstrated with the sophistication of statistics, in his Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Cassidy, a staff writer at the New Yorker, is generous in his judgments, and even in his indictments. There is not a single snide remark in these pages. He plays his cards close to his chest, but I suspect he might confess to being a Keynesian. A clue lies in his conclusion – 'capitalism can be reformed' – which reminded me of Fredric Jameson's witticism that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism. Capitalism and Its Critics by John Cassidy is published by Allen Lane (£35). To support the Guardian, order your copy at Delivery charges may apply.
Wall Street Journal
16-05-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
‘Capitalism and Its Critics' Review: Enemies of the Market Mindset
If capitalism had been overthrown as quickly as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels had at first expected, John Cassidy's sprawling 'Capitalism and Its Critics' would have been shorter and easier to write, if not to sell. But, resilient, protean, abused and occasionally bailed-out, capitalism is still with us, and so are its critics, the latest in a line so long that Mr. Cassidy, who was setting out to tell capitalism's story (or much of it) through their eyes, was spoiled for choice. Capitalism always provides consumers, and readers, with plenty of what they are looking for. Mr. Cassidy, a writer for the New Yorker, chose wisely and widely, selecting reformers as well as revolutionaries, the renowned and the not so well-known, among them 'lesser-known figures who made interesting contributions.' The last might include Anna Wheeler (ca. 1780-1848), an upper-crust Anglo-Irishwoman who took on the economic system and the oppression of her sex. She was, wrote Benjamin Disraeli, 'very clever but awfully revolutionary.' Her grandson became the viceroy of British India. Some were picked because they captured 'an entire epoch.' Thus Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), known for coining the term 'conspicuous consumption' in 1899, is paired with the Gilded Age of Rockefellers, Vanderbilts and the rest. The fate of the Russian economist Nikolai Kondratiev (1892-1938), however, neatly symbolizes the arrival of an iron age. A supporter of the successful policy under which the struggling young Soviet state allowed a partial return to a market economy, he queried both the wisdom of collectivization and the inevitability of capitalism's collapse (he was duly imprisoned and shot). Despite the book's length, its author does not claim that it is a comprehensive account. It is 'a history,' not 'the history,' and it comes with a slant. Mr. Cassidy is on the left, as are the majority of those he has recruited to help tell capitalism's tale. This wouldn't be the book I would recommend for someone searching for a single introductory account of capitalism's ascendance and the qualities that have ensured its survival. But for those who want to dig more deeply, regardless of their ideological orientation, 'Capitalism and Its Critics' offers an intriguing, if skewed, perspective, and benefits from a skillful explanation of complex ideas in clear, often lively prose.
The Citizen
15-05-2025
- Business
- The Citizen
Wealth gap widens, ANC dodges wealth tax
The ANC's rejection of a wealth tax leaves the wealthy untouched. It's time for the government to tackle its overspending. That old saying 'the rich get richer and the poor get poorer' is true of the world over the past two decades, as the gulf between the wealthiest and those at the bottom of the financial pyramid grows by the hour, never mind day. When you have the vast majority of the wealth on planet earth in the hands of such a tiny minority of mega-billionaires – and when you note that children die of hunger while they sun themselves on their ocean-goings and flit from mansion to mansion in private jets – you wonder about two things. First, why does an individual, even one with an extended family or army of concubines, need such obscene amounts of money? And, second, how can that wealth be spread more evenly? One of the answers to this virulent form of capitalism was conjured up by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels… but so far their socialism or communism hasn't worked. However, even in many capitalist countries, there are taxes on wealth – money which, theoretically, can be used to raise up all citizens. ALSO READ: Minister of finance says no to wealth tax It's interesting, therefore, to see that the ANC has seemingly come down on the side of the fat cats by not pursuing the idea of a wealth tax – at least according to what Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has said. His arguments are that such a levy might persuade the wealthy to leave the country for more amenable tax climes and that, in any event, taxes on property, estate duty, securities transfers and donations already exist – and they bring in R22 billion a year. That's not counting property taxes levied by municipalities. That level is in line with global best practice, says Godongwana. So, if you've ruled out a wealth tax, perhaps you should seriously start cutting government spending to balance your books, minister.
Yahoo
21-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
On This Day, Feb. 21: New Yorker magazine published for 1st time
Feb. 21 (UPI) -- On this date in history: In 1848, The Communist Manifesto was published by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. A rare copy of the publication sold at auction for $39,600 in 1986. In 1878, the New Haven, Conn., Telephone Co. published the first phone directory. It listed 50 subscribers. In 1885, the Washington Monument, a 555-foot-high marble obelisk built in honor of America's revolutionary hero and first president, was dedicated in Washington. In 1916, Germans launched the Battle of Verdun. More than 1 million soldiers in the German and French armies were killed in nearly 10 months of fighting. It was the longest battle of World War I. In 1925, the first issue of The New Yorker was published. In 1934, Nicaraguan guerrilla leader Cesar Augusto Sandino was killed by members of the country's national guard. In 1953, Francis Crick and James D. Watson discovered the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. It took another three decades for scientists to produce a clear, direct picture of the DNA molecule. In 1965, Black Muslim leader Malcolm X was assassinated at a rally in New York. In 1972, Richard Nixon became the first U.S. president to visit the People's Republic of China. In 1994, longtime CIA counterintelligence officer Aldrich Ames and his wife, Maria, were arrested and charged with selling information to the Soviet Union and Russia. Ames was sentenced to life in prison; his wife got a five-year term. In 1995, a Russian commission estimated up to 24,400 civilians died in a two-month uprising in the separatist republic of Chechnya. In 2007, nuclear neighbors India and Pakistan signed a treaty in New Delhi aimed at preventing the accidental use of atomic weapons. In 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama met the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, at the White House after the Chinese government warned the meeting would damage U.S.-China relations. A White House statement said Obama "reiterated the U.S. position that Tibet is part of the People's Republic of China and that the United States does not support Tibet independence." In 2019, the Japanese Space Agency's Hayabusa-2 probe touched down on asteroid Ryugu. It was the first probe to deploy working rovers onto an asteroid. In 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered "peacekeeping" troops into two separatist regions of eastern Ukraine under new decrees recognizing them as independent republics. Three days later, Russia invaded Ukraine.
Russia Today
31-01-2025
- Business
- Russia Today
Is the EU finally coming to its senses on Russian energy?
'All that is solid melts into air,' Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels famously proclaimed almost 180 years ago. Their Communist Manifesto was published against the backdrop of the European revolutions of 1848. But they should have seen 2025 – we are beginning to witness a mighty melting of what is un -solid about EU-NATO Europe. This time, the backdrop is not (yet) a typical revolution – street fighting, barricades, and all. But there are two historic events that, in their combined geopolitical impact, will be revolutionary, though they have been anything but unforeseeable. These are, in order of importance, Russia's defeat of the West in Ukraine, and America's doubling down on Trumpism. The two developments have made the sands on which the EU-NATO Europeans have built their rickety policy edifice not merely shift but cave in. Relentless obedience to Washington has always been self-damaging, but now a reckoning is at hand with accumulating self-harm reaching a tipping point into self-destruction. It is true, on the surface, that EU-NATO Europe is still digging in its heels. The EU has just produced its umpteenth renewal of sweeping – and constantly increasing – sanctions against Russia. A faction of ten among its member countries are shouting for even more. A top energy official of the European Commission is in Washington to explore ways in which the Europeans can give in, again, to ever-increasing US pressure and buy even more ruinously expensive liquefied natural gas (LNG) from their great insatiable 'ally.' Yet some, even among Europe's current elites, are still capable of intuiting that things are so desperate that they must, finally, question even apparent axioms. As the Financial Times has just reported , there are voices, including from EU heavyweight countries such as Germany, that dare think about the unthinkable, namely returning to openly buying inexpensive fossil fuel energy from Russia. In a less topsy-turvy world, the EU should, of course, never have stopped doing so. But as it is, one aspect of Western economic warfare against Russia was the EU's declared – if non-binding, nota bene – intention to completely abandon its best source of cheap energy by 2027. Read more This small European country is defying the Western establishment: How long can it last? Not that this plan has really worked. In reality, the results have been mixed. Yes, the EU has managed to make its energy supply more expensive, so that its industry is struggling to remain globally competitive , with gas costs ' typically three to four times higher than in the US .' But no, the EU has not, actually, been able to ween itself off Russian energy. Instead, Moscow, according to Bloomberg, remains one of the EU's ' top gas providers .' Indeed, 2024 has just seen record imports of LNG from Russia. It is, of course, more expensive that way than by pipeline. The (still) legal but oddly underhanded way of buying and consuming this LNG stokes tension inside the EU, but that's apparently the way its elites prefer their commerce and politics – inconsistent, unusually dishonest, a tad absurd, and held together only by a thick glue made of foul compromises and bad blood all around. In a broader perspective, EU-NATO Europe's current, self-inflicted energy fiasco is, of course, only one aspect of its fundamentally unsound (polite expression) decision to obediently and even fanatically join the American proxy war against Russia via Ukraine. Since then, nothing has worked out as expected. The Ukrainian Army was beefed up with Western arms, training, intelligence, mercenaries, and 'advisers' to become the West's strongest anti-Russian proxy in history. In that shape, it was supposed to inflict a military defeat on Moscow. Yet it is Ukraine now that is struggling to survive on an increasingly desperate defensive, as even the Washington Post has recently admitted (while still, obstinately, calling for more war). Western economic warfare strategists, meanwhile, boasted that they would not just impede but ruin Russia. Yet now its economy (estimated GDP growth in 2024 of between 3.8% and 4% ) is doing better than that of the EU heavyweights France ( 0.8% ) and Germany (no growth, instead minus 0.2% ), as well as the EU as a whole ( 0.9% ). Spain, it is true, is an outlier in Western Europe (with 3.2% ) but this being an exception is the point. Its success, the Wall Street Journal reports , depends on mass tourism and the use of so much migrant labor that, without immigration, Spain's population would be shrinking. Good luck, Germany (for instance), with replicating that recipe… In addition, Western international clout would, so Western elites made themselves believe just a few years ago, compel everyone else on Planet Earth to isolate Russia. Yet now it is the West that looks lonely. First, most of the world refused to freeze out Russia, and then the West's ongoing massive complicity in Israel's genocidal ethnic-cleansing attack on the Palestinians shredded the last sorry remnants of the West's Orwellian claim to global leadership based on 'value' and 'rules' superiority. As for Moscow, it's doing just fine, quietly – and not so quietly – admired by the Global South for standing its ground against sanctions that have harmed the interests of nations of that region too , while building out Moscow's multilateral relationships in associations such as BRICS and with partners such as North Korea and Iran , and deepening its de facto alliance with China . Read more Half of the West is doomed: Here's why The West also deployed international law, for what it's worth, in transparently political moves to serve as a geopolitical weapon against Russia's leadership. Yet, especially after the West's brutal refusal to heed elementary legal and ethical norms regarding Israel's outrageous war crimes and crimes against humanity, the entire world can see that the true heart of lawless darkness is the West itself. All of this, particularly a humiliating military setback and economic collapse, was intended to bring about 'regime change' in Moscow. That may have been violent, certainly unconstitutional, replacing a government resisting the West and helping others to do the same. That also failed to happen. Instead, the Russian government is solidly in control, and, if anything, the population's support has only increased. In sum, nothing, really nothing the elites of EU-NATO Europe have undertaken with regard to Russia and the war in Ukraine has worked out even remotely. Western European leaders are now looking at pure disaster. And most of it is their own fault in the simple sense that they have made decisions – repeatedly – that brought them to this impasse, even though they had alternatives. The significance of even faint noises from within the EU blob indicating that there are some politicians and bureaucrats left – beyond Hungary and Slovakia – that are at least able to register that they need to change their approach is hard to assess. Will we look back one day and see today's reports about anonymous and heavily resisted thought experiments about returning to normal energy trade with Russia as the beginning of a more general sea change? A real and healthy transformation in which Europe would have to rebalance fundamentally by finally emancipating itself from its American 'ally from hell' while re-establishing a normal relationship with Russia and China, too? That, alas, still seems unlikely. But then, history does not follow a straight, easily predictable line. Instead, it moves in leaps, bounds, and some very harsh bumps, too. Maybe there's hope in that.
