Activity

[...] Geoffrey Ingham has most effectively conceptualized the essentials as: (1) private enterprise for producing commodities, (2) market exchange, (3) a monetary system based on the production of bank-credit money, and (4) a distinction role for the state in relation to these features.

[...] calling capitalism a "mode of production" highlights the fact that there are other, different ways of organizing the social relations of economic life. Feudalism, which preceded capitalism in much of Europe, was one in which economic activity was organized by coercive lord-vassal relations of…

The problem is not that capitalism is a conspiracy of greedy people. The problem is that capitalism, as a way of organizing our collective life, does its best to force us to be greedy—and if that is true, then finger-pointing at nasty CEOs and investment bankers may be morally satisfying, but fails…

"We're good, you're evil" strategies can easily undermine mass solidarity, precisely because of those tricky everyday decisions people have to make. Barring a "clean slate" political solution, such as the revolutionary elimination of the "bad guys" (which history suggests is a risky route), I am co…