The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
In this Big Think interview, economist Thomas Piketty, best-selling author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century, delves into several common misconceptions about free market economics. Piketty argues that strong public institutions are necessary for market regulation. So-called "natural forces" of self-regulation commonly associated with the writings of Adam Smith cannot be relied on to maintain a healthy economic climate. An example of this is the heavy trend toward deregulation...
Saliem Fakir -
Ask anybody what a market is and they will describe a creature that is self-moving, mythic and almost machine like as its engine drives the economy to a state of equilibrium.
Often this machine-like description fosters the erroneous idea that the market is something that can be calibrated or recalibrated with the turn of a switch.
Adam Smith referred to the ‘invisible hand’ where individual agency within the market wonderfully produces a set of relations, exchanges and...
American foreign affairs magazine, Foreign Policy, said to be read by business leaders and politicians, including President Barack Obama, published an article aimed at explaining Karl Marx's relevance in this current era of global financial crisis. The article, "Thoroughly Modern Marx", was penned by Leo Panitch. That this popular mainstream, pro-business magazine chose to publish an article about Marx, has caused a stir in progressive circles. Paul Jay of The Real News...
The Pinky Show expounds on the transition from colonialism to globalisation and the role of the free market in this evolution. Both bring about the same results, using different methods. While colonialism was about control through force, globalisation has found an easier way to create an underclass that is easily exploited by redefining relationships and influencing how people think. Bolstering the veneer of progress and civilization - media, technology, the law and education are used to...
Glenn Ashton -
Alan Greenspan was wrong. Free market ideology is rotten to the core. There is mayhem on main streets, with jobs haemorrhaging from every sector. It is not only first world working stiffs who are feeling the pain. The poor and working classes are suffering a great deal more, due to problems created on the other side of the world by a system that may as well operate in a parallel universe.
The self serving greed and accumulative gathering of wealth through nefarious instruments of finance...
What is the role of the U.S. in the disposition of the world's economic and environmental resources? How are financial markets best defended from economic shock? Does liberalization ensure prosperity? These issues were discussed by journalist, Naomi Klein and economists Joseph Stiglitz and Hernando de Soto, in a conversation moderated by David Harvey, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Centre - City University of New York. To hear what Klein had to say, please click...
