This is an era of struggle over the commanding heights of the economy: money and investment along with the intellectual hegemony that conditions political thought. It is a matter of life & death for millions. It determine whether entire communities can live with dignity & thrive
For this reason, any left that believes that deficits, or Federal spending not offset by equivalent taxes, is inherently inflationary or that balancing public budgets is a coherent position, is compromising on their principles and the possibility for authentic radical changes
Our martial conditions hinge on our capacity to leverage thought and action onto the structure of governance and thus how and for what purposes we decide to mobilize the social provisioning of resources. Public spending on justice based democratic terms disrupts oligarchic power
Money politics and the discursive coordinates it generates is about power over the quality of our society. A movement that stands against the violent excesses of Capitalism must create and “afford” new social forms that no longer depend on conventional economic and social logic
And this is utterly impossible under the narrowness of conventional tax in order to spend framing even when portraying itself as antagonistic to elites. We can not rely on redistributing “wealth” as it exists but must totally rethink social wealth and cultivate alternatives
Lastly, taxing elites is important but insufficient. We need to restructure corporate governance and firms towards increased worker control and participation. We need to ban predatory finance. We need to dismantle the PIC and we need to replace the fossil fuel industry
So @NaomiAKlein made some important points on the @PitchforkEcon podcast about neoliberalism and the #GND. She said that while the popularity of purist neoliberal doctrine is not as popular pervasive, its success has been in convincingly asserting that #thereisnoalternative /1
This is because neoliberalism has effectively captured the public imagination in two critical ways. 1) Framing debates about Capitalism under the assumption that it is an immutable indivisible totality, while they themselves understand and act on the assumption it is not /2
Considerable energy is spent debating under the premise that the only contributions towards systemic alternatives must clearly guarantee the overcoming of the capitalist totality from the onset. Neoliberals however have spent 40 years shaping institutions to their liking /3
Hey @realDonaldTrump, besides the gross generalizations indicative of being so intellectually vapid, why might there be poverty and dysfunction around the world? Perhaps some places are ruled by unaccountable oligarchies and cronies, like what you represent and embody /1/
Perhaps this is no accident, but is actually maintained and supported because it benefits the bottom line of you and your ilk who have made your fortunes off the pain and work of others here and abroad /2/
We are the descendants of the colonized world, where to this day our land and communities are torn apart and pillaged - our resources extracted to serve your gluttony /3/
Thread: Friends, Climate Change is a Global existential crisis. A threat to the very habitability of human and non-human life on Earth. We simply cannot achieve what is necessary to address this urgency at the scale and speed required with something like "low-interest loans" 1
Lending is not going to mobilize our country to transform and revitalize this economy away from fossil fuels in time to avoid catastrophe and ensure a #justransition. Here in the U.S. only the Federal Government and the power of the purse can make this happen as needed 2
Using Direct spending via #FunctionalFinance on millions of new good-paying union Green jobs, renewable infrastructure, renewable technology, and a #jobsguarantee, we can make the kind of shift necessary to overcome the paradox of economic development and eco-sustainability 3