radical critiques of capitalism

deciphering the dismal science

• facilitator: ashar latif asharkl@hotmail.com
• time: Thursdays 7pm-9pm, starting January 19, 2006
• location: Uprising, 168 Baldwin^? (in Kensington Market)

overview

This course seeks to examine the convoluted institutions and relationships that make up capitalism and how they impact our lives. We will try to dig beneath the jargon and abstraction of formal and applied economic theory and make economic thought accessibly critique-able. The beginning of the class will focus more on explaining the theoretical and abstract aspects of capitalism, later shifting the focus to trying to contextualize concrete historical events in a larger economic sense.

outline

week 1: what is capitalism?

• personal intros, negotiation of content & structure, introduction to concepts

week 2: work, buy, work, buy, work, buy: producer/consumer psychology

• the meaning of employment
• psychological/sociological assumptions of economics
• tensions between roles as worker and as consumer
• desire under capitalism
• texts:
  • selections from An Anarchist FAQ AnarchistFAQText
  • “Property Rights” by Armen Alchian PropertyRightsText

week 3: money for nothing: the monetary system and central banking

• money as mediation
• links between interest rates, inflation and unemployment
• the creation of money and control over its supply
• text:
  • Man, Economy, and State by Murray Rothbard Chapter 3: Indirect Exchange Sections 1-4 http://www.mises.org/rothbard/mes/chap3a.asp
  • selections from Economics, Politics and The Age of Inflation by Paul Mattick Chapter 3: The Destruction of Money http://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1977/inflation/ch03.htm

week 4: the grabbing hand: taxes, subsidies, and government

• corporate welfare
• government as business
• the politics of infrastructure
• text:
  • “The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand” by Kevin Carson InvisibleHandText full text: http://mutualist.org/id4.html

week 5: greed is good: the corporation

• definition and historical appearance of corporations
• limited liability, separation of ownership & control, personhood and rights
• the primacy of profit
• text:
  • “Corporations” by Robert Hessen CorporationText

week 6: exterminate the brutes: trade theory

• comparative advantage
• the openness of borders
• text:
  • “The Politics of Globalization: Ideology and Critique” by Werner Bonefeld GlobalText

week 7: food doesn’t just grow on trees: the economics of hunger

• the myth of scarcity
• cash crops vs. food
• industrial agriculture
• text: TBA

week 8: death on the cheap: the business of war

• military-industrial complex
• subcontracting war
• whose side?
• text:
  • selections from Models in Political Economy

week 9: the future is in plastics: cheap oil and its end

• the oil economy
• transportation and dependence
• text: http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ (text bar along the left hand side)

Additional Resources

Classical Anarchist Political Economy

The System of Economical Contradictions, or, Philosophy of Misery by Pierre Joseph Proudhon: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/ProMise.html

What is Property? by Pierre Joseph Proudhon http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/ProProp.html

The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/conquest/toc.html

Mutual Aid by Peter Kropotkin http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/kropotkin/mutaidcontents.html

The Wage System by Peter Kropotkin http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/Kropotkin/wages/wages.html

Anarcho-syndicalism by Errico Malatesta: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/617/malatesta_synd.html

Anarcho-syndicalism by Rudolph Rocker: http://www.spunk.org/library/writers/rocker/sp001495/rocker_as1.html

Anarchism and Anarcho-syndicalism by Rudolph Rocker: http://anarchosyndicalism.net/theory/aasind.htm

Mutualist Economy

Studies in Mutualist Political Economy by Kevin Carson: http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html

A Mutualist FAQ by Kevin Carson: http://www.mutualist.org/id23.html

The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand (full text) by Kevin Carson: http://mutualist.org/id4.html

various writings on society and economics by Benjamin Tucker: http://www.blackcrayon.com/library/tucker/

Participatory Economics (Parecon)

The Political Economy of Participatory Economics by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel: http://www.zmag.org/books/polpar.htm

Parecon: Life After Capitalism by Michael Albert: http://www.zmag.org/books/pareconv/parefinal.htm

Looking Forward by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel: http://www.parecon.org/lookingforward/toc.htm

Syndicalism

http://www.syndicalist.org/

A Critique of Syndicalist Methods by Alfredo Bonanno: http://www.geocities.com/kk_abacus/ioaa/critsynd.html

Libertarian Communism by Isaac Puente http://www.anarchosyndicalism.net/theory/lc.htm

Alternative Currencies

Info on the Time Dollar: http://www.timedollar.org/

Salt Springs Dollars (BC alternative currency project): http://www.prosperityuk.com/prosperity/articles/saltsp.html

Information on Complementary Currencies: http://www.transaction.net/money/index.html

Wide-ranging link list to alternative currencies: http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/local.html