Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

In a nutshell, the climate  negotiations “are predicated on a contradiction: the task of agreeing a programme of radical global economic transformation is allocated to those – including, this year, a record 2,500 fossil fuel industry representatives – who stand to lose the most from disrupting the current economic model. For the most influential in these negotiations – the titans of finance, energy giants, and the wealthy states who protect their interests – the solution to this dilemma is to find a way to transform the foundations of global capitalism, from energy to agriculture and from transport to industry, while preserving everything else about its social relations and overarching dynamics. Theirs is necessarily a future in which the transition to a decarbonised and ecologically sustainable economy implies no trade-off with continued growth, profit maximisation, private ownership or accumulation: in short, from fossil capitalism to a green capitalism. For some, green capitalism is

Richard Seymour: Owing to the increasing technological difficulties and commercial disadvantages associated with fossil fuels, Tooze worries that I am too “sanguine” about the chances of “green modernisation”. I do argue that the far-sighted members of the ruling class might react to this crisis by accelerating “the transition to renewables” with “more energy-efficient buildings, transport and supply chains” and even competition “over who transitions fastest”, resulting in trade wars over the control of the rare metals needed to make solar panels. What Adam Tooze gets wrong about capitalism and climate change

Degrowth economics

The Return of the 'C' Word: SASE Conference 2019

The political economy of a long depression

"US imperialism continues to reveal its long-term vulnerability. The US now has a net investment liability with other economies in the world to the tune of 9.8% of world GDP.  This compares with countries which are net creditors: Japan (3.9%), Northern Europe (6.4%) and China (2.3%).  This US net liability measures the stock of investment and the amount of credit made by other countries into the US after deducting US investment and loans abroad.  US imperialism is extracting more net value from other economies to fund its growth, but at the expense of becoming more dependent on ‘tribute’ rather than trade.  The IMF forecasts that the US net liability to foreigners will reach 50% of its GDP by 2023, or 10.7% of world GDP.  That compares with the combined liability of the exploited peripheral economies of the world of 7.8%.  US imperialism gets away this because it is still the world’s largest economy, with the biggest financial sector, with the dollar as the world reserve currency

Inequality after 150 years of Capital and An international conference in Toronto, Canada

Forbes or how to save capitalism and therefore humanity Unless it changes, capitalism will starve humanity by 2050

Davos: responsible capitalism

The Long Depression in Italy

"Before Donald Trump was elected, stock markets went down every time he improved in the public opinion polls.  Finance capital did not want him to win.  But since his surprise election, stock markets have not slumped.  On the contrary, they have risen substantially along with a strengthening dollar.  It seems that ‘the Donald’ could be a good thing for Capital after all." Testing Trumponomics

Making and Unmaking of the Greater Middle East It is a good essay, but I wonder why one in concluding a 30-page essay does not insert three lines on the role of Russia and its support of the Assad regime.

Trade is no longer rising

The Structure of Modern Imperialism

Global turbulence ahead

Dr Hickel (LSE) argues that through the MDGs, the UN has misrepresented the true extent for poverty and hunger. “By massaging the numbers, the UN has created a good news narrative that justifies the present economic order and its logic of growth, liberalisation, privatisation and corporate power." "Challenging the UN good story about poverty and hunger" See also "Neoliberalism ans the end of democracy"

" A major problem is that global warming, as with the associated environmental problems, can’t be solved within the capitalism that has caused, and is accelerating, the problem. All incentives under capitalism are for more growth and thus more greenhouse-gas emissions, and there is no provision to provide new jobs for the many people who would be displaced should the heavily polluting industries in which they work were to be shut down in the interest of the environment. The private capital that profits from environmental devastation is allowed to externalize the costs onto society, an inequality built into the system. The concept of  “green capitalism” is a dangerous chimera ." Systemic Disorder

Keynes’ 1930s optimism gained credence with the boom during a major world war and the subsequent post-war Golden Age that restored the profitability of capital for a generation.  Let’s hope it does not take another world war to confirm the  optimism of the modern Keynesians like DeLong . The end of globalisation and the future of capitalism

Here is of the things the Liberals have done in the last 20 years. IMF chief,  Christine Lagarde, also blogged  that  “Weak global growth that interacts with rising inequality is feeding a political climate in which reforms stall and countries resort to inward-looking policies. In a broad cross-section of advanced economies, incomes for the top 10 percent increased by about 40 percent in the past 20 years, while growing only very modestly at the bottom. Inequality has also increased in many emerging economies, although the impact on the poor has sometimes been offset by strong general income growth” . And what is their solution now? More globalisation. Some of them even argue for the colonization of Mars . That is what we can call a global economy of priorities that serves humanity!

Capitalism On productivity, growth, investment and profit