This is a small sampling of articles related to economic issues, work and labour, and poverty issues in the Connexions Online Library. For more articles, books, films, and other resources, check the Connexions Library Subject Index, especially under topics such as economy, economic alternatives, corporations, corporate agenda, fair trade, labour issues, poverty, work, taxation, and working class.

The Red and the Black (December 1, 2012)
In this essay, I start from the common socialist assumption that capitalism’s central defects arise from the conflict between the pursuit of private profit and the satisfaction of human needs. Then I sketch some of the considerations that would have to be taken into account in any attempt to remedy those defects.
Book Review: Marxism without Marx: Recent Interpretations of the Economic Crisis (June 3, 2012)
The Sky is Always Darkest Just Before the Dawn (January 14, 2012)
We can safely assert that for most working people, the “recession” has never ended, and is about to get worse.
How The Oligarchy Gets Politicized (November 15, 2011)
The political activism of the elite is striking in times of crisis, when the latter takes the form either of severe economic contraction or of working-class militancy, or both.
Connexions Archive Case Statement (September 24, 2011)
Working together to secure a future for the past
Some Big Things Ha-Joon Chang Doesn’t Tell You About Capitalism (June 14, 2011)
Chang exposes deadly falsehoods in many of the prevalent neoliberalism’s supposedly self-evident “free market” truths. But Chang’s book is plagued by key difficulties that belie its claim to iconoclasm, suggesting Chang’s own conservative adherence to dominant Western power structures and doctrines.
A World at Financial War (June 6, 2011)
The crisis for Greece – as for Iceland, Ireland and debt-plagued economies capped by the United States – is occurring as bank lobbyists demand that “taxpayers” pay for the bailouts of bad speculations and government debts stemming largely from tax cuts for the rich and for real estate, shifting the fiscal burden as well as the debt burden onto labor and industry. The financial sector’s growing power to achieve this tax favoritism is crippling economies, driving them further into reliance on yet more debt financing to remain solvent.
Europe's New Road to Serfdom (June 3, 2011)
The conditios for Greece's new loan package is that Greece must initiate a class war by raising its taxes, lowering its social spending – and even private-sector pensions – and sell off public land, tourist sites, islands, ports, water and sewer facilities. This will raise the cost of living and doing business, eroding the nation’s already limited export competitiveness. The bankers sanctimoniously depict this as a “rescue” of Greek finances.
Inside the Global Crisis (January 1, 2011)
Seven Reasons Why Capitalism Can't Recover Anytime Soon (December 6, 2010)
There is a larger disease in the international economic system, a disease that cannot be cured by politicians who swear allegiance to this deteriorating system and to the wealthy elite who benefit from it.
The Class War at Home (October 25, 2010)
There is a class war – the war of the rich on the poor and the middle class – and the rich are winning.
Shock and Au-sterity (August 8, 2010)
Scared to death that all the lights were about to go out after pulling the plug on Lehman Brothers, the bourgeoisie rolled up its sleeves, girded its loins, crossed its fingers, and reached deeper than deep for that thing of all things, that relation of all relations that is the life of all lives for the bourgeoisie—OPM, other people’s money.
What Bhopal Started (June 15, 2010)
Bhopal marked the horrific beginning of a new era. One that signalled the collapse of restraint on corporate power. The ongoing BP spill in the Mexican Gulf -- with estimates ranging from 30,000 to 80,000 barrels per day -- tops off a quarter of a century where corporations could (and have) done anything in the pursuit of profit, at any human cost.
The State as Protection Racket (June 11, 2010)
The debate about the current global economic "crisis" is obscenely counterintuitive and illogical to the point of incoherence. Who is willing to #follow the money"? This dictum appears utterly forgotten, despite recurring astronomic fraud perpetrated by US corporations.
The Historical Moment That Produced Us (June 9, 2010)
As we emerge, hopefully, from this dismal period of rollback, we recall Rosa Luxemburg's remark, shortly before her murder in 1919: "The revolution says: I was, I am, I shall be!" We assert the ongoing reality of communism, "the real movement developing before our eyes," as Marx put it in the Manifesto. Like Hegel's "knights of history," we locate our identities not in any immediacy but in the emerging new universal that must be the cutting edge of the next global offensive.
The Greeks Get It (May 24, 2010)
Here#s to the Greeks. They know what to do when corporations pillage and loot their country. They know what to do when Goldman Sachs and international bankers collude with their power elite to falsify economic data and then make billions betting that the Greek economy will collapse. They know what to do when they are told their pensions, benefits and jobs have to be cut to pay corporate banks, which screwed them in the first place. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out. Do not be afraid of the language of class warfare#the rich versus the poor, the oligarchs versus the citizens, the capitalists versus the proletariat. The Greeks, unlike most of us, get it.
The Heresy Of The Greeks Offers Hope (May 24, 2010)
Greece is a microcosm of a modern class war rarely reported as such.
The People v. the Bankers (May 11, 2010)
The Greek "bailout" is actually a bailout of the international banks.
Consumer Hell (January 4, 2010)
The problem with gross domestic product is that there are no deductions involved: all economic activity is accounted as if it were of positive value. Social harm is added to, not subtracted from, social good. A train crash which generates £1bn worth of track repairs, medical bills and funeral costs is deemed by this measure as beneficial as an uninterrupted service which generates £1bn in ticket sales.
Obama's "We Got No Money" Rap (December 7, 2009)
Obama is deliberately precipitating another crisis on the advise of his chief lieutenants. Summers and Geithner are steering the economy back into recession so they can implement the same austerity measures and "structural adjustment" programs which have been used throughout the developing world. It's "starve the beast" all over again. As the stimulus dries up, revenue-depleted states will be forced to auction off public lands, resources, parks and other assets to the highest bidder. The banksters and robber barons will feast on the country's treasures while the middle class is crushed by the freefalling dollar, lost home equity, and persistent high unemployment.
Connexions Archive seeks a new home (November 18, 2009)
The Connexions Archive, a Toronto-based library dedicated to preserving the history of grassroots movements for social change, needs a new home.
The Paradox of Wealth: Capitalism and Ecological Destruction (November 1, 2009)
A growing army of self-styled “sustainable developers” argues that there is no contradiction between the unlimited accumulation of capital and the preservation of the earth. The system can continue to expand by creating a new “sustainable capitalism,” bringing the efficiency of the market to bear on nature and its reproduction. In reality, these visions amount to little more than a renewed strategy for profiting on planetary destruction.
Impossibleism (October 29, 2009)
Impossibleists want unrestrained sustainable growth in the face of its inevitable impossibility. It is a mystery how they think this way, knowing as they surely do that eventually the bill will come due, and the engine will run out of gas - literally. Think about it - growth that never stops, ever. Even with limitless resources, it is simple intuition that eventually, somewhere, sometime....
Goodbye "Norma Rae" (September 24, 2009)
Crystal Lee Sutton was a genuine hero. She will forever be remembered as one of the champions of organized labor, right up there with the Joe Hills, Bill Haywoods and Emma Goldmans.
"Local" Goes Loco (September 23, 2009)
Buying "local" has become a popular movement in American agriculture and commerce. Some corporations, however, are taking "local" a step farther.
The great 'success' of a carbon trading failure (September 18, 2009)
The #right to pollute# has never been more affordable. Energy companies and market speculators can buy a tonne of carbon for less than the cost of a cup of coffee. The low cost gives an incentive for companies to pollute more in the short-term and prices renewable energy alternatives out of the market.
Company Secretary To Replace Inspector (September 14, 2009)
If all goes to plan, India Inc would no longer have to deal with labour inspectors turning up at their premises to check compliance with 43 central and myriad state labour legislations. Instead, firms can submit a certificate from a company secretary that validates their compliance with the numerous employment laws.
Woman Leads Tribals Against World's Steel Maker (September 12, 2009)
The fight against the world's biggest steel maker, ArcelorMittal, is being waged from a tiny tea stall in Ranchi, eastern India.
From villages to New Delhi to Geneva: Indian farmers protest against the WTO (September 8, 2009)
The "liberalization" and #corporatization# of agriculture under the World Trade Organisation would put at risk the livelihoods of more than 2/3 of India#s 1 billion people.
Growing Poverty And Despair In America (September 4, 2009)
Increasing homelessness and hunger highlight the growing problem as, in the face of deteriorating economic conditions and growing human needs, administration policies are indifferent, counterproductive, uncaring and hostile.

Selected Websites and Organizations

This is a small sampling of organizations and websites concerned with economic issues, work and labour, and poverty issues in the Connexions Directory. For more organizations and websites, check the Connexions Directory Subject Index, especially under topics such as economy, economic alternatives, corporations, corporate agenda, fair trade, labour issues, poverty, work, taxation, and working class.

Break Their Haughty Power
Articles on capitalism, socialism, and revolution, from a left-Marxist perspective.
Canadian Association of Labour Media
A network of union publications and editors that provides labour-friendly stories and graphics and training for labour communicators.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives
Many articles, fact sheets and background papers and analyses, on Canadian and international issues, from the CCPA, which promotes research from a progressive point of view.
Connexions Library: Community & Urban Focus
Selected articles, books, websites and other resources on community and urban issues.
The Corporate Consensus
A detailed guide to the institutions and corporations which occupy the commanding heights of corporate power in the world today.
Corporate Watch (UK)
Radical research and publishing group supporting activism against large multinational corporations.
CorpWatch
Corporate Watch provides news, analysis, research tools and action resources to respond to corporate activity around the globe and also talks with people who are directly affected by corporate abuses as well as with others fighting for corporate accountability, human rights, social and environmental justice.
Crocodyl
Crocodyl is a collaboration sponsored by CorpWatch, the Center for Corporate Policy and the Corporate Research Project. Our aim is to stimulate collaborative research among NGOs, journalists, activists, whistleblowers and academics from both the global South and North in order to develop publicly-available profiles of the world's most powerful corporations. The result is an evolving compendium of critical research, posted to the public domain as an aid to anyone working to hold corporations increasingly accountable.
CrocTail
CrocTail provides an interface for browsing information parsed from SEC filings about several hundred thousand U.S. publicly traded corporations and their foreign subsidiaries. Information from company filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been parsed and annotated by CorpWatch to provide a way for Crocodyl.org users to research and add issues related to corporate subsidiaries.
Global Unions
Standing Together for the Rights of Workers.
Global Unions are international trade union organisations working together with a shared commitment to the ideals and principles of the trade union movement. They share a common determination to organize, to defend human rights and labour standards everywhere, and to promote the growth of trade unions for the benefit of all working men and women and their families."
International Labor Rights Forum
An advocacy organization dedicated to achieving just and humane treatment for workers worldwide.
LaborNet
Exists to build a democratic communication network for the labor movement.
LabourStart
A major site with information about labour activities throughout the world.

Other Links & Resources

Business & Economics Topic Index in Sources Directory of Experts
A subject guide to experts and spokespersons on topics related to business and economics in the Sources directory for the media.
Catalyst
A campaigning think tank for the labour movement and the left, committed to developing and promoting practical policies for the redistribution wealth, power, and opportunity. Catalyst is not aligned to any political party, but we are an organisation of the left, of democratic socialists, with a clear statement of purpose and an Editorial Board comprising individuals who have all made substantial contributions in the fields of politics, economic and social policy.
Centre for Research on Work and Society
University-union-community research centre doing activist research on work and labour.
Connexions Library: Labour and Unions Focus
Selected articles, books, websites and other resources on labour and unions.
Connexions Library: Transportation Focus
Selected articles, books, websites and other resources on transportation.
Connexions Library: Work Focus Page
Selected articles, books, websites and other resources on work.
Executive Paywatch
Inequality.org
Insurgent Notes
A journal of communist theory and practice.
International Forum on Globalization
An alliance of activists, scholars, economists, researchers and writers formed to stimulate new thinking, joint activity, and public education in response to economic globalization.
Labour Topic Index in Sources Directory of Experts
A subject guide to experts and spokespersons on topics related to labour in the Sources directory for the media.
Labour WebRing: hub
Featuring trade unions/trade unionists, labour/labor organizations and union activists worldwide.
Left Business Observer
Left Business Observer is a newsletter on economics and politics.
Marketing Topic Index in Sources Directory of Experts
A subject guide to experts and spokespersons on topics related to marketing in the Sources directory for the media.
Radical Statistics Group
We believe that statistics can be used to support radical campaigns for progressive social change. Statistics should inform, not drive policies. Social problems should not be disguised by technical language.
Researching Companies On-Line
Information on how to research companies online
Sawt el-Amel/The Laborer's Voice
An independent grassroots organisation founded by Palestinian Arab workers in Nazareth to defend and promote the rights of Arab citizens is Israel to work and social security. In order to reach its objectives, Sawt el-Amel takes legal action, educates the public, coordinates grassroots organising and engages in international solidarity work and advocacy.
Taxation Topic Index in Sources Directory of Experts
A subject guide to experts and spokespersons on topics related to taxation in the Sources directory for the media.
Trade Topic Index in Sources Directory of Experts
A subject guide to experts and spokespersons on topics related to trade in the Sources directory for the media.

Books, Films and Periodicals

This is a small sampling of books related to economic issues, work, and labour in the Connexions Online Library. For more books and other resources, check the Connexions Library Subject Index, especially under topics such as economy, economic alternatives, corporations, corporate agenda, fair trade, labour issues, poverty, work, taxation, and working class.

The ABCs of the Economic Crisis
What Working Peole Need to Know
Author: Magdoff, Fred; Yates, Michael D.
Rich, powerful people created the economic crisis of 2008-09, while hundreds of millions of working people suffer the consequences -- lost homes, lost jobs, rising insecurity, and falling living standards. How could this happen?
The Accumulation of Capital
Author: Luxemburg, Rosa
Rosa Luxemburg's analysis of the inherent contradictions of capitalist accumulation.
Beating Back the Corporate Attack
Socialism and the struggle for global justice
Author: Clement, Chris; La Botz, Dan; Luce, Stephanie; Post, Charlie
Our movement is calling for a new direction -- for democratic control of our political life, and for democratic control over the most important aspects of the economy. Why should handful of the super-rich run the planet, and, moreover, run it into the ground?
Behind Closed Doors
How The Rich Won Control of Canada's Tax System... And Ended Up Richer
Author: McQuaig, Linda
Building Sustainable Communities
Tools and Concepts for Self-Reliant Economic Change
Author: Morehouse, Ward (ed.)
The major sections of the book deal with community land trusts and other forms of community ownership of natural resources, worker-managed enterprises and other techniques of community self-management, and community currency and banking.
Business as Usual
The Economic Crisis and the Future of Capitalism
Author: Mattick, Paul Jr.
In Business as Usual Paul Mattick explains the recession in jargon-free style, without shying away from serious analysis. He explores current events in relation to the development of the world economy since the Second World War and, more fundamentally, looks at the cycle of crisis and recovery that has characterized capitalism since the early nineteenth century. Mattick situates today’s crisis in the context of a capitalism ruled by a voracious quest for profit.
Das Capital, Volume 1
A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production
Author: Marx, Karl
Marx's great work sets out to grasp and portray the totality of the capitalist mode of production, and the bourgeois society that emerges from it. He describes and connects all its economic features, together with its legal, political, religious, artistic, philosophical and ideological manifestations.
China in the Contemporary World Dynamic of Accumulation and Class Struggle
Author: Goldner, Loren
The Chinese ruling elite is riding the whirlwind precisely because its own necessary reforms are quite visibly setting in motion social processes that could completely overwhelm it, namely a working-class and peasant insurrection which would necessarily assume a truly socialist content.
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
Author: Marx, Karl
Corporate crime wave
New Internationalist July 2003
A look into corporate crime, people who have been involved, and what happens to the money. Also discusses what can be done to stop corporate crime.
Corporate influence Inside business How corporations make the rules
New Internationalist July 2002
A look into how corporate democracy works and facts regarding corporate influence. Also looks into a short history of corporations.
Corporate Power and Canadian Capitalism
Author: Carroll, William K.
Carroll looks at the accumulation of capital in Canada since the Second World War. Most of the book is devoted to tracing actual patterns of corporate ownership and intercorporate relationships.
The Corporation
The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power
Author: Bakan, Joel
Makes the case that corporations function as a psychopathic entity. A companion to Mark Achbar's 2003 documentary of the same name.
The Economy of Cities
Author: Jacobs, Jane
The Enemy of Nature
The End of Capitalism or the End of the World?
Author: Kovel, Joel
We live in and from nature, but the way we have evolved of doing this is about to destroy you. Capitalism and its by-products -- imperialism, war, neoliberal globalization, racism, poverty, and the destruction of community -- are all playing a part in the destruction of our ecosystem.
Essays on Marx's Theory of Value
Author: Rubin, Issak Illich
A discussion of the concepts at the root of Marxism: the theory of value and commodity fetishism.
Flying Without A Net
The "Economic Freedom" of Working Canadians in 2000
Author: Brown, Amanda; Stanford, Jim
Reports on a project to construct a quantitative index summarizing the multi-dimensional economic status of working people in Canada, based on variations in 14 different component indicators of economic and social well-being.
For the Common Good
Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future
Author: Daly, Herman E. and Jr. Cobb , John B
The authors argue that America's growth-oriented, industrial economy has led to environmental problems and propose an alternative economic paradigm.
Green Production
Toward an Environmental Rationality
Author: Leff, Enrique
Explores the environment and sustainability development with a Marxist approach and provides an alternative vision for ecotechnology.
In and Out of Crisis
The Global Financial Meltdown and Left Alternatives
Author: Panitch, Leo; Gindin, Sam; Albo, Greg
Political economists Albo, Gindin and Panitch lay bare the roots of the crisis, which they locate in the dynamic expansion of capital on a global scale over the last quarter century – and in the inner logic of capitalism itself.
Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy
Author: Marx, Karl
When we speak of production, we always have in mind production at a definite stage of social development.
Inventing Tax Rage
Misinformation in the National Post
Author: Patriquin, Larry
How the National Post created an agenda for the tax cuts that mostly benefits the wealthy.
Inventing Tax Rage (excerpt)
Misinformation in the National Post
Author: Patriquin, Larry
The propaganda campaign to invent "tax rage".
Left Business Observer
Left Business Observer is a newsletter on economics and politics.
Limits of Capital
Author: Harvey, David
An exposition and development of Marx's critique of political economy. Harvey updates his text with a discussion of the turmoil in world markets today.
Marxism and Bourgeois Economics
Author: Mattick, Paul
Just as the proletariat opposed the bourgeoisie, so Marx confronted bourgeois economic theory: not in order to develop it, or to improve it, but to destroy its apparent validity and, finally, with the abolition of capitalism, to overcome it altogether.
Matewan
Author: Sayles, John
A film based on events in Matewan, West Virginia in 1920.
The New Bureaucracy
Waste and Folly in the Private Sector
Author: Hardin, Hershel
Hardin shows that the private sector is a huge and wasteful bureaucracy; he looks at major corporations, the stock market, the advertising and marketing industry, consultants, money managers, think tanks, the media, etc.
The No-Nonsense Guide to Fair Trade
Author: Ransom, David
Ransom suggests that fair, environmentally-conscious trade is not only a viable alternative to unfair free trade, but that it is the way of the future.
The No-Nonsense Guide to Global Finance
Author: Stalker, Peter
An incisive introduction to global finance – where money comes from, the current mechanisms and the need for control and reform.
The No-Nonsense Guide to Globalization
Author: Ellwood, Wayne
The No-Nonsense Guide to World Poverty
Author: Seabrook, Jeremy
Open Veins of Latin America
Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent
Author: Galeano, Eduardo
A political economy, a social and cultural narrative, and a powerful description of primitive capital accumulation.
Poor No More
Author: Deveaux, Bert (Director)
In the present economic crisis, many Canadians are destititute and many others are on the brink. Against this climate, a couple of Canadians go on a road trip to Ireland and Sweden, with comedian Mary Walsh as their guide, and get a chance to see how other countries have helped people like themselves.
The Price of A Bargain
The Quest for Cheap and the Death of Globalization
Author: Laird, Gordon
Describes a world where the economy's collateral damage includes oil spills and the poisoning of developing nations' working poor; the low wages and illegal labour practices of corporations leading to the ultimate collapse of a system based on minimizing costs, high volume sales and low profit margins; and a world where debt is the cornerstone of the economy.
The Privatization Putsch
Author: Hardin, Herschel
According to Hardin, privatization is the expression of the ideology of a right wing, corporate agenda: business wants to gets its hands on public funds and politicians are more than willing to hand over publicly owned enterprises and public services to business friends, nearly always on terms that are immensely favourable to the corporations involved.
Privatization The great privati$ation grab
New Internationalist April 2003
The effects of privatization on public services. Discusses who is responsible and why they are doing this.
Rising from the Ashes
Labor in the Age of "Global" Capitalism
Author: Wood, Ellen Meiksins; Meiksins, Peter; Yates, Michael D.
Takes on the issues of changing composition of the international working class, patterns of work under contemporary capitalism, the relationship of race and gender to class, the promise and limitations of recent eruptions of labour militancy, and the strategic options available to working people in an age of "global" capitalism.
Shooting the Hippo
Death by Deficit and Other Canadian Myths
Author: McQuaig, Linda
An examination of how economic policy systematically favours the interests of the rich while pretending to be for the common good.
The Silent Takeover
Global Capitalism and the Death of Democracy
Author: Hertz, Noreena
A combination of globalisation and the growing power of major corporations is rendering democratic governments impotent for influencing key decisions that affect the lives of ordinary people.
Toward Sustainable Communities
Resources for Citizens and their Governments
Author: Roseland, Mark
The way our urban communities develop will largely determine our success or failure in overcoming environmental challenges and achieving sustainable development. Toward Sustainable Communities offer practical suggestions and innovative solutions to a wide range of municipal and community problems.
The Trouble With Billionaires
Author: McQuaig, Linda; Brooks, Neil
24 Days in Brooks
Author: Inkster, Dana (Director)
Centred on the 24-day Lakeside Packers strike, this film is a nuanced portrait of people working together for change. They are people like Peter Jany Khwai, who escaped war in Sudan and Edil Hassan, a devout Muslim born in Somalia.
Unequal Freedoms
The Global Market as an Ethical System
Author: McMurtry, John
McMurtry's central argument in this work is the global market can be an ethical thing if a civil commons is put into place. The civil commons is a economic system in which individuals, not a handful of corporations, take part in a equal opporutinity framework of supply and demand.
The Wealthy Banker's Wife
The Assault on Equality in Canada
Author: McQuaig, Linda
What Every Environmentalist Needs To Know about Capitalism
A Citizen's Guide to Capitalism and the Environment
Author: Magdoff, Fred; Foster, John Bellamy
A manifesto for those environmentalists who reject schemes of “green capitalism” or piecemeal reform. Magdoff and Foster argue that efforts to reform capitalism along environmental lines or rely solely on new technology to avert catastrophe misses the point. The main cause of the looming environmental disaster is the driving logic of the system itself, and those in power — no matter how “green” — are incapable of making the changes that are necessary.
You, Me & the SPP: Trading Democracy for Corporate Rule
Author: Manly, Paul (Director)
What do secrecy, police provocateurs, an assault on democracy and infringements on citizens' rights have in common? The Security and Prosperity Partnership.

Learning from our History

Marx and Makhno Meet McDonald's - Over the last several years, a revolving network of militants in Paris, France, have developed a strategy and tactics for winning strikes by marginal, low-paid, outsourced and immigrant workers against international chains, in situations where the strikers are often ignored by unions to which they nominally belong, or are actually obstructed by them.

Resources for Activists

The Connexions Calendar - An event calendar for activists.

Media Names & Numbers - A comprehensive directory of Canada's print and broadcast media. (CX5857).