Wage slavery Wage slavery refers to a situation where a person's livelihood depends on wages or a salary, especially when the dependence is total and immediate.[1][2] It is a pejorative term used to draw an analogy between slavery and wage labor by focusing on similarities between owning and renting a person. Similarities between wage labor and slavery were noted as early as Cicero in Ancient Rome.[11] With the advent of the industrial revolution, thinkers such as Proudhon and Marx elaborated the comparison between wage labor and slavery in the context of a critique of societal property not intended for active personal use,[12][13] while Luddites emphasized the dehumanization brought about by machines. Treatment in various economic systems[edit] Adam Smith noted that employers often conspire together to keep wages low:[24] Capitalism[edit] and secondarily on: Communism[edit] Both American and Russian media described the USSR as a communist or socialist society. Fascism[edit] Psychological control[edit]
Sick of this market-driven world? You should be | George Monbiot To be at peace with a troubled world: this is not a reasonable aim. It can be achieved only through a disavowal of what surrounds you. To be at peace with yourself within a troubled world: that, by contrast, is an honourable aspiration. This column is for those who feel at odds with life. It calls on you not to be ashamed. I was prompted to write it by a remarkable book, just published in English, by a Belgian professor of psychoanalysis, Paul Verhaeghe. We are social animals, Verhaeghe argues, and our identities are shaped by the norms and values we absorb from other people. Today the dominant narrative is that of market fundamentalism, widely known in Europe as neoliberalism. Verhaeghe points out that neoliberalism draws on the ancient Greek idea that our ethics are innate (and governed by a state of nature it calls the market) and on the Christian idea that humankind is inherently selfish and acquisitive. At the heart of this story is the notion of merit.
A beginner's guide to the Redpill Right The gnostic paradox of young, tech-savvy traditionalists, who see through everything except their own conspiracy theories They want you to lift the veil pulled over your eyes by the progressives who secretly control society. Like Neo escaping the Matrix, your choice is to wake up and see how the world really is, discarding religion, subjectivity, and feminist indoctrination. Conspiracy theorists, Men’s Rights Activists, Pick-Up Artists, GamerGate, even the Neoreaction: all of these communities share a common creed, tech-fluent and superficially self-aware. To outsiders, it's distinctly conservative. But they don’t see themselves as conservatives at all. Welcome to the Red Pill worldview, where the entire world is a game and the people who are winning are the best players. They've yet to assume a formal name, remaining a loose confederation of overlapping reactionary movements resistant to (though exploited by) their would-be leaders. This leads, of course, to pervasive bigotry. Meads v.
Der Mythos der freien Presse Warum die Mainstreammedien “Mainstream” sind Foto: jeanbaptisteparis / Flickr / CC Der hier vorgestellte Artikel datiert bereits aus dem Jahr 1997 (Originaltitel: What Makes Mainstream Media Mainstream), und war ursprünglich ein Vortrag, den Noam Chomsky im Juli des betreffenden Jahres im Z Media Institute hielt. Von Noam Chomsky Ich schreibe unter anderem deshalb über die Medien, weil ich mich für das intellektuelle Klima insgesamt interessiere und weil die Medien der Bestandteil dieses Klimas sind, der am leichtesten zu untersuchen ist. Meines Erachtens besteht zwischen der Analyse der Medien und der des Wissenschaftsbetriebs oder der Intellektuellenzeitschriften kein großer Unterschied – man muß einige zusätzliche Mechanismen berücksichtigen, aber davon abgesehen besteht kein radikaler Unterschied. Wenn man die Medien oder eine beliebige Institution verstehen will, stellt man sich zunächst einmal Fragen nach ihrer inneren Struktur. Was finden wir dabei heraus?
Linke Lafontaine, Varoufakis und Melenchon wollen mit Europa brechen und einen Plan B für ein anderes Europa | Internetz-Zeitung Am 13. Juli wurde die demokratisch gewählte griechische Regierung von Alexis Tsipras durch die Europäische Union in die Knie gezwungen. Die „Einigung“ vom 13. Juli ist ein Staatsstreich. Sie wurde dadurch erreicht, dass die Europäische Zentralbank die Schließung der griechischen Banken erzwang und drohte, diese nicht wieder öffnen zu lassen, bis die griechische Regierung eine neue Version eines gescheiterten Programms akzeptiert. Durch mehr Austerität, zusätzlichen Ausverkauf öffentlichen Eigentums, größerer Irrationalität im Bereich der Wirtschaftspolitik als je zuvor, und massiver Menschenverachtung im Bereich der Sozialpolitik, wird das neue Memorandum nur dazu dienen, Griechenlands große Depression zu verschlimmern und Griechenlands Reichtum nicht-griechischen und griechischen Oligarchen zur Beute zu machen. Aus diesem Finanz-Staatsstreich müssen wir unsere Lehren ziehen. Wir sind entschlossen mit diesem „Europa“ zu brechen. Kein europäisches Land kann sich in Isolation befreien.
The link between capitalism and racism | REDFLAG We live in an age of racism. In Australia, the federal and Western Australian governments’ attempt to drive Aboriginal people in remote communities from their land is only the latest episode in the war on Indigenous people. In the United States, there is an epidemic of police slayings of predominantly Black young men. In Europe, fascist and far-right parties have gained ground, attacks on the Roma people continue and anti-Muslim racism against refugees and migrants is extreme. It’s clear that this is a global problem. How did we get to this and how do we change it? Capitalism and slavery Nineteenth century revolutionaries Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels described the realities of British industrialisation: child labour, the horrors of the mines and the mills, and the lives lost to the appalling working and living conditions of the time. “The veiled slavery of the wage-labourers in Europe needed the unqualified slavery of the New World as its pedestal”, wrote Marx in Capital. Racism
Programmes | Power of Nightmares re-awakened The Power of Nightmares - first screened in Autumn 2004 and repeated last week on BBC Two - questions whether the threat of terrorism to the West is a politically driven fantasy and if al-Qaeda really is an organised network. The BBC has been inundated with correspondence, some critical much of it very positive. Viewers were invited to put their questions to the writer of the series, Adam Curtis. I know you have already been asked, but PLEASE, PLEASE, release the series on video or DVD Peter Grant, London The problem is that the films are full of archive film and music from a multitude of sources. But so many people have now asked for the series to be released in this form that I think it probably will happen. NOTE: News about the Power of Nightmares and in particular availability of a DVD or video will be published on this website. I have sat through your documentary tonight. Iain Foster, Portsmouth The programmes did not say that there was no threat. Dylan Crosby, Birmingham No.
Oskar Lafontaine: Let’s develop a Plan B for Europe! By Oskar Lafontaine (pictured) Many in Europe had put great hopes in the election of Alexis Tsipras as Greek Prime Minister. When, after long and exhausting negotiations, the Syriza leader signed the European diktat, the disappointment was great. It would be unjust and presumptuous to want to give moral lessons to Alexis Tsipras and Syriza. The old investment banker Mario Draghi is neither independent nor apolitical. In the past few months, many discussions have been held to try to work out if the drachma should have been reintroduced. Return to EMS This is why the question for us cannot be, “The drachma or the euro?” For my part, I plead for a return to a European Monetary System (EMS), taking into account the experiences that we have had with this system and ameliorating its construction in the interests of all the participating countries. The successive re-evaluations and devaluations prevented too large of a gap between the economies of the European countries from emerging.