Economics

Food

Food

As price inflation stays above the previous 30 year average, concerns about general price increases continue to shift from one consumer good to another. Right now, people are focused on food prices as food is so obviously getting more expensive month to month.

Inflation, the Phillips Curve, and wages

Inflation, the Phillips Curve, and wages

With high inflation continuing, mainstream right-wing economists and pundits seem very concerned with a mythical beast called the 'wage-price spiral'. These spirals are not real and are simply an attack on working people with the poorest bearing most of the brunt of the policies of wage control. Here we look at why this is and the correct response to it.

10 things for socialists to keep in mind on climate change policies

10 things for socialists to keep in mind on climate change policies

Some areas of debate exist even within progressive circles of how best to deal with climate change. Investing in and reorganizing current production processes to drastically reduce carbon emissions and build mitigation programs all takes time, energy, overlapping processes, and a heck of a lot of money. But, when we bring all this together, the programs announced are insufficient to get us where we need to be. Here are 10 areas we need to work on.

Industrial strategy, development, and the need for public production

Industrial strategy, development, and the need for public production

We are told that Capitalism, at its core, is a crisis-driven economic system. Crises are at the heart of its innovation, transformation of the economy, and are the reason creative destruction is the defining point raised by proponents of this economy-first, anti-social system. However, any reader of history knows that it is only through the leverage and investment of the state that capitalism can find the path around the economic crises it creates. Capital needs to be held-up and protected or -- like most short-sighted adventures -- it runs aground. The alternative is not to hold capitalism up, but to replace it and the response to COVID-19 shows a way forward.

The time to expand public ownership is now

The time to expand public ownership is now

Decades of neoliberal political narratives have attempted to convince us that the only reason for public ownership is to subsidize private capital growth. Neoliberal economics are focused on the transfer of wealth from the public to private capital through commodification of public assets and services. The result has been a society tilted in favour of profit generation through public subsidies of infrastructure and services over human need.