Report: State lawmakers enable wage theft, child labor

Published on People’s World, by Mark Gruenberg, Nov 1, 2013.

WASHINGTON – Corporate interests, led by the American Legislative Exchange Council ALEC and including the National Association of Manufacturers, the (US) Chamber of Commerce and retailers‘ groups, have undertaken – and continue to undertake – a wide-ranging attack on workers, union and non-union, a new Economic Policy Institute EPI report and a panel discussing it says.   Continuer la lecture de « Report: State lawmakers enable wage theft, child labor »

Infra-Theory, the State Effect, and the Technopolitics of Oil

Interview published on Theory Talks, with Timothy Mitchell, Theory Talk no. 59, Oct 25, 2013.

The unrest in the Arab world put the region firmly in the spotlights of IR. Where many scholars focus on the conflicts in relation to democratization as a local or regional dynamic, political events there do not stand in isolation from broader international relations or other—for instance economic—concerns. Among the scholars who has insisted on such broader linkages and associations that co-constitute political dynamics in the region, Timothy Mitchell stands out. The work of Mitchell has largely focused on highly specific aspects of politics and development in Egypt and the broader Middle East, such as the relations between the building of the Aswan Dam and redistribution of expertise, and the way in which the differences between coal and oil condition democratic politics.   Continuer la lecture de « Infra-Theory, the State Effect, and the Technopolitics of Oil »

Growing wealth disparities

India: Taken Over by Foreign Banks?

Published on Global Research.ca, by Kavaljit Singh, Oct 29, 2013.

On October 12, Raghuram Rajan, the new Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, announced that the RBI will soon issue new rules allowing a more liberal entry of foreign banks in India. “That is going to be a big opening because one could even contemplate taking over Indian banks, small Indian banks and so on,” he stated in Washington at an event organized by the Institute of International Finance, a global banking lobby group.  Continuer la lecture de « India: Taken Over by Foreign Banks? »

US Political Dysfunction and Capitalism’s Withdrawal

Published on e-International Relations, by Richard D. Wolff, October 27, 2013.

After 200 years of concentrating its centers in western Europe, north America, and Japan, capitalism is moving most of its centers elsewhere and especially to China, India, Brazil and so on. This movement poses immense problems of transition at both poles. The classic problems of early, rapid capitalist industrialization are obvious daily in the new centers. What we learn about early capitalism when we read Charles Dickens, Emile Zola, Maxim Gorky and Jack London, we see now again in the new centers.   Continuer la lecture de « US Political Dysfunction and Capitalism’s Withdrawal »