capitalism

Child Labor Was Essential to Early Capitalism—Don't be Shocked it's Coming Back

by Steve Fraser

As employers seek new possibilities to exploit labor, state legislatures are going back to the future with rollbacks of child labor bans. 

Museum Celebrates Sweet Smell of... Failure

The Museum of Failure is a global traveling exhibition that celebrates the signal marketplace flops of capitalism, from the infamous Edsel and New Coke to the obscure, highlighting the vagaries of consumer taste and historical contingency. 

Can Capitalism Exist Without Excess?

by Trevor Jackson

The pandemic supply chain disruptions have focused attention on shortages, but the problem of gluts—of food being destroyed when it can't be profitably sold–reflects a deeper problem with global capitalism. 

Beyond Quiet Quitting: The Real Crisis of Work

by Erik Baker

Impressionistic accounts of worker withdrawal and labor militancy both fail to capture a deeper issue: Work is failing to deliver on the promises the state has made as an avenue of meaning and fulfillment. 

O'Mara: Politics and Commercial Pressure, not ChatGPT, are the Threats

Historian of technology and Silicon Valley Margaret O'Mara says that the peril of artificial intelligence chatbots and artificial intellience will lie in how it is marketed; the rush to be first to the market creates conditions for sloppy tech and abusive applications. 

Why We Need Pirates

by Paul Buhle, Marcus Rediker and David Lester

Though vilified in popular culture, the history of piracy shows that many crews were egalitarian bands of maritime workers escaping their exploitation at the hands of merchant companies and navies. A new graphic adaptation of a recent history of piracy tells the story. 

Review: New Book Worships the False Idol of the Responsible Corporation

The idea of corporate social responsibility is an artifact of the domination of society by big business, a domination so powerful as to make alternatives exceedingly difficult to imagine. A new book internalizes that difficulty. 

As the Progressive Era Ideal of Regulation Vanishes, What Will Stop the March of AI?

by Walter G. Moss

If capital decides that artificial intelligence is sufficiently profitable to put in charge of driving our cars, writing our essays, or even teaching our history classes, what is left to stop it, even if the products are terrible or even dangerous? 

You Can't Understand MLK's Politics Without Understanding His Critique of Capitalism

Adam Tooze discusses King's longstanding efforts to link racial discrimination and economic exploitation, as well as the working-class base of the civil rights movement. 

2022's Lesson? Billionaires Bad, Actually

Tech historian Margaret O'Mara says Musk, like other tech moguls, has long been supported by a myth of the individual genius that is only now being overturned by his erratic decisionmaking, boosting of right-wing conspiracy theories, and incredibly thin-skinned reaction to criticism. 

Dickens Would Have Had Bankman-Fried's Number

The novelist targeted the absurdities and self-congratulation of utilitarian philosophers, the forerunners of the tech industry's "effective altruism," in his 1854 "Hard Times." 

Is Environmental Damage Really Sabotage by Capital?

by R.H. Lossin

 The term "capitalist sabotage" describes intentional destructive activity in service of profit, and is a more accurate label than "accident" or "unintended consquence" for the environmental change that will cause a million unnecessary deaths a year over the coming decades. 

Lunchtime in Italy: Work, Time and Civil Society

by Jonathan Levy

The Italian lunchtime insists that time be organized around communal rituals and sustenance, not work. Does the utter foreignness of this attitude in America help explain the current national derangement? 

The Robber Barons Had Nothing on Musk

by David Nasaw

Like the Gilded Age robber barons, Elon Musk's self-made mythos hides the government subsidies supporting his businesses. Unlike them, he has the werewhithal to move financial markets to his advantage through Twitter. 

The Internet is Lousy Because of Capitalism, Not Bad Apple CEOs

by Matthew Crain

"Surveillance advertising was created by marketers, technology start-ups, investors, and politicians, a coalition bound by the desire to commercialize the web as quickly as possible."

Can We Have International Cooperation Without Domination?

by Jamie Martin

There is no golden age of international relations free of the coercive power of capital. A different version of internationalism is needed. 

Reviewed: The Bio of Hippie Capitalism Pioneer and Technofuturist Stewart Brand

by Malcolm Harris

From LSD to the computer revolution, Stewart Brand appeared in some way in the biggest cultural trends to emerge from California in the late 20th century. A new authorized biography tells a version of his story, but is it the whole story? 

Palm Oil is Colonialism's Continuing Nightmare

by Max Haiven

The extraction and trade in palm oil in west Africa has been at the center of two centuries of exploitation and violence, which stands to get worse as the Ukraine war threatens the world supply of competing sunflower oil. 

Your House Makes More Money than You Do

Rising real estate values are bringing more wealth to Americans than wages and salaries are. This is a big problem for economic equality.

How London Became the Oligarchical Cesspool of "Londongrad"

by Geoffrey Wheatcroft

From football to real estate to politics, British institutions have been willing to welcome Russian cash for decades without regard for its potential moral taint.