Alberta’s Rockefeller coups, Part 6: The Financial Frauds of American Empire Are Driving Climate Disaster, But Both Could Still Be Thwarted

Regan Boychuk Author’s Note: John D. Rockefeller Sr. had the last laugh about American anti-trust law and the muck-raking media before descending to Dante’s 9th Circle in May 1937. The oil industry’s center of gravity had begun shifting towards Texas after Spindletop in 1901, but Rockefeller coups across North America in 1931, 1935, 1938, and 1940 […]

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The political economic roots of Hollywood strikes, Part 3

Originally published at notes on cinema James McMahon Around the time of this post, SAG-AFTRA and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) produced a tentative agreement in their 2023 negotiations. The SAG-AFTRA National Board approved the tentative agreement, and recommends for the ratification of the 2023 TV/Theatrical contracts. – J When the […]

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How trade secrets swallowed your right to know

Originally published at pluralistic.net Reproduced under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license Cory Doctorow If you’ve never had a fight over the phrase “intellectual property,” count yourself lucky, you normie, you. In the land of Free Software and Free Culture, “IP” is fightin’ words. Not unreasonably, mind you. “IP” was a deliberately ploy, undertaken by […]

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The Costly Betrayal of Cost-Benefit’s Promise

Jerry Cayford Originally published here A conversation, eighty-some years ago, shaped our world today. The conversation was among three papers in economics. In 1939, Nicholas Kaldor and John Hicks published papers that steered economics through a major crisis, one that threatened its legitimacy as an advisor on public policy. With the Great Depression still raging […]

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Money is power

Originally published at pluralistic.net Reproduced under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license Cory Doctorow “Political economy” may sound like an obscure technical matter, but it’s a really very simple (and incredibly important) idea: That the economy is inevitably political, and there is no way to depoliticize economic theory. That is, every aspect of economics – […]

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Alberta’s Rockefeller Coups, Part 5: Canada is an American Protectorate & Alberta is an Imperial Bezzle

Regan Boychuk Green Party of Alberta energy critic Author’s note Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The suggestion that a semi-secret conspiracy of racists transferred imperial control of Canada from the British to the Americans on the eve of the Second World War seems well worth skepticism. But doubt will melt as we meet the elite […]

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Why Consumption Taxes (VATs) are Insanely Regressive

Originally published at Wealth Economics Steve Roth Following the community of Socks (?s) or “social democrats” out there on the interwebs (this is definitely my economic tribe), in articles, and in books, there’s a particular stance on a particular issue that I find perplexing, even anti-progressive. They’re generally quite keen on using “value-added” consumption/sales taxes […]

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Environmental conflict, capital as power … and a nice trip to London

Originally published at Manchester Metropolitan University Adam Marshall In recent years, as governments and corporations have intensified their efforts to locate, extract and monetise oil, gas, and various other biophysical resources, the world has simultaneously witnessed a proliferation of social resistance to these efforts. While such resistance can take many forms, it is invariably motivated […]

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Why are not-for-profit hospitals in the US so much more profitable than for-profit hospitals?

Christopher Mouré and Shai Gorsky When it comes to social institutions, not-for-profit organizations (NFPs) allegedly strike a balance between the private and public realm. While privately owned and operated, not-for-profits are distinguished by their ostensibly public purpose – in eschewing private profits, they claim to make the pursuit of some social benefit their primary objective. […]

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Fascism in Israel. The Funding of Fascist and Neo-Nazi Movements: 1970-1990

Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler In 1989, we applied for a Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation grant to investigate the funding of fascist and Neo-Nazi movements in Israel. The Foundation did not find the topic important enough, and the application was ceremonially rejected. Here is what we wanted to do. Research plan The emergence of ultra […]

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