We can’t understand capitalism without understanding slavery

Dec16

Ever since Eric Williams published his book Capitalism and Slavery, which demonstrated to those more inclined to weigh evidence rather than ideology that slavery was a crucial prop to the Industrial Revolution, there has been a continual pushback. There is no surprise in that. The fiction that capitalism is a “natural” manifestation of “human nature” that dispassionately provides economic growth can’t be sustained if we look under the hood at all the violence that brought it about and sustains it.

So although a handful of mainstream historians don’t argue against the fundamental idea but quibble with the extent, many of them still frantically try to assert that the profits from the slave trade and products made with enslaved labor weren’t that much and didn’t amount to near enough accumulated capital to provide a boost to industrialization. These are so much ideological obfuscations. Williams proved his case well, and numerous historians, usually nonorthodox researchers willing to challenge the assumptions of capitalism, have built on his 1940s work.

The Industrial Revolution, centered in Britain after the British displaced the Dutch as the center of the growing world capitalist system, and London supplanted Amsterdam as the financial center of capitalism, surely rested on multiple foundations. No one reason can be pointed to as a sole cause. Armed force, for example, was an important motor in the supplanting of the United Provinces (as the Netherlands was then known) by the United Kingdom; the two countries fought three wars with the British winning. Britain, or at least England, had long ago developed commercialized agriculture and farmers dependent on markets, and a government dedicated to advancing commercial interests, with colonialism, naval power and inhuman laws designed to force people into becoming wage workers.

But the United Provinces did not develop an industrial base, remaining dependent on trade, nor did any other power develop as did Britain. What made the difference for the British? Expansion of business, creations of new manufacturing techniques and the development and adaptation of machinery can’t be done without access to capital. The accumulation of money, to put it another way; money only becomes capital if it can be invested. With the huge profits accrued from slave trade and further profits from products created with slave labor — tropical products grown in the Caribbean, with sugar in the forefront — there were unprecedented accumulations of capital that could be used to invest in machinery. Developing industrial capacities, thereby greatly increasing the amount that could be produced, would have been pointless unless there were large and growing markets for the surfeit of production, and slavery contributed to that growth as well.

More than one mythology is punctured in the latest contribution to setting the record straight when it comes to capitalism and slavery, Slavery in the British Empire and its Legacy in the Modern World by Stephen Cushion.* So embedded was the concept of slave labor and the “property rights” that maintained it for centuries, that the British government handed out massive payments to slavers when slavery was finally abolished in the empire. How much? At the time, 1834, a total of £20 million was given as compensation for the freeing of the enslaved. (No compensation for the enslaved themselves, and they had to serve an additional four years of “apprenticeship” that was slavery under a new name.) That would be a lot of money even today but was a truly fantastic sum of money at the time. Dr. Cushion estimates that sum is equivalent to about £25 billion in today’s sterling!

To put that £20 million in some perspective, the average unskilled British laborer made perhaps £20 to £30 in a year and a skilled laborer might have made £70 to £90 per year. And some of the big banks that profited off the slave trade profited again when the compensation was paid. The money paid out by the government was raised by selling bonds to the Rothschild & Co. bank. That was quite a deal for the bank, because the bonds paid 3 percent interest and were not redeemed until 2015. The bank ultimately was paid more than five times in interest what it paid for the government bonds. The added government debt was in turn paid for by increasing the sales tax in everyday items of consumption, already the primary taxation.

The brutality of “scientific” management

But we have gotten ahead of our story. Widespread slavery under the Union Jack began in Barbados in the mid-17th century. The Barbados plantation owners had first used White indentured servants, many of whom were on the losing side of the English Civil War or Irish captured during Cromwell’s invasion and destruction of Ireland. The servant system required a steady stream of newcomers, given the high death toll from the brutal work of a sugar plantation, but once word got back home of the conditions awaiting across the Atlantic, the willingness of people, no matter how destitute, to sign up evaporated. Enslaving Africans, a trade already well in progress from other European powers, was the solution. The Royal Africa Company was given a monopoly on slave trading to British colonies. Caribbean plantation owners profited from this side, too, as they could invest their profits in slave ships, and British monarchs were investors as well.

The brutality of the work and the indifference to human life are well shown in the “instructions” a plantation owner wrote to provide “scientific management” of plantations — 20 percent of the enslaved laborers had to be replaced each year due to deaths. It was not only cheaper to buy new slaves rather than sustain slaves already in possession, the intention was to work the enslaved to death before they had to be supported in their old age.

^{Memorial to slavery, Île de Gorée, Senegal (photo by Adrian Turner)}

An ideological system is necessary for such a system to be sustained for such a long period of time. The Church of England was a major prop, Dr. Cushion wrote. Evangelicals stressed that any enslaved persons converted to Christianity are not freed but remain enslaved. The church itself was the owner of plantations using enslaved labor; at one point it inherited a plantation worked by 315 slaves. That was no problem for church officials. Barbados ministers were instructed to read a newly passed act codifying slavery to all parishioners so that no free person could claim ignorance of the law. The baptism ritual for the converted enslaved made clear there would be no freedom for them while stressing they owe obedience. And when the Spanish granted a monopoly on slave trade to its colonies to Britain, Queen Anne received a cut. That was standard as all British monarchs held interests in slave trading until slavery was abolished.

As plantation owners returned to Britain returned home to build estates (while leaving managers in charge of the plantations) in the 18th into the early 19th century, more land was enclosed, forcing more people off the land and forcing the displaced to become laborers in manufacturing operations. A series of enclosure acts from 1750 to 1830 prioritized the remaining commons, without which small farmers could not remain viable. Almost all of the remaining 25 percent of British land not yet enclosed was privatized during those years. A particularly egregious example were the mass evictions put in motion by the Duchess of Sutherland, who from 1814 to 1820 had 15,000 people “systemically hunted and rooted out.” All villages were burnt and agricultural fields turned into pasturage. This was enforced by British soldiers. In all, more than 1,200 square miles were enclosed in just this one privatization. “The money to fund this clearing was deeply entwined with the business of slavery,” Dr. Cushion wrote. The duchess had inherited a large sum of money — the equivalent of £5.8 million or US$7.6 million in today’s money — from one grandfather who had interests in Jamaican plantations and the other grandfather who invested in Virginia tobacco grown with enslaved labor.

Colonial commerce, including the business of slavery, was “one of the driving forces of the capitalist economy from its earliest manifestation,” Slavery in the British Empire informs us. “Exports from Britain accounted for around half of all industrial production in the eighteenth century. Economic historian Joseph Inkori tells us that in 1770 the slave trade and the plantation economy furnished as much as 55 percent of gross fixed capital formation investment in Great Britain.” The increased rate of industrial growth was dependent on colonial purchasing power. The sugar industry, the center of economic activity in British Caribbean colonies, “was responsible for more than half the growth of English exports in the third quarter of the eighteenth century,” the time of the industrial takeoff. Much of the sugar produced in the Caribbean by enslaved labor was re-exported into Europe for additional big profits.

British manufacturers depended on enslaved labor

Dr. Cushion notes that initial investment needed to begin an industrial enterprise was relatively small, but large amounts of working capital or credit was needed to continue operations. In turn, considerable investment and government support was needed for the infrastructure that had to be built to enable the expansion of commerce, such as docks, canals, roads, harbors and warehouses. And because textiles were the most important commodity in the early decades of the Industrial Revolution, the copious amounts of cotton produced by enslaved labor in the U.S. South was necessary. British manufacturers could not have done without it. “The combination of expropriation and exploitation has been characteristic of capitalism throughout its history,” Dr. Cushion notes. Although slavery originated long before capitalism, the plantation system “was geared to the mass production of commodities and flourished as a result of market forces. … Until it was abolished in Brazil in 1888, slavery was a central feature of the capitalist economy.”

Slavery in the British Empire spends a good amount of its text on the processes that brought about, first, the end of the slave trade in British colonies and then the end of slavery itself. The book details the slave rebellions, including major uprisings in Barbados, Guyana and Jamaica, that helped to focus minds and the grassroots abolitionist movement that was well ahead of the better-known elite movement that sought gradual reforms. Those elite reformers, led by William Wilberforce, believed that enslaved laborers could only be “ready” for freedom after many years of tutelage. Wilberforce was still calling only for a halt to the slave trade, not the institution itself, at a time when grassroots abolitionists were demanding immediate freedom for all enslaved. Dr. Cushion endorses Eric Williams’ thesis that the profitability of slavery was beginning to decline, upsetting the widely taught idea that a few “great men” acting out of Christian charity were responsible for the end of slavery. There were struggles between the plantation aristocracy and the industrial bourgeoisie; the latter saw no more need for protectionist legislation given their ability to sell to multiple markets while plantation profitability had rested on the British government’s trade restrictions.

*^{The triangular trade (graphic by Sémhur)}*

The plantation owners, until an 1832 political reform, held disproportionate power in the British Parliament and constituted a formidable lobby. But as their power waned, plantation owners moved from arguing against a cessation of slave trading to arguing against a ban on slavery to demanding compensation for having to free their enslaved laborers. The large compensation they did secure enabled them to invest in new enterprises and infrastructure. One major bank, Baring Brothers, invested heavily in U.S. South cotton and even won a hefty commission for arranging the Louisiana Purchase that doubled the size of the United States.

At the same time as slavery came to an end in the British Empire, still harsher restrictions on working people were promulgated. That was not a coincidence. A poor law passed in 1834, the same year as mandatory slave manumission, made work mandatory on pain of being thrown into a workhouse. That same year, transportation to Australia was used to remove trade union organizers. Wilberforce, meanwhile, backed harsh new laws restricting free speech and assembly that were designed to stifle worker organizing. For the emancipated, once their “apprenticeship” was over, authorities passed laws setting wages at starvation levels, restricted voting to property owners, banned strikes and organizing, and prohibited emigration to ensure that plantation owners would have a ready source of cheap labor. A new form of tenancy that was similar to serfdom was also instituted. The result was widespread malnutrition for the freed workers, and women were paid half that of men to keep wages low; children had to work so the family could survive.

The book concludes with an attempt to calculate how much in wages was stolen from Caribbean enslaved laborers. Such a total can’t be done with precision, but the estimate here is that the total of unpaid wages across the British Caribbean colonies totals more than £1.2 billion, a sum that equals £2.5 trillion or US$3.2 trillion if we were to convert that total into today’s money. “The British bourgeoisie profited from Caribbean sugar slavery, from North American slave-picked cotton, from the colonization of Africa and Asia, from the expropriation of the English peasants from their common land, and from the genocide of Indigenous nations,” Dr. Cushion wrote. “They used that capital to develop a fossil fuel-based economy that is now the major factor in global warming, and threatens human existence in general and the Caribbean in particular.”

Slavery in the British Empire is not a book that sugar-coats the past. For a reader already familiar with this history, it serves as a good supplemental source of information. For the reader not familiar with this history, and who wishes to learn, Slavery in the British Empire provides a brisk, highly readable discussion of the central role of slavery in the creation of the Industrial Revolution, and of capitalism more generally. Given the relentless propaganda effort to convince us that capitalism is benign, natural and beneficial, Dr. Cushion provides a welcome, and needed, anecdote.

* Steve Cushion, Slavery in the British Empire and its Legacy in the Modern World [Monthly Review Press, 2025]

COP30: Self-congratulations and promises to talk more are no substitute for action

Nov25

Another climate summit has mercifully ended. As with past summits, nothing of substance happened. The United States did not participate, meaning that the Trump administration technically could not thwart any attempt to block meaningful decision-making, but that was no problem for the Trump gang as Saudi Arabia was there to pick up the ball.

Any thought as to whether to laugh or cry seems rather quaint, given that environmental concerns were largely absent as is usual practice with these gatherings. Laughing does seem inappropriate. Anger seems a much better option than crying, although the latter is understood.

First, however, let us get the climate summit’s final statement out of the way before we work our way through the annual catalog of the vast distance between summit “actions” and what is necessary. Touchingly titling the statement issued at the end of the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (as COP30 is formally known) as “Uniting humanity in a global mobilization against climate change,” the assembled governments “acknowledged” that “climate change is a common concern of humankind,” that everyone possess “the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment” and that the governments should be “emphasizing the importance of conserving, protecting and restoring nature and ecosystems towards achieving the Paris Agreement temperature goal, including through enhanced efforts towards halting and reversing deforestation and forest degradation by 2030 in accordance with Article 5 of the Paris Agreement.” We’ll pause here to note that, under Article 5, the world’s governments “are encouraged to take action to implement and support” agreements reached in 2015, which include holding global warming increases in temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Encouraged, not required.

*^{Belém, Brazil, site of the COP30 climate summit. (photo by celeumo.BRAZIL)}*

To return to the COP30 document, there are celebrations of past agreements, more acknowledgements, recalling of past pledges and commendations of previous agreements. The text, for example, “Recognizes the need for urgent action and support for achieving deep, rapid and sustained reductions of greenhouse gas emissions in line with 1.5 °C pathways.” But what actions were taken to implement these ideals? You will search in vain for that. The closest we get is where the text declares it “Decides to convene a high-level ministerial round table to reflect upon the implementation of the new collective quantified goal, including the quantitative and qualitative elements related to the provision of finance.” Well, that will shock governments and fossil fuel companies into action! And I can get you a nice discount on the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.

As per usual, lofty goals were set with no enforcement mechanism, with much back-patting for past agreements despite a lack of implementation. After the previous two climate summits were held in countries dependent on fossil fuel extraction, that the just-concluded COP30 was held in the Amazonian city of Belém, Brazil, was supposed to have been symbolic. Of what we might ask, as fossil fuel lobbyists and governments dependent on extracting every drop of their fossil fuels fought the same battles with results similar to past years. Indigenous activists were able to demonstrate at the summit, a change from the past two, but, again, no more than a symbol.

A brief recap of past summits: Last year’s COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, concluded with an agreement that more access to finance, including loans, would be nice and that they will gladly check on the world’s progress in 2030. COP28 in the United Arab Emirates ended with the world’s governments “encouraged” to “transition away” from fossil fuels while promoting finance capital as the savior. COP27 in Egypt ended with “requests” to “revisit and strengthen” 2030 climate targets. Oh please consider stopping your environmental destruction if it’s not too inconvenient. That was preceded by COP26 in Glasgow failing to enact any enforcement mechanisms; COP25 in Madrid concluding with an announcement of two more years of roundtables; COP24 in Katowice, Poland, promoting coal; and COP23 in Bonn ending with a promise that people will get together and talk some more.

Fossil fuel interests again flex their muscles

As last year there was considerable note of the large number of fossil fuel representatives from fossil fuel companies, the solution apparently was to disguise attendees. Transparency International reported that more than half of the “participants in national delegations either did not disclose the type of affiliation they have or selected a vague category such as ‘Guest’ or ‘Other’.” Not that being coy about representation is necessary to achieve the goals of fossil fuel extractors; regardless of the affiliation of individual delegates, Saudi Arabian representatives led a bloc of Arab states in thwarting any attempt to achieve a meaningful conclusion. The United Nations secretary-general, António Guterres, was widely reported to single out Saudi Arabia as the lead obstructor. The Financial Times reported that European officials “also said that Saudi Arabia had been more vehement in stating its positions this year than at previous climate summits.” Perhaps the Saudis felt the need to lobby harder since the Trump gang wouldn’t be there to do some of the dirty work.

Because consensus is necessary to reach decisions at the climate summits, oil-producing countries have an effective veto. A paper issued by the Climate Social Science Network states that Saudi Arabia “has had an outsized role in undermining progress at global climate negotiations, year after year.” The paper notes that “Undermining science is a core strategy employed by Saudi Arabian envoys who contest new climate science at [international gatherings]” and Saudi delegations are led by Riyadh’s Ministry of Energy, which is closely linked with the Saudi state oil company Aramco. Of course, we should have no illusions that the Saudis are lone wolves; they are merely the most energetic at disruption.

The environmental news site DeSmog, for example, reported that the New York public-relations firm Edelman lobbied the Brazilian hosts of COP30 “to choose one of its oil and gas clients to help power the conference, even as it was gearing up to serve as an adviser at the talks aimed at curbing the use of fossil fuels.” Edelman is reported to have a decades-long history of representing ExxonMobil, Shell and Chevron. The PR firm also represents the Brazilian state oil company, Petrobras. Edelman, DeSmog reports, had an $835,000 contract with COP30 organizers. ExxonMobil and Chevron, meanwhile, sent 13 executives to COP30 and ExxonMobil’s chief executive officer, Darren Woods, was a speaker at several side events; in an interview he said crude oil and hydrocarbons were “going to play a critical role in everybody’s life for a long time to come.”

Overall, more than 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists participated in COP30, DeSmog reports.

They seem to have an effect. One negotiator from an unnamed Global South country, expressing the frustrations of talks going nowhere, said to a Guardian reporter, “Sometimes I feel that this process has lost its humanity. Sometimes it’s like we are arguing with robots. … Just because we do not have money, does not mean we should not be listened to.”

Among those not impressed at COP30’s passing the buck is Harjeet Singh, founding director of the Satat Sampada Climate Foundation in India, who termed the Belém conference as “the deadliest talk show ever.” The “theater of delay” was intended “solely to avoid the actions that matter—committing to a just transition away from fossil fuels and putting money on the table,” he said in an interview with Inside Climate News. Mr. Singh is an advisor to the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, which is an attempt to secure binding agreements to take necessary measures to hold global warming to 1.5 degrees C, in part through banning new coal, oil and gas projects. Thousands of organizations have signed on, as have 18 national governments. Other than Colombia and Pakistan, all the government signatories are small island nations, who know first-hand what a threat global warming is. Unfortunately, no country that is a major contributor to global warming has signed on.

It is not as if there should be no urgency in tackling the problem of global warming and associated environmental issues. An analysis conducted by ProPublica and The Guardian forecast that there will be 1.3 million extra deaths from temperature extremes in the next 80 years if the Trump administration’s policies are continued, with the “vast majority” of these extra deaths outside the United States. The calculations, which are based on several peer-reviewed scientific papers, don’t include indirect deaths to be caused from global warming. The report said, “The estimate reflects deaths from heat-related causes, such as heatstroke and the exacerbation of existing illnesses, minus lives saved by reduced exposure to cold. It does not include the massive number of deaths expected from the broader effects of the climate crisis, such as droughts, floods, wars, vector-borne diseases, hurricanes, wildfires and reduced crop yields.”

The number of extra deaths that could result from all human-caused emissions in the next 80 years if current policies aren’t reversed is 83 million, the report concludes.

The Paris goal is almost out of reach

Future problems from Earth continuing to grow warmer are not limited to the basic matter of higher temperatures and the effects on people unaccustomed to more severe heat. Parts of the Earth’s surface could literally become uninhabitable. As the climate grows hotter, there are places in South Asia and the Middle East that could become so unbearable due to a combination of heat and humidity that the human body would be unable to cool itself off, with exposure to such conditions leading to death in about six hours. There already have been a few instances of such conditions arising, albeit for an hour or two, not long enough for lethality for someone healthy but likely fatal to many. But somewhat less extreme conditions, which will become possible in more areas of the world, could be lethal for all but the healthiest. The limit at which all would die within six hours from extreme heat and humidity could regularly occur in South Asia and the Middle East by the third quarter of the 21st century under present worst-case scenarios, according to three climate scientists who published a report on this possibility.

Although that scenario need not become reality (but would if current trends in greenhouse gases continue), there will be plenty of disasters awaiting. Climate Action Tracker, after each global climate summit, provides a snapshot of where the climate is going. Under the “optimistic” scenario of full implementation of all announced targets, the global temperature will rise 1.9 degrees C. above the pre-industrial average by 2100, and the rise could be as high as 2.4 degrees. In other words, a wide miss of the 1.5 degree Paris goal. Based on current policies, global temperatures will rise by a catastrophic 2.6 degrees, and possibly more than 3. To reiterate, those targets are promises with no mechanism of enforcement.

“Almost none of the 40 governments the [Climate Action Tracker] analyzes have updated their 2030 target, which is critical to keep warming levels below 1.5°C, nor have they set out the kind of action in their new 2035 targets that would change the warming outlook,” Climate Action Tracker said in its report. The chief executive officer of Climate Analytics, Bill Hare, added, “The world is running out of time to avoid a dangerous overshoot of the 1.5°C limit. Delayed action has already led to higher cumulative emissions, and new evidence suggests the climate system may be more sensitive than previously thought. Without rapid, deep emissions cuts — over 50% by 2030 — overshooting 1.5°C becomes ever more likely, with severe consequences for people and ecosystems.”

To put some concrete numbers on how much further necessary reductions to greenhouse-gas emissions are needed, Climate Action Tracker reports that emissions are expected to reach 53 to 57 gigatons of emissions by 2030, whereas holding emissions to the level necessary to keep temperatures rising above 1.5 degrees requires a fall to 27 gigatons by 2030 with further cuts beyond that level. A gigaton is 1 million metric tons; a metric ton equals 2.2 times the “short” ton of the imperial weight system used in the United States. “Governments must urgently strengthen or overachieve 2030 targets, implement robust policies, and ensure transparency and accountability,” Climate Action Tracker wrote.

Despite the increasing urgency, carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and cement will set a record in 2025. And although the rate of increase of greenhouse-gas emissions is slowing, Earth’s ability to absorb those emissions is declining. Those “carbon sinks” are an estimated 15 percent weaker than they were a decade earlier. The amount of carbon dioxide and equivalents that the atmosphere can take before the 1.5 degree goal is breached is approaching, a Carbon Brief report states. “The remaining carbon budget to limit global warming to 1.5C is virtually exhausted and is equivalent to only four years of current emissions,” Carbon Brief wrote. “Carbon budgets to limit warming to 1.7C and 2C would similarly be used up in 12 and 25 years, respectively.”

The world groans as the wealthy play

That is nothing new. A 2016 report found that even if greenhouse gases had ceased to have been thrown into the atmosphere then, decades of further global warming were likely because the world’s oceans are reaching their capacity to be a carbon sink. This report, a compilation produced by dozens of climate scientists from around the world based on more than 500 peer-reviews papers, found that for the previous four decades, the world’s oceans had absorbed 93 percent of the enhanced heating. But the accumulated heat is not permanently stored; it can be released back into the atmosphere, potentially providing significant feedback that would accelerate global warming. The extra heat absorbed by the oceans raises ocean temperatures, with corresponding bad outcomes for aquatic life and more severe tropical cyclones. Ocean absorption of excess heat, the report said, “happens at the cost of profound alterations to the ocean’s physics and chemistry that lead especially to ocean warming and acidification, and consequently sea-level rise. … The problem is that we know ocean warming is driving change in the ocean — this is well documented — but the consequences of these changes decades down the line are far from clear.”

Let’s get down to specifics. The discussion of global warming has been abstract, as if humanity collectively indulges in suicidal behavior. But “humanity” is not the problem. We live in an economic system, capitalism, that requires continual growth, and that growth means more industrial activity. In turn, that economic system leads to drastically unequal wealth and power. Global South countries contribute little to greenhouse-gas buildups. Global North countries, and now China, contribute in huge amounts. Fossil fuel companies, and the banks that facilitate and invest in their production, contribute massively to greenhouse-gas emissions, and have the world’s governments in their pockets. In the United States, fossil fuel companies literally dictate (although no arm-twisting is necessary) U.S. energy policy under the Trump administration. And those possessing extreme wealth contribute vastly more than even middle-income people, much less the world’s abundant poor.

*^{What happens to rain forests when the market is allowed to decide. (Photo of Montane Rainforest in Ecuador by Gunnar Brehm)}*

A recent report put out by Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute found that the world’s wealthiest 0.1% burn carbon at 400 times the rate of the world’s poorest 10%. And that divide is getting bigger — the richest 0.1% increased their carbon footprint by 32 percent since 1990 while the poorest 50% of humanity actually decreased theirs by 3%. The report said:

“The super-rich are not just overconsuming carbon, but also actively investing in and profiting from the most polluting corporations. Oxfam’s research finds that the average billionaire produces 1.9 million tonnes of [carbon dioxide equivalent] a year through their investments. These billionaires would have to circumnavigate the world almost 10,000 times in their private jets to emit this much. Almost 60% of billionaire investments are classified as being in high climate impact sectors such as oil or mining, meaning their investments emit two and a half times more than an average investment in the S&P Global 1,200. The emissions of the investment portfolios of just 308 billionaires total more than the combined emissions of 118 countries.”

How does that translate into real-world effects? The report stated, “The emissions of the richest 1% are enough to cause an estimated 1.3 million heat-related deaths by the end of the century, as well as $44 trillion of economic damage to low- and lower-middle-income countries by 2050.”

Our descendants, living in a world of flooded coastal cities, agricultural disruptions, severe weather outbreaks, massive dislocations and environmental disasters, are not likely to find the ability of a minuscule elite living in the past grabbing massive profits to have been a good tradeoff for the world they will have inherited. Yet another reminder that an economy built for massive accumulation by a tiny elite in a world in which corporations can offload their costs onto the environment rather than an economy built for human need based on sustainability has massive costs.

Sanctions are not only not an alternative to war, they are more deadly

Sep17

Increasingly, the United States and the European Union leverage their dominance in the world capitalist system to impose sanctions on other countries. Political leaders who impose these sanctions sometimes argue that sanctions are a “more humane” alternative to war. But that is not necessarily so. Sanctions are war by another name.

How deadly are sanctions? A study published in one of the world’s most prestigious medical journals, The Lancet, finds that unilateral sanctions imposed by the U.S. and/or the EU have caused an average of 560,000 deaths per year since 1971. That is annual, not total. The Lancet study examined sanctions imposed on a total of 152 countries for the period of 1971 to 2021. So for those 50 years, unilateral sanctions imposed by the U.S. and/or the EU have resulted in the premature deaths of more than 28 million people.

Indeed, capitalism kills.

Why is the article you are reading summarizing that horrific death toll as the responsibility of capitalism? Because the leading reason for sanctions to be imposed on countries is to apply pressure on a country to change its economic policies. It is true that is not always the case, but we should always keep in mind that the U.S., regardless of which party occupies the White House, is not shy about using its might to impose its will. And although we are accustomed to seeing U.S. hegemony imposed via military means or coups, the true linchpin of U.S. domination is financial.

Because the U.S. dollar is the world’s reserve currency, a large volume of global commerce is conducted in dollars, regardless of where the transacting parties are located, and the dollar is by far the world’s most commonly held currency. Beyond the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and other multinational lending organizations controlled by the capitalist core of the Global North, lies what is the most important financial institution: The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, known as SWIFT.

*^{Africa is the world region most often the target of sanctions. (photo by Der falsche Jakob)}*

Based in Brussels, SWIFT is the primary platform used by the world’s financial institutions “to securely exchange information about financial transactions, including payment instructions, among themselves.” SWIFT says it is officially a member-owned cooperative with more than 11,000 member financial institutions in more than 200 countries and territories. That sounds like it is a truly global entity. Despite that description, the U.S. holds ultimate authority over it and what it does. U.S. government agencies, including the CIA, National Security Agency and Treasury Department, have access to the SWIFT transaction database. Payments in U.S. dollars can be seized by the U.S. government even when the transaction is between two entities outside the United States.

Put simply, any transactions using the U.S. dollar has to be cleared through a U.S. bank, and thus any entity using the dollar has to comply with all U.S. laws, including sanctions, the same as any U.S. bank must do. Even offering software can, and has, led to sanctions. If two entities, entirely outside the U.S. and complying with their own local laws, fall afoul of U.S. dictates, the U.S. Treasury Department can prohibit them from using the dollar, thereby rendering them unable to do most of their business, at least for cross-border transactions.

What that means is that U.S. sanctions are international. Unless completely free from doing business with an U.S. entity and from doing business using the dollar, U.S. sanctions apply regardless of local laws or customs.

And that power is separate from the power wielded by the largest multinational corporations, in particular large financial companies such as hedge funds. For example, one billionaire, Paul Singer, through his Elliott Capital Management hedge fund, in 2012 was actually able to impound an Argentine naval ship in an effort to collect an odious debt; he was attempting to reap the full value of a sovereign debt for which he had paid pennies on the dollar in a speculative transaction even though more than 90 percent of Argentina’s creditors had already agreed to accept less than full value. The U.S. Supreme Court would ultimately rule that Argentina was required to pay Elliott Capital and the other holdouts full value despite Buenos Aires offering the same deal that others accepted. In other words, the U.S. legal system formally declared it has jurisdiction over other countries.

More deaths than we can imagine

Let’s return to the article published by The Lancet. A total of 560,000 deaths per year for half a century certainly sounds fantastic. It would be understandable for even the most clear-eyed critic of U.S. imperialism to be taken aback at that total. Nonetheless, the three authors of the study, “Effects of international sanctions on age-specific mortality: a cross-national panel data analysis,” based their conclusions on solid statistical evidence. Those three authors, Francisco Rodríguez of the University of Denver and Silvio Rendón and Mark Weisbrot, affiliated with Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, examined 31 quantitative studies that use econometric or calibration techniques to assess the link between sanctions and indicators of social and economic development.

Using the Global Sanctions Database, what the authors call “the most comprehensive and updated global dataset on sanctions compiled to date,” Drs. Rodríguez, Rendón and Weisbrot focused on sanctions imposed by the United States, the European Union and the United Nations, with the expectation (which was fully justified) that U.S. and EU sanctions would have substantial effects. The study found negligible or no effects from UN sanctions but considerable effects, as demonstrated in the death toll, from U.S. and EU sanctions.

“Our findings showed a significant causal association between sanctions and increased mortality,” the authors wrote. “Our findings showed a significant causal association between sanctions and increased mortality. We found the strongest effects for unilateral, economic, and US sanctions, whereas we found no statistical evidence of an effect for UN sanctions.”

Those effects from U.S. and EU actions are serious:

“Sanctions have substantial adverse effects on public health, with a death toll similar to that of wars. Our findings underscore the need to rethink sanctions as a foreign-policy tool, highlighting the importance of exercising restraint in their use and seriously considering efforts to reform their design. … Sanctions can lead to reductions in the quantity and quality of public health provision driven by sanctions-induced declines in public revenues; decreased availability of essential imports, resulting from sanctions-induced reductions in foreign exchange earnings, which limit access to medical supplies, food, and other crucial goods; and constraints on humanitarian organisations, through real or perceived sanctions-induced barriers that hinder their ability to operate effectively in target countries.”

To determine the effects on human life, the study distinguished between economic sanctions (defined as those that restrict trade or financial transactions) and non-economic sanctions (those applying to arms trading or military assistance). The authors were additionally able to distinguish between sanctions imposed unilaterally by the United States and/or the European Union, and sanctions imposed through multilateral United Nations actions. The 560,000 total mentioned above constitutes the average annual death toll from unilateral sanctions imposed by the U.S. and/or EU. To further break down the death toll, the study separated the populations of targeted countries into seven age groups, and were able to determine that infants and those over the age of 60 were the most vulnerable. But those in between were not spared.

“Economic, unilateral, and unilateral economic sanctions were significantly associated with increased mortality for at least six of the seven age groups (the exception being adolescents),” the study said. In a definitive proof that sanctions are not targeted, the study found that “deaths of children younger than 5 years represented 51% of total deaths caused by sanctions over the 1970-2021 period.” Also horrifying is that the death toll from sanctions is bigger than that of war combatants. The estimate of 560,000 annual deaths “is higher than the average annual number of battle-related casualties during this period (106,000 deaths per year) and similar to some estimates of the total death toll of wars including civilian casualties (around half a million deaths per year).”

The intention is to inflict maximum pain

One final question is why U.S. and EU unilateral sanctions are so much more deadly than those applied through multilateral UN actions. In a discussion of this trend, the authors wrote:

“There are various reasons why UN sanctions could be expected to have effects that are more difficult to identify in cross-national data. One of them is that unilateral sanctions imposed by the USA or the EU might be designed in ways that have a greater negative effect on target populations. Most—although not all—UN sanctions regimes in recent decades have been framed as efforts to minimise their impact on civilian populations, although the extent to which they have achieved this goal remains debated. US sanctions, in contrast, often aim to create conditions conducive to regime change or shifts in political behaviour, with the deterioration of living conditions in target countries in some cases being acknowledged by policy makers as part of the intended mechanism through which objectives are to be attained. The USA—and, to a lesser extent, Europe—also has important mechanisms at its disposal that serve to amplify the economic and human effects of sanctions, including those linked to the widespread use of the US dollar and the euro in international banking transactions and as global reserve currencies, and the extraterritorial application of sanctions, particularly by the USA.”

As to the Global Sanctions Database that provided much of the underlying data used to prepare the study, the organizers of it say it “covers 729 publicly traceable, multilateral, plurilateral, and purely bilateral sanction cases over the 1950-2016 time period.” That does seem to be as comprehensive a database as is likely to be assembled. Thus the statistical work used to arrive at the death tolls discussed have to be seen as reasonable. And the death toll is almost certainly rising, as one-quarter of the world’s countries were under a U.S. or EU sanction during the 2010s as opposed to the 8 percent sanctioned during the 1960s.

*^{“Imperialism is the real virus.” (photo by Paul Sableman from St. Louis)}*

One example that readily comes to mind is the sanctions Washington imposed on Iraq in an effort to topple the government of Saddam Hussein. A 2000 report published in the Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal noted “increased malnutrition among children, increased infant and under-5 mortality rates and the increase in foodborne and waterborne diseases.” However awful the Iraqi government of the 1990s was, surely it can be agreed that children had no responsibility for those governmental policies. This report reported that daily calories and protein available to Iraqis declined by two-thirds during the sanctions. In 2017, the human-rights organization Geneva International Centre for Justice reported the UNICEF estimate that around 1.5 million Iraqis, primarily children, died as a direct consequence of the imposed sanctions. This article was written to refute a Washington Post article that tried to allege that the earlier 1999 UNICEF estimate of 500,000 children killed as a result of sanctions was a “spectacular lie”; the Geneva Centre demonstrated in its analysis that Iraqi children died at more than double the rate than they had in the 1980s. We need only to think about the implications of a two-thirds reduction in available calories and protein — extraordinarily dangerous for adults and deadly for growing children, with catastrophic consequences for those who survive.

Most of you reading this will recall then U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s callous response when asked about the 1999 UNICEF estimate, stating that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children were “worth it.”

Why are we assigning these horrific death tolls to capitalism? Because imperialism is the motor force of capitalism, and what keeps the core countries of the system at the apex. This takes many forms, including financial — and the application of sanctions against countries that insist on using their resources for the betterment of their populations rather than expanding the profits of multinational corporations is very much a financial weapon — in addition to the more visible military means. There is also the structure of capitalism that keeps the poor countries of the Global South poor. The roles of Global South bourgeoisies, and not only Northern imperialism (as important as that is), as well as unequal exchange resulting from a subordinate position within a global division of labor, are indispensable to understanding the fate of Global South workers and in particular Latin American underdevelopment. In other words, there is a minuscule elite in Global South countries that benefit from unequal relations, getting a cut of the profits reaped by North multinational corporations in exchange for keeping those unequal relations and underdevelopment in place.

Sanctions are not imposed by the U.S. or EU against other core countries, they are imposed on Global South countries. If 500,000 child deaths in one country during one decade are “worth it,” what is the worth of 28 million deaths over five decades?

‘The U.S. Supreme Court declares the Constitution is unconstitutional’

Aug27

Although the article below is a fictional satire (at least for now), the U.S. Supreme Court’s far right majority consistently makes political rulings based on their personal preferences rather than quaint concepts like law, precedent, or constitutional language, never mind how a decision might affect actual human beings. The U.S. Constitution, even when read reasonably, is a badly out of date, flawed document but even the conservative justices of the past had some limits, some of the time. The current majority extremists seem to have no limits. The structures that many United Statesians believe will maintain the U.S. brand of formal bourgeois democracy, including federal courts, are failing.

In a 6-3 ruling along ideological lines, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that the Constitution is unconstitutional. Fully abandoning his concept that incremental taking away of rights is the better strategy, Chief Justice John Roberts joined his five conservative colleagues in completely dismissing constitutional protections and safeguards, writing that the Trump administration’s need for urgency should override legal considerations. The majority decision drew upon earlier decisions granting the White House unprecedented power since Donald Trump assumed the presidency.

“The role of a judge is like an umpire in baseball who calls balls and strikes,” Roberts wrote for the court majority. “Nonetheless, the court has to take an expansive view of our institutional duties, such as when an umpire has to throw a player or manager out of the game for their conduct. With that power of umpires as precedent (and you thought we didn’t like precedents), the court believes that opponents of the president, Donald Trump, should be sidelined for their conduct. Although the United States does not have kings, it does have a leader who should be allowed to rule without interference. The role of the courts is to defer to the executive, when the executive is someone who meets our approval, and the legislative branch should also defer.”

In a concurring opinion, Justice Samuel Alito said he would have gone further. “Presidential constraints must fall,” Alito wrote in his concurrence, which was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas. Rules governing presidents, including those restricting his ability to institute mass firings of congressionally mandated government departments, are “egregiously wrong” and “we hold the Constitution does not confer a right to question our dear leader.”

Drawing upon Blackstone’s commentaries on the laws of England, Alito wrote that “It is therefore extremely necessary that the crown should be empowered to regulate the duration of the Congress.” Alito also drew upon King Henry VIII, who declared his right to rule by royal proclamation in 1539, which arrogated to himself the right to change or delete any act of parliament. To draw out this argument, Alito first cited his misleadingly quoted and cherry-picked citation from a 12th century legal treatise that referenced a religious penalty for abortion (“Even before Bracton’s time, English law imposed punishment for the killing of a fetus”) in his Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, then wrote, “If the 12th century is good enough for abortion jurisprudence, then the 16th century is more than good enough for government jurisprudence.” Based on these precedents, Trump is free to ignore Congress as he wishes, Alito wrote.

In his concurring opinion, Alito said he would not have ruled that criticism of Trump should automatically be penalized by the federal government but that he would leave the question of punishment to the states.

An hour after the Supreme Court decision ruling the Constitution unconstitutional, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced that, effectively immediately, criticism of Trump would be illegal in Florida and would be punishable by immediate incarceration in the state concentration camp known as “Alligator Alley.” The governor said the Everglades facility would be expanded.

“You want to mock our president? If you do, we have a hot cement room waiting for you and plenty of alligators to keep you there,” DeSantis said in a hastily called press conference. “Florida already was where woke comes to die, and deviation from our glorious leader will also die here.”

Texas Governor Jim Abbott said he will call a new emergency session of the state Legislature to enact new laws reflecting the Supreme Court decision. “The legislature will approve laws safeguarding the sanctity of our glorious leader,” Abbott said. “Belonging to any party other than the Republican Party will be illegal. Until our new laws are passed, Democrats are legal and expected to be present in the legislature to vote. If they are not present, we will have them arrested and confined to the legislature until the vote is passed.”

In his majority opinion, Roberts wrote that it was too time-consuming to rule that the Constitution does not apply to Trump after each district court or appellate court ruling. Rather, he wrote, the court majority believed it was better to just go ahead and do what they wanted to do anyway. “All parts of government are asked to be more efficient and waste fewer resources,” Roberts wrote. “Our courts should not be an exception. We therefore decline to rule on individual cases and instead rule for all current and future cases that may be brought against the president as long as he reigns.” Because the court had already ruled Trump to be above the law while he was out of office, it would be “inconsistent to not place Mr. Trump above the law while he executes the duties of the presidency.”

The majority opinion said that it is not the duty of courts to interfere with the president’s execution of his duties and that if the public does not like the policies that the president and the executive is carrying out, then they can vote in a new president “should Mr. Trump so desire that another election be held.”

The opinion of the minority, Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, was not immediately available. The majority opinion written by Roberts and the concurring opinion by Alito were posted on the Supreme Court website, but the minority position was not posted. A query made to court officials asking when the minority opinion would be published was not returned. Asked about this discrepancy, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt, at today’s daily press briefing, said, “The Supreme Court decision was clear. The president has determined that opposing opinions are contrary to the national interest. We will not allow it to be published. And all of you had better watch your step.”

On Capitol Hill, reaction to the Supreme Court decision split along party lines. House Speaker Johnson could not immediately be reached for comment, as he was seen barking like a dog on the House floor. A Republican congressional member, speaking under a grant of anonymity, said Trump had ordered Johnson to bark, and as Johnson was unsure if he should ask Trump how long he should bark or if he should just go ahead and start barking without delay, thought it better to bark immediately. “When Trump gives an order, we carry it out,” the congress member said.

The Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, expressed disapproval of the Supreme Court decision. “I am in conversation with our party leadership, in both houses of Congress, and we will have a firm letter of disapproval ready before the end of the week. We may also make some speeches on the Senate floor. That will show the Republicans that we mean business.”

Another Democratic senator, who asked to remain anonymous so he could speak freely, said the letter of disapproval being discussed will be carefully calibrated. “We know Fox News and Newsmax will attack our patriotism if we go too far, so we will express our ‘profound disappointment’ with the ruling and call on Americans to give generously to our corporate candidates” the senator said. Asked what the party leadership will do when progressive officeholders and candidates condemn the ruling, and Trump, in strong terms, the senator said that will be handled quietly. “Our Wall Street funders will give us our talking points and we’ll let those nasty progressives know that all support will be cut off if they go beyond those talking points.” he said. “This is the Democratic Party. We don’t tolerate people who give people what they want or who speak to the concerns of voters without prior approval of our funders. What kind of party would we be if we started listening to our base?”

With the Constitution now declared to be unconstitutional, Trump is expected to issue a series of decrees eliminating most federal government departments, prohibiting any institution from adopting policies contrary to his expectations and banning any criticism. A coalition of grassroots organizations [rest of article redacted].

One in four need work if we calculate a “true” unemployment rate

Jul16

How many people are out of work? What is the real unemployment rate? We don’t know. What we do know is that the true number is far higher than the unemployment rate at any given time.

There are some measures that purport to give a better answer than the standard unemployment rate, such as the U-6 in the United States and R8 in Canada, which, because they use more expansion definitions, tend to yield numbers around twice as high as the standard definition does. But even those numbers almost certainly underestimate the true extent of unemployment and underemployment.

One attempt at calculating a true figure, published by the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity, says that the true rate for the United States is 24.3 percent. This statistic, what the Institute calls the “True Rate of Unemployment,” measures “the functionally unemployed, defined as the jobless plus those seeking, but unable to find, full-time employment, and those in poverty-wage jobs.” That is calculated by using Bureau of Labor Statistics data and adds to the more expansive definition of unemployment (the U-6) those who earn US$25,000 or less annually before taxes, which the Ludwig Institute defines as below a living wage.

By contrast, the official U.S. unemployment rate for June 2025 is 4.1 percent and the U-6 unemployment rate is 7.7 percent, up three-tenths of a percentage point from a month earlier. The official unemployment rate, used by governments around the world, is the standard International Labour Organization definition: those collecting unemployment benefits and are actively searching for work (often the latter is necessary to qualify for the former). If your unemployment benefits have run out, congratulations — you are no longer unemployed! The U-6 number represents all who are counted as unemployed in the “official” rate, plus discouraged workers, the total of those employed part time but not able to secure full-time work and all persons marginally attached to the labor force (those who wish to work but have given up).

*^{An altered version of a Depression-era image. (Image by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com)}*

The Ludwig Institute says its goal is to establish a more accurate gauge “by preventing bad jobs and parttime jobs from looking better than they are on paper — something that the [Bureau of Labor Statistics] unemployment rate fails to do.” A better measurement is needed: “Although not technically false, the low rate reported by the BLS is deceiving, considering the proportion of people who are categorized as technically employed, but are employed on poverty-like wages (below $20,000 a year) and/or on a reduced workweek that they do not want. Neither of these factors [are] conducive to prospering, nor to providing for a family.”

Calculating its “True Rate of Unemployment” back to 1995, the Ludwig Institute finds that unemployment has never been lower than 22 percent and reached a peak of 34.8 percent in February 2010, when the world’s economy was still struggling in the wake of the 2008 economic collapse. The closest the official rate and the true rate were was in April 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic caused an economic shutdown; that month, the official U.S. rate was 14.2 percent and the Ludwig true rate was 34.2 percent.

“The harsh reality is that far too many [in the United States] are still struggling to make ends meet, and absent an influx of dependable, good-paying jobs, the economic opportunity gap will widen,” Institute chair Gene Ludwig said. “Amid an already uncertain economic outlook, the rise in functional unemployment is a concerning development. This uncertainty comes at a price, and unfortunately, the low- and middle-income wage earners ultimately end up paying the bill.”

Undercounting the unemployed is the norm

Finding similar statistics for other countries is more difficult, but the past has shown that unemployment is similarly underreported in other countries. Canada’s official unemployment rate for June 2025 is 6.9 percent and its R8 unemployment rate for that month is 8.6 percent, a drop of a half a percentage point from May. The Canadian R8 counts people in part-time work, including those wanting full-time work, as “full-time equivalents,” thus underestimating the number of under-employed. How much does it undercount? A lot it would appear. Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union, issues its own monthly report. For May 2025, Unifor reported the Canadian underemployment rate was 15.9 percent. That number “adds to the unemployment rate all involuntary part-time workers and the marginally attached (i.e. those who wanted to work but who were not able to actively search for jobs due to extenuating circumstances).”

Unifor also reports that 21 percent of Canadians earn low wages, defined as hourly wage earners earning less than two-thirds of the median hourly wage. As there must be some low-wage workers who are already counted in the underemployment rate, it would take research to determine a Canadian underemployment number akin to the Ludwig “true rate” for the United States. But it would seem likely that any such Canadian rate would at least approach the U.S. rate.

We could repeat this exercise for other countries. The latest British official unemployment is 4.6 percent while the economic inactivity rate is 21.3 percent; the latter is defined as “people not in employment who have not been seeking work within the last 4 weeks and/or are unable to start work within the next 2 weeks.” For the European Union, the latest reported unemployment rate, for May 2025, is 5.9 percent, while the “labour market slack” was reported at 12 percent for 2023, the latest figure available. Here again, if it were possible to calculate a “true rate” for underemployment, such a rate would be considerably higher.

It is fair to conclude that employment in the capitalist world is more precarious and less available than we are led to believe. One additional measure of how capitalism continues to fail to provide sufficient work is the labor participation rate; a straightforward measure of how many people of working age are actually working. In the United States, this rate has consistently declined since 2001, when two-thirds were employed. That rate is now down to 62 percent. Finally, we can examine how much of gross domestic product goes to wages. That number is also declining. Having peaked at 62 percent in 1969, in 2024 only 42 percent of GDP went toward wages. Yes, you are earning less.

Even with declining wages, bloated corporate profits, greater inequality and ever more money shoveled into the gaping pockets of financiers through dividends and stock buybacks, what do representatives of capital tell us? Commentaries by orthodox economists, conservative think tanks and business publications such as Forbes say the problem is that wages are too high. The U.S. Federal Reserve, the world’s most important central bank, agrees that wages are too high. Yet there were untold trillions of dollars to give to financial titans. For example, the US$10 trillion handout to the financial industry through programs artificially propping up financial markets in just the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic, on top of the further trillions handed out to business in those years while employees received crumbs and layoff notices. And all that followed the $16.3 trillion committed to the financial industry by the world’s four largest economies in the wake of the 2008 collapse despite the fact that the same industry was responsible for the collapse.

If you have regular work, you are among the fortunate

All these statistics reflect the state of working people in advanced capitalist countries. If we were to zoom out and examine trends in work for the world as a whole, conditions are considerably worse. The International Labour Organization, in its World Employment and Social Outlook for May 2025, reports that 2 billion people — representing 58 percent of all employed workers worldwide — have only informal work. People with informal work outnumber those with formal work, and the rise in informal work is faster than that of formal jobs. This trend is particularly strong in Africa, where the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that 85 percent of workers are informal. The ILO also reports that, globally, the share of labor income has been declining, and if the labor share had stayed constant since 2014, the world’s workers would have made a composite US$1 trillion more in 2024.

I’ve thrown all these numbers around to conclude what you have likely already concluded: We are getting more screwed. So we are. People of Color are even more under the gun than White people, and women are more under the gun than men. You are not alone if you are out of work.

Can this be reformed? The answer clearly must be no. Unfortunately, the usual weak-tea prescriptions are on offer from the International Labour Organization in its report. The ILO, in its conclusion, advocates “active labour market policies, social protection measures and robust public employment services” and suggests “dialogue between governments, employers, and workers.” Those would be nice if they could be achieved, but given that capitalism presses down ever harder, and has done so throughout its history in the absence of a strong, sustained, militant movement — and when the movement quiets, the reforms are taken back — if such activities were to work they would have already been done. History is quite clear here, and has been for a very long time. For centuries.

Speaking nicely to corporate executives and financiers and the political office holders who carry out the preferred policies of those executives and financiers, and expecting them to have an epiphany is, to put it mildly, quite unlikely. And those few executives who might be personally inclined to ease up and hand out some nice raises as a reward for hard work and high profits are constrained from doing so due to the unrelenting pressure of capitalist competition. Nobody controls the capitalist system; it has its own momentum to which all companies must bow to remain competitive and, ultimately, in business. The unceasing competition of capitalism, its relentless drive to enclose ever more human activity within its logic of profit at any cost, mandates the world we now live in.

Stagnation, declining wages and the ability of capitalists to shift production around the globe in a search for the lowest wages and the weakest safety standards — completely ignored in the orthodox hunt for economic scapegoats — are the norm. Our need to sell our labor, the resulting reduction of human beings’ labor power to a commodity, and the endless competitive pressures on capitalists to boost profits underlie the world economic system. A race to the bottom is what global capitalism has to offer, and all it can offer.

New York won’t have socialism in one city but let’s feel good anyway

Jun26

Given that the 20th century showed that socialism in one country is essentially impossible, we surely will not have socialism in one city. There will be serious blocks on Zohran Mamdani’s ability to govern should he go on to win the general election for New York City mayor.

Nonetheless, Assemblyman Mamdani’s nearly certain victory in the city’s Democratic Party primary on June 24 is worth celebrating. It is a victory for people and for progressive ideals. That he is not offering actual socialism shouldn’t trigger any ideologically motivated cynical responses. At best, let us be realistic, Assemblyman Mamdani will be able to implement a fraction of his program. That fraction will make a difference in many people’s lives, something nobody should minimize. And, importantly, a victory in November and the implementation of some progressive programs can represent a large step forward.

We should not forget United Statesians are currently in a difficult, uphill battle to fend off the specter of fascism. Any step forward right now is welcome. And the defeat (perhaps permanently) of Andrew Cuomo, to whom the Democratic Party leadership desperately clung, is a positive in itself and, to be perhaps overly optimistic for a moment, might provide the first inkling for party bosses that their strategy of continually moving further right to chase Republican voters doesn’t, and hasn’t, worked.

We shouldn’t fall out of our chairs in shock that Democratic Party leaders, who relish nothing more than insulting their own base as they proudly “stand up” to them, would meet the challenge of a dynamic candidate promising to ease people’s lives with common-sense ideas that fall well short of pie in the sky by coalescing around a widely reviled corporate centrist who is the choice of the real estate barons and Wall Street speculators who ultimately run New York. A corporate candidate who is credibly accused of sexual harassment by 11 women, whose Covid-19 policies resulted in thousands of senior deaths and who as governor engineered a breakaway faction of Democrats to bloc with the Republican minority so that Republicans would control the state Senate and thereby block any attempt at progressive reform. And who, like Donald Trump, is extremely vengeful.

^{A campaign rally for Zohran Mamdani, who came from 30 points down in the polls.}

This embrace of former Governor Cuomo is just one more product of U.S.-style liberalism (using the North American definition of the word) reaching an intellectual dead end. Democrats mostly understand that the economy is a failure for most people but can only conceive of minor reforms and tinkering around the edges because they remain as firmly in thrall of capitalism as Republicans and conservatives everywhere. Caught in a contradiction between knowing a system doesn’t work and being afraid of challenging that system, Democrats are unable to offer alternatives or articulate serious reforms. Instead, they simply say “Vote for us, the Republicans are worse.” Sometimes that works; sometimes it doesn’t. Increasingly, it doesn’t.

In contrast to the Right, who unfortunately know what they want and have the energy to obtain it, those who are conflicted between their belief in something and their acknowledgment that the something needs reform, and are unable to articulate a reform, won’t and can’t stand for anything concrete, and ultimately will capitulate. When that something can’t be fundamentally changed through reforms, what reforms are made are ultimately taken back, and society’s dominant ideas are of those who can promote the hardest line thanks to the power their wealth gives them, it is no surprise that liberal office holders are unable to articulate any alternative. With no clear ideas to fall back on, they meekly bleat “me, too” when the world’s industrialists and financiers, acting through their corporations, think tanks and the “market,” pronounce their verdict on what is to be done.

The market, let us not forget, is not a dispassionate entity sitting loftily in the clouds as propagandists would have us believe; it is nothing more than the aggregate interests of the most powerful industrialists and financiers.

Party leaders seem in a state of shock

If at least some Democratic establishment leaders intend to draw any lessons from the June 24 primary vote, they won’t be doing so quickly. The public announcements of New York party leaders has been comically tepid.

Governor Kathy Hochul, a corporate centrist who governs little different than Andrew Cuomo but does so with a human face rather than her predecessor’s glower and open disgust for working people, tweeted, “I look forward to speaking with him in the days ahead about his ideas on how to ensure a safe, affordable, and livable New York City.” U.S. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said he is “looking forward to getting together soon” with Assemblyman Mamdani. U.S. House of Representatives minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said he “plan[s] to meet in Central Brooklyn shortly.”

Note that not one of the three endorsed their party’s presumptive nominee for the mayoralty.

Particularly amusing has been the pronouncement by commentator Chris Matthews, paragon of Democratic corporate centrism, who declared that if “socialists” win, there will be “executions in Central Park.” I confess I am unaware of Assemblyman Mamdani’s position on the death penalty, but I would imagine, in contrast to the hysterical rantings of Mr. Matthews, that he would be opposed. Regardless, city mayors do not have any role in the judicial process.

*^{Brooklyn Bridge (photo by AngMoKio)}*

What is it that is so frightening about socialism? There is no one textbook definition of socialism and as any veteran of Left activism can tell you, there is wide disagreement about what it is, or should be. So all I can offer is my own ideas of what socialism would look like. To highlight a few points:

Political decision-making is done through democratic structures that enable people to make the decisions that affect their lives, neighborhoods, cities and environments.
In the workplace, everybody who contributes to production earns a share of the proceeds — in wages and whatever other form is appropriate — and everybody is entitled to have a say in what is produced, how it is produced and how it is distributed, and that these collective decisions are made in the context of the broader community and in quantities sufficient to meet needs, and that pricing and other decisions are not made outside the community or without input from suppliers, distributors and buyers.
Nobody is entitled to take disproportionately large shares off the top because they are in a power position.
Every person who reaches retirement age is entitled to a pension that can be lived on in dignity. Disabled people who are unable to work are treated with dignity and supported with state assistance; disabled people who are able to work can do so.
Quality health care, food, shelter and education are human rights.
Artistic expression and all other human endeavors are encouraged, and — because nobody will have to work excessive hours except those who freely volunteer for the extra pay — everybody will have sufficient time and rest to pursue their interests and hobbies.

Walking before we can run

Bernie Sanders, as the most well-known democratic socialist in the United States, has not offered anything like the above list, and Assemblyman Mamdani hasn’t, either. I don’t think that means we should either mechanically rebuke the two or turn up our nose at what would be, if implemented, real reforms should either of them be in a position to implement them. The large and enthusiastic crowds that Senator Sanders draws and the excitement that Assemblyman Mamdani has created demonstrate clearly there is a large constituency for their reforms, which do go far beyond the usual tepid crumbs Democratic candidates typically offer.

Yes, these are still reforms and not the real system change that the United States, and the world, desperately need. Yes, even those reforms will be watered down and only some will come to any fruition. Yes, the millionaires, power brokers and corporate interests who backed Andrew Cuomo will do everything they can to thwart Assemblyman Mamdani should he win in November. And, yes, we can only assume that the Democratic Party establishment itself will attempt to water down, and possibly outright obstruct, his program.

How should we approach these inevitabilities? Should we take an ultra-left phrase-mongering, more-revolutionary-than-thou position and say we’ll wait until the revolution comes before we’ll act, nicely snug in our ideological cocoon, or should we take material reality as it is currently constituted and devise strategies and actions to build on what has the potential to be a step (in a very long journey) toward building a movement that eventually can trigger real change. Not to mention that, if people see improvement in their daily lives, and this improvement can be articulated widely, there would be a viable alternative to the neoliberalism, austerity and repression that has been on offer for decades, not to mention the fascist movement that is attempting to eviscerate what remains of bourgeois formal democracy in the United States. Any implementation of a real system change, toward a full program of socialism, is beyond the capacity of any officeholder, even a president. That requires a movement of movements.

A Mayor Mamdani will have to make compromises, will have to contend with a political system that will attempt to thwart him at every opportunity and will certainly be subjected to savage attacks by the Right-wing corporate press and more subtle attacks by the more moderate corporate press. We as activists can continue to make maximum demands and don’t have to compromise; pressure from the streets will be necessary if anything beyond the most minimal implementation is to be accomplished. But whatever critiques we will one day make of a Mayor Mamdani, we should be realistic about the constraints on him. There won’t be socialism in one city. Socialism in any city depends on a large enough bloc of socialist countries, strong enough to withstand the capitalist assault on them, but that is a matter for another day.

For today, we should allow ourselves the luxury of feeling good. A self-proclaimed democratic socialist, in the teeth of millions of dollars worth of attacks distorting who he is, won an election. Let us allow ourselves some optimism. We surely can use it.

Oil and capitalism: Perfect together (but not for us)

May28

Just as we can’t imagine Britain’s rise to dominance in the capitalist system without coal, it is impossible to imagine the rise of the United States as the 20th century successor of Britain without oil. Nor can fossil fuels be disassociated from capitalism. Fossil fuels and capitalism are completely intertwined and that embrace, as tight as ever, threatens to be a deadly grip as global warming has only begun to wreak havoc.

Oil consumption has drastically increased since 1950 — nearly three-quarters of the total increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide has occurred since that year and half since 1980. This increasingly steep upward slope must be seen in the context of capitalism. The system’s “internal raison d’être is one of endless accumulation — a drive to continually accumulate money that overrides all other considerations,” writes Adam Hanieh in his latest book, Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power and the Making of the World Market.* “This social logic differs from all preceding human societies and has a profound impact on energy use and energy systems.” Without “foregrounding capitalism as a social system with its own distinct logics, we lack any explanatory reason for why and how oil emerged as the dominant fossil fuel of the twentieth century (and even more importantly, what must be done about it).”

Thus begins a highly interesting and informative discussion, taking the reader through a history of oil, and the control of some of the world’s largest corporations over it, the development of the oil industry as a harbinger of corporate consolidation across industries, the decisive role of oil companies in the development of 20th century economies and geopolitics (even bigger than we might have suspected) and the dynamics of the fossil fuel/capitalism nexus that has throttled all attempts at dealing with the existential crisis of global warming. Humanity surely is capable of meeting the challenge of changing the economy so Earth remains livable but seemingly can’t. There are reasons for that failure, to which this review will return.

The bulk of Crude Capitalism is a brisk history of the oil industry and its intertwining with the development of capitalism from the start. The first oil boom was in Pennsylvania in 1859 and by 1870 John D. Rockefeller was already attempting to monopolize oil through his Standard Oil company that sought control over refining, transport, pipelines and marketing. This “vertical integration” would become the model for a handful of corporations to control the industry across the 20th century. The many small producers had little choice but to accept Standard’s price as the latter achieved a monopoly over refining, pipelines and kerosene marketing (at the time, kerosene was the primary end use for oil). Standard’s ability to do this was enhanced by the first “internal offshore corporate haven” (a role these days handled by Delaware) in the state of New Jersey.

Standard, in part due to growing through acquisitions, operated a myriad of technically separate companies. As antitrust law was beginning to catch up to it, and to get around state-level restrictions on business operations (companies were organized within states and subject to a variety of regulations), Standard decided to reorganize as a holding company with its separate companies becoming subsidiaries of the holding company. This was done by incorporating in New Jersey to take advantage of new laws there that allowed a company to have the sole purpose of owning other companies, legalizing New Jersey-registered companies to operate in other states without the approval of the state legislature, a first. New Jersey’s laws also reduced taxes to small amounts and allowed the issuing of stocks with different levels of voting power, consolidating control in a few hands. Thus the modern conglomerate was born. Standard was broken up in 1911 under antitrust law, but Rockefeller and a handful of plutocrats closely associated with him retained control over the new companies, rendering the breakup no more than a small nuisance.

World wars provide more profits

After the war, a crisis of overproduction haunted the U.S. oil industry; there was not enough demand to absorb all that was pulled out of the ground and European markets were closed by the companies that had become vertical behemoths there, Royal Dutch Shell and what would become BP. Large reserves were found in Venezuela and elites there gave generous terms to U.S. companies to produce and asked that refining be done outside Venezuela so as to avoid a concentration of workers who could assert themselves. There was still the problem of overproduction, but another 20th century staple had been established — elites in the Global South collaborating with Northern executives to keep themselves in wealth while keeping working people down. Across the Atlantic, Britain worked to dominate Middle East production; the British created the country of Iraq, installed a king and then negotiated a deal highly favorable to the oil industry. All this was backed by British military muscle.

More gifts were handed to the oil industry by government, next by the federal government during World War I. The adoption of the internal combustion engine in the early years of the 20th century dramatically increased demand for oil and just before the war broke out, the U.S. and British navies shifted from fueling ships with coal to oil. This was a big boost for oil companies and, in 1917, the U.S. created a government advisory board that allowed oil companies to coordinate despite antitrust laws; this board would eventually become the American Petroleum Institute, a powerful lobby that exerts decisive influence over energy policy to this day. Incredible tax breaks, beyond what other industries received, were showered on the oil industry.

*^{The Alberta tar sands (photo by Howl Arts Collective, Montréal)}*

With the markets now under tight corporate control, seven giant firms — the famous “Seven Sisters” — dominated the oil industry globally.

World War II would provide another big boost for oil majors and as oil replaced coal around the world, oil consumption doubled worldwide from 1950 to 1965. The use of oil to heat homes increased greatly during these years, oil profits rebounded as the cost of oil fell below that of coal behind electrification expansion and a massive increase in automobiles and aviation fuel. U.S. policy to back the oil industry extended overseas: Occupation authorities banned Germany from using coal for energy feedstock and 10 percent of Marshall Plan money was spent on oil, mostly sourced from the Middle East as the U.S. moved to gain control in that region. Another factor that can’t be underestimated is the explosion in plastics; petrochemicals, a byproduct of oil refining, are the feedstock for plastics.

Dollar hegemony and oil profits go hand-in-hand

Oil, too, played a role in consolidating the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency, the linchpin of U.S. domination of the world capitalist system and its ability to enforce its embargoes extraterritorially. When President Richard Nixon pulled out of the Bretton Woods agreement that allowed dollars to be exchanged for gold at a set price and pegged other currencies to the dollar, it was not preordained that dollar hegemony would continue. Nationalizations had somewhat loosened the grip of the Seven Sisters in the early 1970s, but the U.S. government ingratiated itself with the Saudi and Iranian ruling families, and Gulf monarchs, in order to put an end to some oil sales still being conducted in British pounds. This is intertwined with the rise of OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Companies, which appeared to take control of oil pricing but did not actually do so.

The large increase in oil production by the Soviet Union across the 1960s, and the Soviet willingness to share its expertise with Global South countries, enabled expertise to spread; as movements toward nationalization rose the ability of newly formed state oil companies to successfully produce oil became sufficient. As Global South governments gained confidence, they decreed large increases in what they would take as their share of the revenues and the Seven Sisters had no choice but to agree. But what was it that OPEC governments raised? This was not the price at which oil is sold but rather the “posted price” — a “tax reference price” that governments set administratively to determine what companies (primarily the Seven Sisters) would pay to the governments. Large Western oil companies continued to control refining and thus could continue to set the price of oil products paid by consumers.

*^{An oil pump in California (photo by Damian Gadal)}*

In essence, this was a tax increase on the oil companies, which was passed on to consumers. And because U.S. tax law allowed multinationals to deduct the tax paid to foreign jurisdictions, this simply meant some of the taxes previously paid to the U.S. went to other countries instead. Because of their vertical integration, controlling everything from refining to marketing, oil companies could manipulate pricing between stages to minimize their taxes. Shortages during the 1973 oil crisis in the U.S. were due to the largest integrated firms cutting refinery capacity and squeezing smaller independents. U.S. oil company profits tripled during 1973. “All in all, there was never really any real shortage of oil as a result of the [largely unobserved OPEC] embargo,” Professor Hanieh writes. “Indeed, to a significant degree, the embargo can be read as little more than a performative act, ultimately aimed at convincing Arab audiences that an anti-colonial front was possible between the oil-rich monarchies and the more radical nationalist movements of the region.”

At the same time, the U.S. was able to get all oil sales to be done in dollars, eliminating the use of sterling. When Nixon pulled the dollar off the gold peg, the value of the dollar declined in value against other major currencies; getting paid in dollars meant less money earned, and this was a critical factor in OPEC countries nationalizing to increase their cut of oil revenue. The U.S. sought to attract investment and for the glut of dollars earned by OPEC states to flow back to the United States. U.S. officials having cozied up to Saudi rulers, Saudi Arabia announced it would only accept dollars for its oil and used its influence to get other countries to do the same, cementing dollar hegemony. Gulf monarchies needed U.S. protection to stay in power and thus had an incentive to stabilize the U.S. by sending its reserves across the Atlantic. And with transactions done in dollars, large dollar reserves needed to be held, and this in turn helped solidify the dollar as the money used in other industries’ transactions. In turn, the big increases in oil from the 1973 and 1979 shocks put most of the Global South into deeper debt, enabling the International Monetary Fund and World Bank to impose their “structural adjustment programs” on them as the age of neoliberalism dawned. Neoliberalism was made possible by the interdependence of oil and finance, Crude Capitalism argues.

Using renewable energy to grow fossil fuel energy

More recently, oil companies are attempting to rebrand themselves as “energy companies,” seeking to take positions in renewable energy while at the same time working to continue to expand oil production and consumption. This attempt at “greening” themselves is nothing more than greenwashing to cover up their all-out efforts to head off attempts to reduce oil production, which will come as no surprise. But Professor Hanieh lays out in detail just how machiavellian these efforts are. The final chapter of Crude Capitalism combines a discussion of why combating global warming is impossible under capitalism with an informative analysis of the inadequacies of renewable energies and oil company efforts to co-opt those alternatives. One measure of where the economics of energy stand is that, in 2022, the five biggest Western oil companies (ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and Total) earned a composite $200 billion in profits, and the Saudi national oil company, Saudi Aramco, reported a profit that year of $161 billion — the biggest yearly profit of any company in history. The ten biggest environmental disasters of 2022, Professor Hanieh reports, cost $170 billion, a fraction of oil company profits.

“Net zero” strategies are a key component of oil company greenwashing; the metrics that purport to show offsets to greenhouse-gas emissions are largely legerdemain and rest on carbon-capture technologies that largely don’t exist. The extremely limited carbon-capture technology that has been deployed is only partially effective and currently captures less than 0.1 percent of emissions, yet carbon capture is promoted to be a significant factor in offsetting emissions. Worse, most of the small amount of carbon captured is then used to frack oil, extracting oil that wouldn’t otherwise be viable to be taken — and this is counted as an offset from company emissions. Worse, only emissions from production are counted toward oil company statistics, not the actual use of them, which is a far bigger emitter than production. Professor Hanieh summarizes this as follows:

“The popular image of Big Oil as a dinosaur being dragged reluctantly towards the inevitable end of the fossil era is false; these companies are taking a leading role in determining future energy choices. There is no silver lining — the trajectories established by the oil industry serve to prioritise dubious technologies and policies, create false narratives, and foreclose the necessary alternatives that are now urgently demanded. Rather than being antithetical to their interests, these pathways further entrench the position of Big Oil at the heart of our energy system.”

*^{Spent shale from a Shale oil extraction process (photo by U.S. Argonne National Laboratory)}*

A discussion of biofuels, electric vehicles and hydrogen technologies follow, delineating oil industry cooptation of these alternatives. Biofuels are the biggest source of alternative energy but much of this entails the use of crops for energy instead of food or the cutting down of forests. If biofuels were to supply one-fifth of the world’s energy in 2050, Crude Capitalism reports, an amount equivalent to all of today’s crops, wood and grasses would be needed, certainly an impossibility. Not mentioned in the book is that biomass electricity generation in Europe (where that is concentrated), which relies primarily on the burning of wood, is actually more polluting than coal- and gas-fired plants and are also significant sources of pollution. The electricity for electric vehicles is only as “clean” as the source for the electricity and mass production of batteries entails more mining of lithium, cobalt and other minerals, often done in destructive ways. And hydrogen, in contrast to the hype promoting it, causes more, not less, carbon emissions; most of the methods used to produce involve natural gas. Oil companies promote hydrogen fuels because it maintains demand for natural gas.

Trillions for new production doesn’t sound climate-friendly

The search for “savior technologies” leaves the current system in place, Professor Hanieh writes. Proposals to electrify transport do not address underlying structural issues in which transportation and the energy to fuel transport are individualized and commodified:

“This is an irrational system that is destructive of the biosphere, harmful to human health, and erodes the livability of urban spaces. A faster reduction in emissions (and dramatic improvement in city living) could be achieved through provision of free, clean, and well-funded green public transit — with urban spaces designed to prioritise and enable non-commodified modes of transport. Instead, the solutions offered by so-called clean fuels leave the underlying systems intact, reproducing many of the same problems of the internal combustion engine in a different form (and with no likelihood of substantially reducing emissions in the time required).”

At least two oil majors forecast that the oil industry will invest $11 trillion in new production through 2050. That is hardly an industry planning for dismantlement. And it is not only continuing consumption that drives the oil industry’s plans to continue business as usual for decades to come; the ubiquitous use of plastics will also drive consumption. Half of all plastics ever produced were made in the past 20 years.

“It is perhaps conceivable that some of the demand for oil and gas as an energy source can be reduced through alternative technologies and improved efficiencies, but there is no possibility of ending our reliance on oil as long as petroleum remains the fundamental material basis for commodity production. For this reason, industry analysts and oil firm representatives alike speak openly of petrochemicals as a solid guarantee for ‘the future of oil.’ The consumption of petrochemicals sits elephant-like in the ecological crisis of the present. The starkest illustration of this is the exponential growth in the most pervasive of all petroleum products: plastics.”

The wide use of petrochemicals is anchored in the logic of capital accumulation, facilitating a throwaway culture, placing plastics and petrochemicals “front and center” in the fight against global warming. Recycling on its own is far from adequate. Capitalism is a machine that no one controls, Professor Hanieh writes, a system that rests on oil. Oil companies are destructive but nonetheless are manifestations, not the cause, of environmental crisis. Global warming and the environmental crisis can only be solved “as part of broader social change,” the author writes, offering a list of suggestions including demilitarization, shifting investment to new technologies and “truly renewable energies,” ending the destructive consumption of the ultra-wealthy including confiscating their massively greenhouse-gas emitting yachts and private jets, ending planned obsolescence, and reorganizing public spaces around clean public transport.

Only by taking political and economic power from the logic of the market and ending an irrational system “will make it possible to build a different and better world,” Crude Capitalism concludes.

Does the book make its case? Decisively so. The discussion here has only scratched the surface of a highly informative and at the same time very readable history of oil and its dramatic impact on the development of capitalism. The two have gone hand-in-hand, and although the role of oil is perhaps a little overstated, that is no drawback — the role of oil, the giant corporations that control it and the governments that facilitate the power of oil companies is an aspect of history not often told and not in this detail. The book is a very much needed corrective in filling in this vital component of our understanding, and demonstrates clearly that solving global warming is impossible under capitalism. Professor Hanieh has marshaled his considerable expertise to provide this summary and succeeds marvelously in giving us the historical background to why the oil industry has such a deadly grip on today’s world and a clear-headed analysis in what that grip means for us and our descendants. Read this to learn. And then act.

* Adam Hanieh, Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power and the Making of the World Market [Verso, 2024]

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