S. Charusheela

Marxists may feel pleased to hear the terms "exploitation" and "slavery" gain wider currency in discussions about globalization. But I want to argue that we should be cautious about the implications of recent popular discourses of slavery and exploitation of third world workers, particularly women, under globalization.

Jack Amariglio

On March 15, 2008, members of Rethinking Marxism and AESA were informed about an article entitled "Fairness, Consumer Consciousness and the Welfare of Less Developed Countries" by Giovanni Immordino. This article appeared in the most recent issue of the Global Economy Journal. Upon reading the following sentence in the article's abstract--"An increase in activism deteriorates labour practices and decreases welfare"--one of our horrorstruck friends exclaimed (online), "OH MY GOD!"

Maliha Safri

The last one year period has been incredibly tumultuous for Pakistani society: the late December assassination of Bhutto preceded by the October assassination attempt on her which caused the death of 120 persons, the March imprisonment of Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, and the subsequent political unrest as well as other incidents. The recent elections seem to have left a good taste in everyone's mouth- signaling the resumption of democracy. The party of Bhutto, the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), won the most numerous block in the Parliament, and hence, even if Bhutto was not able to be elected and placed

Rick Wolff

Many aspects of our "efficient" capitalism combined to produce the credit meltdown that now threatens ever more aspects of the global economy. One was the private rating companies' failure to accurately assess and honestly reveal the risks of securities based on a "bundle" of loans (securities that provide their owners with a portion of that bundle's principal and/or interest). This was especially true for securities based on mortgage loans issued in the go-go years of the housing boom. Investors around the world bought those securities based on those companies' ratings. Their purchases financed the US housing bubble now gone bust. We know now that those ratings were badly mistaken. Owners of those securities around the globe are taking staggering losses and reducing their lending to all borrowers. Anxiety about the risks of all sorts of borrowing has risen alongside deepening distrust of all risk assessments. Defaults, bankruptcies, and foreclosures rise together with the odds of recession in 2008.

Rick Wolff

Capitalism is. The leftists who target neoliberal globalization denounce privatization, free markets, unfettered mobility of capital, and government deregulations of industry. They propose instead that national or supra-national governments control and regulate market transactions and especially capital movements, increase taxes on profits and wealth, and even own and operate industry. "All in the interests of the people," they say, democratically.

Rick Wolff

What matters most in economics often gets the least attention. So it is with the link between wages and productivity: what workers get paid versus the value of what they produce. Most commentators focus elsewhere. They hype what their employers want to see or what they want others to believe. Stock boosters see market upswings underway or around the corner. Politicians in power repeat what the stock boosters say. Those betting on market downturns pay their commentators to pitch gloom and doom. Politicians out of power copy them and promise when elected to resume prosperity so they too can mimic the stock boosters.

Rick Wolff

The authors of the most widely read book on financial panics (Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises, Fifth Edition, 2005) refer to them as "hardy perennials" and document how they have repeatedly devastated large portions of modern economies and societies over the last three centuries. Charles Kindleberger (a professor of economics at MIT until his death in 2003) and Robert Aliber (a professor of economics and finance at the University of Chicago who is responsible for this latest edition) also write that the period since the 1970s has been the most economically tumultuous in all that time. The last few weeks certainly reinforce that judgment.