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[...] Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel (1997) argues that the relation to nature is what counts, thus transforming human evolution into a tale of environmental determinism. Africa is poor for environmental reasons, not, he says, because of racial inferiorities or (what he does not say) becau…

[...] capitalists, as we earlier saw, have a choice as to what they reinvest in: they can reinvest in the expansion of production or they can use their wealth to buy up assets, such as stocks and shares, property, art objects or shares in some speculative enterprise such as a private equity company…

[...] What is called a crisis of 'under-consumption' results when there is not enough effective demand to absorb the commodities produced.

Workers spending their wages is one source of effective demand. But the total wage bill is always less than the total capital in circulation (otherwise there…

But why this revolutionary impulse in the heart of capitalism and why is capitalism so different from other modes of production? Human beings are clearly fascinated by the perpetual pursuit of novelty, but the social and cultural conditions under which such a fascination can become a central drivin…

As more surplus capital went into production during the 1980s, particularly in China, heightened competition between producers started to put downward pressure on prices [...] Profits began to fall after 1990 or so in spite of an abundance of low-wage labour. Low wages and low profits are a peculia…