Yanis Varoufakis
Tag: Capitalism
How a Koch-owned chemical plant in Texas gamed the Clean Air Act
The trouble began in the middle of the night.
Around 2 a.m. on January 10, 2017, an air quality monitor in Port Arthur, Texas, began recording sulfur dioxide readings well above the federal standard of 75 parts per billion, or ppb.
The monitor had recently been installed by regulators to keep an eye on Oxbow Calcining, a company owned by William “Bill” Koch that operates massive plants that purify petcoke, a petroleum byproduct that can be used to power steel and aluminum manufacturing.
That Tuesday morning, the wind shifted due north and carried a noxious slew of emissions from the plant a half-mile away to the monitor. By 2:20 a.m., the monitor was reading 122.3 ppb.
3:30 a.m.: 128.7 ppb.
5:00 a.m.: 147.8 ppb — almost double the federal standard.
By the afternoon, emissions readings had topped the public health standard 25 times. For the next 18 months, they would periodically flood the 55,000-person city with a pungent
— source grist.org | Naveena Sadasivam, Clayton Aldern | Feb 16, 2023
Neo-Luddism
I’m a Luddite. This is not a hesitant confession, but a proud proclamation. I’m also a social scientist who studies how new technologies affect politics, economics and society. For me, Luddism is not a naive feeling, but a considered position.
And once you know what Luddism actually stands for, I’m willing to bet you will be one too — or at least much more sympathetic to the Luddite cause than you think.
Today the term is mostly lobbed as an insult. Take this example from a recent report by global consulting firm Accenture on why the health-care industry should enthusiastically embrace artificial intelligence:
Excessive caution can be detrimental, creating a luddite culture of following the herd instead of forging forward.
To be a Luddite is seen as synonymous with being primitive — backwards in your outlook, ignorant of innovation’s wonders, and fearful of modern society. This all-or-nothing approach to debates about technology and society is based on severe misconceptions of the real history and politics of the original Luddites: English textile workers in the early
— source theconversation.com | Jathan Sadowski |
On Copyright Scams, Surveillance Capitalism and the Lies of Big Tech
In their new book, Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We’ll Win Them Back (Beacon, 2022), Rebecca Giblin and Cory Doctorow explain how big market players squeeze creators and consumers through monopoly and monopsony — and outline a way to break free from their grasp.
Coauthor Cory Doctorow recently spoke to David Moscrop for Jacobin and discussed Chokepoint Capitalism, Doctorow’s anti-capitalist oeuvre, what chokepoint capitalism means for creators and consumers, its prevalence in the cultural industries, and how to fight against it.
The inescapable tollbooth
David Moscrop: I want to start with your book Chokepoint Capitalism and the concept behind it. What is “chokepoint capitalism,” and what distinguishes it from market monopoly or oligopoly?
Cory Doctorow: Well, chokepoint capitalism is about the other side of monopoly — it’s about monopsony. The corporate doctrine for the last forty years, and the state doctrine for
— source jacobin.com | David Moscrop | 10/Nov/2022
Stop exploitation of workers in retail laundry industry
Do Black Lives Really Matter to Business?
Some part of the world need growth other parts degrowth
Corporate Hypocrisy on Racism
Powell Memo: Start of the Counterrevolution
It was good seeing CounterPunch publish an article on what is known as the “Powell Memo” by Brad Wolf. He rightfully notes, “Powell expressed his grave concern that American business and free enterprise were under full-scale attack from “leftists” and might altogether collapse unless drastic steps were taken.” However, far more was at stake.
Lewis Powell was a Virginia attorney, tobacco-industry lobbyist and future Supreme Court Judge. He can be credited with helping launch the conservative social wars of the last half-century. In 1971 he delivered a secret study for the Chamber of Commerce entitled, “Attack on the American Free Enterprise System.” His advice to the business community was simple:
Business must learn the lesson . . . that political power is necessary; that such power must be assiduously cultivated; and that when necessary, it must be used aggressively and with determination—without embarrassment and without the reluctance which has been so characteristic of American business.
He took special care to note:
There should be no hesitation to attack the [Ralph] Naders, the [Herbert] Marcuses and others who openly seek destruction of the system. There should not be the slightest
— source counterpunch.org | David Rosen | Jan 20, 2023
Rapacious Industrial Capitalism and its Apocalyptic Consequences
Is climate apocalypse possible? But what does apocalypse mean? Apocalypse in Greek means revelation, pulling the cover off something. But with Christians, apocalypse took a new violent meaning. At the end of the first century of our era, the Roman imperial government exiled John, a Jesus follower, to the Greek island of Patmos where he wrote the Book of Revelation in which he unleashed a storm of harm, blasphemies, and hatred against non-Christians, and the Roman Emperor Domitian, 81 – 96. This terrible book took the name of apocalypse.
James Tabor, professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, talked about the Book of Revelation. In the PBS program of Frontline, Tabor explained: “The Book of Revelation [is]… a scroll with seven wax seals. As you begin to open it, you get this unfolding scenario of events, beginning with war and famine and disease and earthquakes and heavenly signs.”
But why all these calamities? Tabor continues:
“Essentially [the Book of Revelation is] a book about the wrath of [the Christian] God being poured out upon the world. People not repenting except for the small group of
— source counterpunch.org | Evaggelos Vallianatos | Jan 20, 2023