RUTHLESS
CRITICISM
“If we have no
business with the construction of the future or with organizing it for
all time, there can still be no doubt about the task confronting us at
present: the ruthless criticism of the existing order, ruthless in that
it will shrink neither from its own discoveries, nor from conflict with
the powers that be.” — Karl Marx
Wealth & poverty
What can be learned from Karl Marx about wealth in capitalismThe misanthropic and absurd logic of the capitalist economy
Theses on work and wealth
A mode of production based on violence
“Real” value: Comments on the “labor theory of value” and the wealth of capitalist society
Why labor as the source of value is nothing to celebrate
What is poverty?
Capitalism requires it and constantly increases it
Money -> more money
Money
Not participation in wealth, but exclusion from it
Profit – good or bad?Or not a moral category?
“Growth”The increase of private wealth
Where does the surplus over the costs advanced actually come from?
Unpaid labor
The free market fairy tale that profit creates jobs
“Layoffs despite profits!” – Why “despite”?
On the highly praised accomplishments of filthy lucre
The irrational and unnecessary mode of production that money puts in motion
Finance capital
Finance capital: The character, achievement, and power of financeLoaning money to make more money
Five lessons from a one-week stock market crashWhy do losses on the stock market negatively affect “all of us” when booms don’t have positive effects for “all of us”?
The economic miracle of Dubai and its crisisAn object lesson on the power of international credit
Scolding the speculatorsBlaming Wall Street while upholding the free market economy
How the stars of the financial markets increase money
Private equity: “vulture attacks” or an honest merchant’s business?
Inflation
Not all inflation is the same
Impoverishment vs. the flight into real assets
The US copes with inflation and the risk of recession,
setting benchmarks for the rest of the world
More interest, more debt
Crisis
What is a crisis?
Is it when people are thrown into poverty or when profit-making no longer works out?
Lessons from the crisisThe accumulation of too much wealth in relation to the purpose of accumulating more of it
[Audio] Lessons from the “Great Recession”Is the revival of this madness anything to hope for?
Management
Do CEOs get paid too much?Income inequality in capitalism – a totally wrong question
Management bonusesHow to shake up and restore a sense of fairness in a company
Letter: Do workers create all wealth?
Then what is the role of bosses in capitalism?
Business big & small
“Mega-mergers” – Capital concentration on a global scale
Size as a weapon of competition
“Exploitation” at Amazon?
What’s so scandalous about the normal and successful use of wage labor for profit?
Small business – “Our” problem childCapital in need wants our concern and sympathy
“Predators” attack capitalism!Enron, Worldcom, Xerox ... perversions of capitalism?
Auto capital
Tesla and the “Insane Mode” of its rise
The quite normal insanity of a “sustainable-green” market conquest program in 21st century capitalism
VW’s “Dieselgate”
Das Auto: a showcase industry and global business with state support
Wage reduction: Made in the USAAuto capital eliminates its human dead weight
Crisis hits the auto industryA didactic drama about jobs
“Cash for clunkers”A spotlight
on the role of the consumer in capitalism
Energy capital
Cheap oil
Another beauty of our modern economic system
Fracking in the USAOn the intimate relationship between business and violence
IT capital
AI: New weapons of competitionReducing the cost of the commodity labor power for capital and state
The career of the internetA tool and a weapon
Industry 4.0A big step forward for the internet and the competition over who owns it
Digitization and the dollarOn some recent advances in the competition between states ...
Biotech capital
The science of genes, its capitalist use value, and the latest tribulations of Western moralityNeither a “curse or blessing”
Landed property
The “housing question” in capitalism
As old as capitalism itself and as such can never be “solved”
Competition
The competition of the capitalists
The capitalists are not victims but agents of competition who take up its requirements in pursuit of their interest in profit
The competition of the wage laborers
All their efforts to secure their reproduction from the sale of their labor are deflected against them by the effects of competition
World market
The global market economy proves its reasonSupply bottlenecks due to pandemics and other disasters
Lessons on international tradeIts not so you can have tropical fruit and coffee
“Fair trade” – The capitalist world market
as a challenge to the consumer's moralityHow to ignore the economic logic of factory disasters in Bangladesh
What the world economic crisis teaches about capitalismWhen speculative failures cause the material reproduction of entire continents to collapse