Tag Archives: capitalism

In praise of ‘low value’ subjects.

The English education system is built on value judgements. Measures of provider quality, qualification currency and student achievement create a web of rankings which shape our view of the system, and the resulting hierarchies impact how everyone feels about where … Continue reading

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Debating Growth.

Conway Hall recently hosted a public debate about the proposition “The pursuit of growth is a disaster for our country and our planet” sponsored by the ‘How To Academy‘. Supporting it were Ida Kubiszewski, Associate Professor at UCL’s Institute for … Continue reading

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Nancy Fraser’s eco-socialist common sense.

Nancy Fraser’s ‘Climates of Capital’. In the essay ‘Climates of Capital’ (2021) Nancy Fraser argues that we need to see the various major crises we face as systemic and connected, resulting from capitalism. If we are to survive and flourish, … Continue reading

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Redistribution and recognition should go hand in hand.

Reading Nancy Fraser’s critique of progressive neoliberalism. Continue reading

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Zola’s ‘Money’

Rougon-Macquart #18 A powerful anti-capitalist novel. Emile Zola’s wonderful 1890 novel ‘L’Argent’ (‘Money’) is set in the world of finance and share-speculation in 1860’s Paris. It is still fresh and relevant and should be on any reading list of anti-capitalist … Continue reading

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Zola’s ‘La Curée’ and the corruption of desire.

Rougon-Macquart #2 Emile Zola’s ‘La Curée’ (1872), translated as ‘The Kill’, is an extraordinary novel of unbridled appetites, material and sexual, and of the moral decay and rottenness of unfettered capitalism. It shares a setting and many common themes with … Continue reading

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‘Useful work v. useless toil’ by William Morris

Introduction: This lecture from 1884 is a clear and powerful statement of Morris’s political and economic manifesto, which also informed ‘News from Nowhere’ (1890) his visionary fable of life after a revolution. His critique of the waste and inequality inherent in … Continue reading

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