Football: a people’s sport?

The collapse of the attempt to form a ‘super league’ of top European soccer teams by the billionaire owners of the big clubs is only an interrupted chapter in the story of the commodification of sport into profitable capitalist enterprises, owned and controlled by capital.  It is no accident that JP Morgan was the fund

The roaring twenties repeated?

The latest data on economic recovery in China and the US suggest that both economies should be back to or above the pre-pandemic levels of national output by the end of this year (in the case of China probably some 10% above).  This has renewed optimism that the pandemic slump may quickly be reversed.  Keynesians

IMF and debt: a new consensus?

There is much talk among ‘progressive’ economists that the IMF and the World Bank have turned over a new leaf.  Gone are the days of supporting fiscal austerity, demanding that national governments get public debt levels down and insisting on conditions for countries borrowing IMF-WB funds that their governments privatise their state assets, deregulate markets

Robert Mundell: nothing optimal

Noted neoclassical mainstream economist, Robert Mundell, has died at the age of 88 years.  Mundell won a Nobel (Riksbank) prize in economics for his extension of general equilibrium theory as applied to Keynesian macroeconomics into the international arena.  Whereas the neoclassical equilibrium version of Keynes’ macromodel (called ‘bastardised Keynesianism’ by Joan Robinson) described a ‘closed’

Financial fiction part two: the new ones (SPACs, NFTs, cryptocurrencies)

In my last post I discussed recent financial engineering and swindles that are traditional to the accumulation of and speculation in what Marx called fictitious capital, ie financial assets like bonds, stocks, property, credit and so-called derivatives of these. Financial fictions: the old ones Finance capital is ever-ingenious in inventing new ways of speculation and swindles. 

Financial fictions: the old ones

I must declare an interest.  In days of old, many moons ago, I worked for an investment consultancy that advised Bill Hwang, the owner of Archegos, the ‘family office’ hedge fund that recently collapsed leaving $20bn owed to two big banks, Credit Suisse and Nomura. Bill Hwang Hwang was then a ‘Tiger cub’, someone that

The rise of capitalism and the productivity of labour

In my view, there are two great scientific discoveries made by Marx and Engels: the materialist conception of history and the law of value under capitalism; in particular, the existence of surplus value in capitalist accumulation.  The materialist conception of history asserts that the material conditions of a society’s mode of production and the social

The sugar rush economy

Last week the US Federal Reserve raised its growth forecasts for the US economy for this year and next. Fed officials now reckon the US economy with expand in real terms by 6.5%, the fastest pace since 1984, a few years after the slump of 1980-2.  This is a significant rise from the Fed’s previous

Paris Commune 150: the economics

Today is the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Paris Commune.  The Commune (Council) was formed as result of what should be considered the first uprising and revolution led by the working class in history.  This new class was the product of the industrial revolution in the capitalist mode of production that Marx and

Mark Carney: value or price?

Mark Carney has a book out. It is called Value(s): Building A Better World For All.  Canadian born Carney was formerly the governor of the Bank of England – the best paid governor ever at £680,000 a year plus £250,000 housing expenses.  Carney recently commented that “You don’t get rich in public service.”! Before that