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Worker-owned businesses model solutions to inequality and climate crisis—now they’re demanding greater government backing

On May 15, Palestinians mark Nakba Day ("the catastrophe" in Arabic), to remember the mass expulsion of Palestinians that accompanied the creation of the state of Israel.

To sustain capitalism, otherwise competitive businesses have to do something unnatural: cooperate with each other. The state plays a crucial role in fostering this class discipline. We, on the other hand, have to build our own power.

Under capitalism, technological progress will always benefit the rich first and society later – if we want technology to address the major problems of our time, we need it to be shaped by workers.

Speculation is inherent in capitalism, but it increases, as other financial activities, in times of economic malaise and crises, i.e. when profitability falls in the productive sectors and capital migrates to unproductive and financial sectors where the rate of profit is higher. This is the reason for the emergence and rise of the crypto market. What the fall of this market now shows is what happens when investors start to expect a fall in profits from an impending slowdown and even recession in the ’real’ economy.

Paris Marx | As usual with the tech industry, cryptocurrencies weren’t just sold as a risky investment — they were framed as a social good. Now that the crash has ruined lives, those who promised societal transformation through crypto should be held accountable.

Colonel Assimi Goïta, who leads the military junta, said that the agreement with the French “brought neither peace, nor security, nor reconciliation” and that the population aspires “to stop the flow of Malian blood.”

For the last two years, the US and its allies have engaged in a frenzy of infrastructure projects in the Middle East, seeking to consolidate influence in the region. This bid for hegemony is coming up against a new force: Chinese capital.

These are deeply upsetting times. The COVID-19 global pandemic had the potential to bring people together, to strengthen global institutions such as the World Health Organisation (WHO), and to galvanise new faith in public action. Our vast social wealth could have been pledged to improve public health systems, including both the surveillance of outbreaks of illness and the development of medical systems to treat people during these outbreaks. Not so.

By raising interest rates, the Bank of England has made it harder to repay the mountain of household debt built up during the cost of living crisis – leaving millions exposed to even more unsustainable bills, writes Grace Blakeley.

Afghan journalist Masood Shnizai describes his country’s worsening plight since the U.S. departure last year.

Two hundred conservatives gathered at Yale Law School and coalesced into a group whose name was a joke: the Federalist Society.

In a Q&A with ProPublica, experts describe how a new climate reality threatens the Southwest, the fastest-growing region in the U.S.

The namesake son of the late far-right dictator Ferdinand Marcos has won the presidential election in the Philippines, succeeding Rodrigo Duterte, who became known for thousands of extrajudicial police killings under cover of a supposed war on drugs.

Paris Marx | Cryptocurrency speculation and celebrity hype is fuelling Pierre Poilievre’s leadership campaign and setting the stage for a crash that will hurt working class people

An interview with reproductive justice organizer Darrah Teitel about the unfinished struggle of winning abortion access

In sum: slowing growth, rising inflation and interest rates, falling financial returns; rising risk of defaults on loans; and war.

Current inflation is concentrated in the goods sector (particularly durable goods), driven by a collapse of supply chains in durable goods (with rolling port shutdowns around the world). The bottleneck is not labour asking for higher wages, shipping capacity and other non-labour shortages. Indeed, in the current inflation spike, US weekly earnings growth has been slowing month by month.

Alberta’s premier, free-market champion Jason Kenney, is wreaking havoc on the province’s postsecondary education system — not just through cuts and privatizations but through a brutal reshaping of public education itself.