capitalism | Pandaemonium

RED SCARES AND MILLENNIAL RAGE

January 22, 2018 by Kenan Malik

I am now writing a weekly column for the Observer. It is actually a weekly page with two articles, one long, one short. This week’s articles were on red scares and Millennial rage and a tribute to Cyrille Regis. This is the essay on young people and rage against capitalism, published in the Observer, 21 January, under the headline ‘No reds under beds, but the young are awake to the flaws in capitalism’. Are student Red Guards about to […]

Categories: Britain, Politics • Tags: anti-communism, austerity, capitalism, communism, millennials, red scare, working class

WHAT IS RIGHT? WHAT IS LEFT?

November 2, 2017 by Kenan Malik

This is a video of a debate on ‘What is right? What is left?’ at the Festival of Questions in Melbourne in October. It was hosted by the Wheeler Centre. Seven of us had two minutes each to answer ‘What is right for immigration?’, ‘…for the economy?’ and ‘…for society?’. Sounds mad, but it was actually an engaging event.

Categories: Kenan Malik, Race & Immigration • Tags: australia, capitalism, debates, Economy, free speech, identity politics, immigration, left, right

RIGGED LABOUR MARKET, SKEWED PUBLIC DEBATE

May 21, 2017 by Kenan Malik

In 2014, Keith Bollinger, a textile worker in North Carolina, did what many of us have done at some time in our lives – he moved job when he found better-paid employment in another factory. At which point TSG Finishing, the company whose employment he left, sued him. A three-year court battle ended with Bollinger without either job, and with his savings completely wiped out. Why? Because, he had, without realizing it, signed a ‘non compete’ agreement, designed to prevent […]

Categories: Justice & Liberties, Politics • Tags: capitalism, usa, working class

THEM GODDAMN REDS

May 7, 2017 by Kenan Malik

I have been running a series of extracts from John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (the previous extracts are here and here). One of the great novels of the Great Depression, The Grapes of Wrath tells the story of one family, the Joads, tenant farmers from Oklahoma, who are forced off their land by the banks, pushed into migrating to the promised land of California, and the even greater wretchedness they find in their Utopia. In this third extract, the Joads […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: america, capitalism, great dedpression, john steinbeck, the grapes of wrath, working class

THE SMELL OF ROT FILLS THE COUNTRY

April 2, 2017 by Kenan Malik

This is a second extract from John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (the first extract is here). Steinbeck’s novel tells the story of the Joad family who, like millions of other Americans in the 1930s, having been thrown off their land by the banks, migrated to California. But here, too, the bitter rationality of the market not only denies them a living wage, but lets food rot even as thousands starve. Long before the idea of migrants conjured up images […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: america, capitalism, great depression, john steinbeck, the grapes of wrath, working class

IT’S NOT ME. IT’S THE MONSTER

March 8, 2017 by Kenan Malik

Globalization and neoliberalism. They’ve become the explanations du jour for the decimation of industries and the devastation of lives, for falling wages and slashed public spending. And there is, of course, truth to the claim. But capitalism was chewing up and spitting out its victims long before the market was globalised or liberalism became neo’d. One of the great novels of the Great Depression, of the wretchedness of poverty in 1930s America, was written half a century before those words […]

Categories: Culture & Books • Tags: america, capitalism, great dedpression, john steinbeck, the grapes of wrath, working class

MARX AND MORALITY

April 26, 2015 by Kenan Malik

To accompany the newly-published paperback edition of The Quest for a Moral Compass, I am running a series of extracts from the book. Previous extracts were on Joshua Greene’s idea of two modes of moral thinking and on whether universalism is merely a form of Western particularism. This extract, from Chapter 13, ‘The challenge of history’, examines Marx’s claim to be a moral thinker. You can buy The Quest for a Moral Compass in most bookshops, through Amazon or from […]

Categories: History of moral thought • Tags: anti-capitalism, capitalism, communism, hegel, history of moral thought, left, marx, marxism, morality, working class

THE NOT-SO-SECRET HISTORY OF CAPITALISM

October 20, 2013 by Kenan Malik

This is a coda to my review of Paul Collier’s book Exodus. In Exodus, Collier makes a case for restrictions on immigration, from the perspective both of the countries of origin and of the host countries to which they migrate. In my review I questioned the moral and social arguments that Collier employs to justify his arguments, and suggested that ‘there is often a chasm between that evidence and Collier’s more contentious arguments’, while many of his policy prescriptions ‘are […]

Categories: History • Tags: capitalism, eric williams, frantz fanon, imperialism, paul collier, poverty, progress, racism, robin blackburn, slavery, working class

CHEWING OVER THE OLD YEAR, SPITTING OUT THE NEW

January 2, 2012 by Kenan Malik

Perhaps not since 1989 have we witnessed a year as momentous as the last one. From the occupation of Tahrir Square to the mass protests in Moscow, from the Euro crisis to the calamity of the Japanese tsunami, from the London riots to the Libyan conflict, from the killing of Osama bin Laden to the death of Vaclav Havel, there was constant ferment throughout 2011. But how will the events of 2011 shape those of 2012? Four thoughts: 1 Most […]

Categories: Economy, International, Politics • Tags: arab spring, barack obama, capitalism, democracy, economic crisis, euro crisis, european union, french elections, nicolas sarkozy, occupy movement, russia, russian elections, us elections, vladimir putin

MORAL HAZARD AND THE EURO CRISIS

October 7, 2011 by Kenan Malik

The crisis that this week engulfed the Franco-Belgian Dexia Bank revealed how close Europe is to a new banking meltdown, and to an economic crisis that could be as devastating as that of 2008. It also revealed the dirty little secret about the eurozone crisis. Last week, after a lot of political arm-twisting, the Bundestag approved extra funds for an expanded European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) ostensibly for the bailout of Greece. In truth, Germany – and other eurozone nations […]

Categories: Economy • Tags: austerity, capitalism, economic crisis, euro crisis, european union, greece, jamie whyte, moral hazard