Our People, Who Take Pride in Our History and are Committed to the Ideals and Achievements of the Revolution, will Resist and Triumph

CUBAN PEOPLE’S REVOLUTIONARY SPIRIT

The attempts at imposing neocolonial domination on Our America by publicly declaring the present value of the Monroe Doctrine contravene the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace

Granma | September 22, 2020

Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez Photo: Estudios Revolución

Mr. Secretary General,

Mr. President,

A global pandemic has changed everyday life drastically. From one day to the next, millions of people are infected and thousands die, even though life expectancy is longer thanks to development. Hospital systems with high-level services have collapsed and the health systems of poor countries are affected by their chronic lack of capacity. Drastic quarantines are turning the most populated cities into deserted areas. Social life is non-existent except on digital networks. Theaters, nightclubs, galleries and even schools are closed or on limited schedules.

Universal Collaboration is Needed to End This Pandemic

COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Saving Lives Campaign US-Cuba Normalization Conference Coalition

Cuba, battling successfully to contain COVID-19 at home, also provides medical internationalism and solidarity abroad. While Cuba dispatches the Henry Reeve Brigade to countries requesting healthcare assistance, Donald Trump’s administration escalates the anti-Cuba economic, financial and commercial blockade while threatening sovereign states who request needed Cuban medical solidarity — in a global pandemic.

The limited measures implemented by President Barack Obama towards US-Cuba normalization, are being steadily dismantled by the Trump Administration.  Between January 2019 and March 2020 many new measures were implemented against Cuba and incrementally announced.  In April, after a shipment of coronavirus aid delivery to Cuba was blocked, the Associated Press reported:  “The embargo has exceptions for food and medical aid but companies are often afraid to carry out related financing or transportation due to the risk of fines or prosecution under the embargo.” Despite the blockade Cuba has created an economy and society that provides universal healthcare and free education.

Modi’s Farm Bills Totally Kowtow to Imperialist Agenda

FARMERS’ PLIGHT IN INDIA

Prabhat Patnaik

News Click | September 26, 2020

Farmers protest against Farm Bills in Haryana. | Image Courtesy: Twitter

The two Bills rammed through Parliament last week were objectionable in every conceivable sense. The very fact of their being rammed through the Rajya Sabha, without being put to vote despite demands for a division, was grossly anti-democratic. The fact of the Centre making unilateral and fundamental changes in agricultural marketing arrangements which fall within the state list of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution was a blow against federalism.

To resurrect the pre-Independence arrangement under which the peasantry was exposed to the capitalist market without any support of the State, and which crushed it during the Great Depression of the 1930s, was a betrayal of the promise of Independence. To pit millions of small peasants against the might of a handful of private buyers, as the Bills propose to do, was to open them up to monopsonistic exploitation.

Marxian Economics for the 21st Century?

POLITICAL ECONOMY

David F. Ruccio

Occasional Links and Commentary | September 28, 2020

In this post, I continue the draft of sections of my forthcoming book, “Marxian Economics: An Introduction.” This, like the previous four posts (here, here, here, and here), is written to serve as the basis for chapter 1, Marxian Economics Today. The text of this post should pretty much finish up the draft of the first chapter.

Is Marxian Economics Still Relevant?

It’s an obvious question for those of us living now, in the twenty-first century. Is Marxian economics still relevant?

After all, Marx wrote Capital in the middle of the nineteenth century, when both capitalism and mainstream economics were quite different from what they are today.