F. A. Hayek, Libertarianism, and the Denationalization of Money
“Hayek found support within the American libertarian movement. Libertarians realized that Hayek’s radical proposal would limit state control over the monetary system and allow for the free exchange of gold.”
McIntosh, W. (2024) ‘F. A. Hayek, Libertarianism, and the Denationalization of Money’, Modern American History, pp. 1–20. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/mah.2024.19.
Now this one might be a little heated, but an example of this happening is the game Stellar Blade, whilst it is still a good game, there was also a sex appeal to it which they cut out the jiggle physics and sultryness out of the game before release....
The #panel "Seeing and Feeling Financial #Capitalism: Bodies and Finance" will take place at the 2024 #PAMLA (#PAMLAorg) #conference in Palm Springs on November 7-10, 2024.
It's really a shame just how many anti-capitalists are out there spending their time and their voice trying to predict just how soon #capitalism will fail. It's already failed! I am more anti-capitalist than most, but I do not see capitalism going anywhere anytime soon. There is nothing wrong with being a realist.
I come across so many articles online where the pipe dreams of anti-capitalists are really no different than all the tone deaf articles that #capitalism will save the world. There is so much bad writing online. It is my belief that is why #academics need to worry less about publications and see blogging as a public service.
TL;DR: #Shudder will be getting an ad- supported tier. If they offer this as a cheaper alternative, ok, but if #AMC+ eventually pushes this on current subscribers unless they pay more a la #Amazon, I'm out.
We already have an ad supported horror channel; it's called #TUBI.
The latest episode of A History of Capitalism is now out!
Capitalism, at its outset, was a very violent and warlike affair. In this episode, we will explore the historical model known as war capitalism and how military might was essential for granting European merchants access to the markets of Asia.
“There was a time in the history of France when the poor found themselves oppressed to such an extent that forbearance ceased to be a virtue, and hundreds of heads tumbled into the basket. That time may have arrived with us.”
A cooper said this to a crowd of 10,000 workers in St. Louis, Missouri in July, 1877. He was referring to the Paris Commune, which happened just six years prior. Like the Parisian workers, the Saint Louis strikers openly called for the use of arms, not only to defend themselves against the violence of the militias and police who were sent to crush their strike, but for outright revolutionary aims.
The Great Upheaval was the first major worker uprising in the United States. It began in the fourth year of the Long Depression which, in many ways, was worse than the Great Depression of the 1930s. It lasted twenty-three years and included four separate financial panics. In 1873, over 5,000 business failed. Over one million Americans lost their jobs. In the following two years, another 13,000 businesses failed. Railroad workers’ wages dropped 40-50%. And one thousand infants were dying each week in New York City.
By 1877, workers had suffered four years of wage cuts and layoffs. In July, the B&O Railroad slashed wages by 10%, their second wage cut in eight months. On July 16, 1877, the trainmen of Martinsburg, West Virginia, refused to work. They occupied the rail yards and drove out the police. Local townspeople backed the strikers and came to their defense. The militia tried to run the trains, but the strikers derailed them and guarded the switches with guns. They halted all freight movement, but continued moving mail and passengers, to successfully maintain public support.
For those who don't know, i've been broke since november. In a homeless shelter living on zero dollars. I finally got my banking straight yesterday and am not broke for the first time in months.
Today it's snowing and i don't want to go out. I have an address now and so decided to do some online shopping.
I can't think of anything to buy. The few things i desire will be cheaper at a thrift store.
Neoliberalism: A Critical Reader ed. by Alfredo Saad-Filho & Deborah Johnston
Neoliberalism is the dominant ideology shaping our world today. It dictates the policies of governments, and shapes the actions of key institutions such as the WTO, IMF, World Bank and European Central Bank. Its political and economic implications can hardly be overstated.
Can someone recommend environmental and ecological #economics literature from the moral perspective that the only relevant metric is #WildAnimalWelfare? What economic policies would have the best impact in reducing wild animal suffering?
Property and Contract in #Economics: The Case for Economic Democracy by David Ellerman
This book makes 2 arguments.
The employment contract is the core of the #capitalism rather than private property
The employment contract is invalid because it violates #WorkersRights to #democracy in the firm. All firms should be structured as worker #coops for economic justice
I've been yelling from the rooftops, READ EDWARD E. BAPTIST! Specifically his book, "The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism". And of course many people don't have the time or interest for a history book, no matter how compelling. Well, good news! Vox has an interview with Dr. Baptist, about the book, which gives a good overview of his themes and arguments. READ IT!!
"Of the many myths told about American slavery, one of the biggest is that it was an archaic practice that only enriched a small number of men.
The argument has often been used to diminish the scale of slavery, reducing it to a crime committed by a few Southern planters, one that did not touch the rest of the United States. Slavery, the argument goes, was an inefficient system, and the labor of the enslaved was considered less productive than that of a free worker being paid a wage. The use of enslaved labor has been presented as premodern, a practice that had no ties to the capitalism that allowed America to become — and remain — a leading global economy.
But as with so many stories about slavery, this is untrue. Slavery, particularly the cotton slavery that existed from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the Civil War, was a thoroughly modern business, one that was continuously changing to maximize profits."
ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism by Yves Smith
“Lost your job, lost your life savings, the country's going down the proverbial - want to know who did it? Yves Smith tells the tale of how bad economics created the foundations for the 'Madoff economy'.
My real worry with Google's voyage into enshittification (thanks to Cory Doctorow @pluralistic the term) is YouTube.
Through YT, for the past 15 years, the world has basically entrusted Google to be the custodian of pretty much our entire global video archive.
There's countless hours of archived footage — news reports, political speeches, historical events, documentaries, indie films, academic lectures, conference presentations, rare recordings, concert footage, obscure music — where the best or only copy is now held by Google through YouTube.
So what happens if maintaining that archival footage becomes unprofitable?
"Both sugar trade and spice trade were economic foundations of early European geographic expansion and colonial capitalism. Frankish settlement in twelfth- and thirteenth-century Syria-Palestine may be seen as, arguably, the earliest example of colonial capitalism, preceding early sixteenth-century Portuguese conquests of spice-trading coastal outposts of India, south-east Asia and the Arabian peninsula."
Interesting reflection by two older musicians (Beato and Tim Pierce) about how the music industry used to have a "middle class" that's been pushed out now by an industry that focuses more and more on profits.
They don't really go into the details of how the changes happened, with big-corp #capitalism being the elephant in the room ... but their observations, which include tech, paint a pretty clear picture.
Controversy and Censorship
Now this one might be a little heated, but an example of this happening is the game Stellar Blade, whilst it is still a good game, there was also a sex appeal to it which they cut out the jiggle physics and sultryness out of the game before release....