Tag: marxism

The Creature Was Capitalism: G. Edward Griffin, Jekyll Island, and the Federal Reserve

G. Edward Griffin's "The Creature from Jekyll Island" attempts to unmask a so-called conspiracy by banking elites undermining capitalism. Yet, beneath his theories lies an unsettling truth: Griffin exposes the inherent flaws of capitalism while futilely attempting to defend it. His narrative highlights systemic financial abuses and government collusion, ultimately diverting the anger away from the capitalist system itself and scapegoating collectivism instead. By romanticizing a nonexistent capitalist golden age, he veils the violent realities of dispossession and exploitation that built America. Instead of dismantling the oppressive structures underpinning capitalist domination, Griffin's solution ironically calls for a purer capitalism, perpetuating the very cycles of exploitation he critiques.

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The Shield Became the Target: Washington Moved the Battlefield Into the Gulf

The Gulf monarchies, once loyal to Washington's military dominance, are now scrambling for survival in a world where Iranian aggression opposes their established security framework. The ongoing war has exposed a perilous contradiction: the very American military infrastructure meant to protect the Gulf states has rendered them vulnerable to Iranian strikes. As the U.S. becomes a less reliable ally, these nations are cautiously seeking dialogue with Tehran, marking a seismic shift in regional politics. Their actions aren't a break from American influence but a pragmatic response to an urgent need for stability amidst rising tensions. The question remains—can they navigate this treacherous terrain without abandoning old alliances?

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The Golden Age Needs a Gunboat: Trump’s UN Speech and the Rising Cost of American Command

Trump's United Nations address declares America’s resurgence, yet it reveals an empire grappling with an escalating need for military force and economic coercion to maintain supremacy. His speech elevates military spending, sanctions, and immigration enforcement as signs of strength while ignoring the underlying contradictions—an empire that once commanded effortlessly now relies heavily on intimidation. The reality is that the U.S. must work harder to enforce its will both abroad and domestically as competition grows and global power dynamics shift. Instead of showcasing dominance, Trump's rhetoric underscores a declining ability to produce consent, exposing the fragility of American imperialism. The mask of effortless domination is slipping.

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The Door Is Open, the Staircase Narrows: How Democracy Filters Out the Working Class

Bloomberg uncovered a brutal democratic fact: working people make up most of the labor force, yet barely appear in legislatures. This essay follows the worker beyond that statistic and shows how the disappearance happens—through inflexible work schedules, lost wages, primary elections, party recruitment, professional political careers, and repeated institutional filtering before voters ever reach the ballot. The problem isn’t that workers lack ambition or governing ability. It’s that formal political equality rests on a social order that distributes time, money, networks, and political experience by class. If workers are to enter politics in force, organization has to change who gets produced as a political leader.

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Peggy Noonan Calls Capitalism Organic: The Wall Street Journal Buries the Violence That Built It

Peggy Noonan's alarm over socialism's surge reveals her flawed analysis: she blames the consciousness of the wounded instead of capitalism, which thrives on historical injustices like dispossession and slavery. As the capitalist structure crumbles under its contradictions—where collective production is shackled by private ownership—Noonan dismisses the urgency of socialism, painting it as a radical force aimed at destruction. Yet, socialism is rising not from whimsical ideology but out of necessity, as younger generations face economic precarity and disillusionment. The question isn’t whether capitalism is natural or just; it’s who truly controls the wealth and future built by the collective.

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The Corpse Got Tenure: French Theory’s American Afterlife

Requiem for French Theory asks a question academia prefers to leave buried: how did a heterogeneous group of French thinkers become a unified radical canon in the United States? Monville and Rockhill trace the foundations, universities, publishers and Cold War institutions that helped make French Theory travel, but the deeper story is more dialectical than conspiracy. Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze and others confronted real contradictions and produced genuine insights even as their work was selectively reproduced, professionalized and detached from mass struggle. The lesson reaches Marxism itself: revolutionary theory needs more than correct ideas. It needs its own means of intellectual production.

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History Against the Formula: August Nimtz, Cedric Robinson, and the Making of Revolutionary Universality

August Nimtz’s "Black Marxism: A Marxist Critique" challenges Cedric Robinson's assertion that Marxism and Black radicalism are distinct, arguing instead that Marx's historical materialism evolved through encounters with colonialism and Black liberation struggles. Nimtz argues that genuine internationalism requires oppressed groups to first forge autonomous political identities before uniting. Using Cuba as a case study, he shows how socialist transformation can materially alter racial dynamics yet acknowledges persistent inequalities. Ultimately, he posits that revolutionary potential arises not just from class position but from active struggle and organization, emphasizing that no class is born universally revolutionary and that political agency must be cultivated through history and struggle.

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The Empire Before Capitalism: How Conquest Built the Atlantic System

The Atlantic conquest connected European powers with global markets, transforming capitalism by intertwining armed states, merchant capital, and coerced labor. Conquistadors sought wealth, while political structures evolved through dynamic relationships that fused established power with new economic systems, ultimately reshaping societies worldwide and paving the way for future capitalism.

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No Class Is Born Ready to Rule: Engels and the Making of Revolutionary Capacity

Engels provocatively asserts that revolutions may capture the streets but often fail to secure lasting power. In Germany: Revolution and Counter-Revolution, he critiques both revolutionary leaders who blame betrayals and historical determinism that dismisses agency. He examines the gap between breaking the old order and establishing new governance, emphasizing the importance of material conditions and social forces. The revolution unleashes chaos, revealing that without the means to sustain authority, legitimacy alone is futile. Ultimately, Engels cautions that history does not inherently favor the deserving; rather, capacity for power arises from collective organization, military might, and social alliances forged in struggle.

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We Built the Master: Marx and the World That Rules Its Makers

In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx discovers a contradiction that will haunt the whole development of his critique of capitalism: workers build an expanding world of wealth, machinery, knowledge and social power that returns to rule them as capital. This review follows that insight from wages and estranged labour through private property, colonial history, slavery, money, communism, Hegel and revolutionary humanism. It argues that the manuscripts are neither immature philosophy nor finished Marxism, but a breakthrough under pressure—one already forcing “Man” into history and asking the question that still matters: who controls humanity’s accumulated powers?

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