Nicholas Freudenberg – The Capitalist Diet

Link to a review by Nicholas Freudenberg of Gerardo Otero’s book The Neoliberal Diet: Healthy Profits, Unhealthy People (2018):

“The Capitalist Diet: Energy-dense and Profitable”

 

Bonus link: “Nick Freudenberg on the Corporation the Individual and Public Health” – though his invocation of liberal pluralism along the lines of the FCC’s old “fairness doctrine” is subject to criticism and probably still isn’t sufficient.

Blair Fix, Jonathan Nitzan & Shimshon Bichler – Real GDP

Link to an article by Blair Fix, Jonathan Nitzan & Shimshon Bichler:

“Real GDP: The Flawed Metric at the Heart of Macroeconomics”

Real-World Economics Review, Issue 88, P. 51 (July 10, 2019)

 

Like everything in the Real-World Economics Review, this article really is an attack on the hegemony of neoclassical (i.e., anti-classical) economics.  The main points this article makes therefore tacitly draw from classical economics, such as the distinction between use value and exchange value that was explained by Karl Marx in Das Kapital.  Of course, these authors make no mention of Marx.  They also suggest energy units as one alternative to GDP, similar to a concept promoted by R. Buckminster Fuller three or four decades ago but no such precedents are acknowledged in the article.  They also normatively accept a “growth” model.  There is a degree of self-promotion in this article, and it only briefly explains the ideological battle driving their critique.  But the narrow technical points it makes are mostly sound.

See also “The GDP Illusion: Value Added versus Value Capture”

Russiagate and Washington Meddling

With all the clamor over “Russiagate” (which is really just self-serving deflection of blame for Hillary Clinton’s loss in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election), it is worth noting a few examples of more extreme meddling by the USA in the affairs of other nations:

“Exposed: The Pentagon’s Cyberwar Against Russia”

“US Meddling in 1996 Russian Elections in Support of Boris Yeltsin”

Michael Hudson: I’m told that there was wholesale bribery. Officials in the Reagan administration told me that they just paid off foreign officials to support the U.S. position, not a New International Economic Order. U.S. agencies maneuvered within the party politics of European and Near Eastern countries to promote pro-American officials and sideline those who did not agree to act as U.S. satellites. A lot of money was involved in this meddling.

“De-Dollarizing the American Financial Empire”

and

Killing Hope

Maggie Levantovskaya – Identity Shaping on Social Media

Link to a review by Maggie Levantovskaya of Jia Tolentino’s Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion (2019):

“Identity Shaping on Social Media: On Jia Tolentino’s ‘Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion'”

 

Bonus links: Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, and Branding in the Social Media Age and “The Programs of Neoliberal Feminism” and “‘If Only There Were More Female Billionaires!’— New York Times” and “Capitalism and Female Labor”

Articles About USA-Iran Provocations

Selected links to articles about military provocations between the USA (and its allies) and Iran:

“Eve of Destruction: Iran Strikes Back”

“If Iran Is Responsible for the Fuel Tanker Attacks in the Gulf of Oman (and It May Not Be), It Is Only a Reaction to Washington’s Outrageous Conduct in the Middle East”

“What Right Has Britain to Seize an Iranian Tanker Off Spain?”

Rob Urie – Toward an Eco-Socialist Revolution

Link to an article by Rob Urie:

“Toward an Eco-Socialist Revolution”

 

There are many reasons to question the proffered solution here, which would be unpopular and prone to the all the problems that have historically accompanied peasant societies (rigid social hierarchies, etc.).  Still, this article thinks seriously about real issues and the necessary scope of solutions, and actually ventures to offer a solution.

Ted Rall – The Difference Between Liberals and Leftists

Link to an article by Ted Rall:

“The Difference Between Liberals and Leftists”

 

Bonus links: Virtue and Terror and Review of Domenico Losurdo’s Liberalism: A Counter-History and  Non-violence: A History Beyond the Myth and War and Revolution: Rethinking the Twentieth Century and Violence and Slavoj Žižek On Political Struggle and Trouble in Paradise and Revolution at the Gates and The State and Revolution and “The Guardian’s Populism Panic” and “Oregon’s Republican ‘Walkout’ Was a Serious Defeat For the Left” and “Democracy Is the Enemy” and “Don’t Mourn, Repoliticize!”