Green Social Thought

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  • Yet Another Appeal for “Green” Capitalism, Annotated

    Yet Another Appeal for “Green” Capitalism, Annotated

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    scox
    in

      The Guardian recently published an opinion piece by its economics editor in which he argued that capitalism can rescue civilization from the global climate emergency. Here is the full article, interrupted by my responses:           Capitalism can crack climate change. But only if it takes risks   by Larry Elliott…

  • School Choice is a Bamboozle a Hornswoggle a Flimflam

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    rsburke
    in

    Two central ideologies behind school-choice are markets always make superior decisions and the cost of having local control of schools is poor outcomes. Both ideas are demonstrably untrue, but big money and power politics keep them alive. In 2017, a national survey showed a dramatic drop in support for charter schools. A related Chalkbeat article said, The survey,…

  • Review: For A Left Populism

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    rsburke
    in

    In 1985 Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe published their ground breaking work Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. Coming at the beginning of the era of neoliberalism’s political and economic hegemony, the pair argued for a radical re-visioning of traditional left politics. This book attempted to integrate the politics of democratic socialism…

  • Response to Albert

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    rsburke
    in

    First off I want to apologize to my fellow Green Social Thought editorial board members for any misunderstandings caused by my use of the editorial ‘we’ in my previous article Why We Don’t Support Parecon. Since my name was the only one listed as author I did not stop to think that my poor choice…

  • An Engineer, an Economist, and an Ecomodernist Walk Into a Bar and Order a Free Lunch . . .

    An Engineer, an Economist, and an Ecomodernist Walk Into a Bar and Order a Free Lunch . . .

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    by

    scox
    in

    Humanity’s and the Earth’s prospects have been dimming for the past year and a half. But they’ve been bleak for a long time; as little was being done about the global ecological crisis before January 2017 as has been done since. Neither then nor now has the national or world power structure acknowledged that deep…

  • Populism: What it is and What it is Not

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    rsburke
    in

      “Populism” is a magical word. Its mysterious power unites the Erdogan and Putin governments, Latin American leftists like Evo Morales and the late Hugo Chavez, the resurgent Right in Europe and the United States, Hungarian and Polish anti-communist parties, Podemos, the Eurocommunism of the tragic Syriza, the revitalizers of social democracy Bernie Sanders and…

  • Why We Don’t Support Parecon

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    rsburke
    in

      The basic problem we have with parecon as advocated by Michael Albert is that we think he proposes blueprints for society without attempting to provide anything empirical to back up his claims. Whenever a criticism is raised, Albert’s response is to assert the beauty and elegance of his model, or to claim he has…

  • Other Revolving Doors

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    fitzdon
    in

    It’s more than doors between government and the businesses that they supposedly regulate that go round and round. One of the other swinging doors is between the Democratic and Republican Parties. A second door Perhaps the best known case is when Al Gore ran for president in 2000, he picked Joe Lieberman as his running…

  • “Practical Utopia: Strategies for a Desirable Society” by Michael Albert: A Review Essay

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    kimscipes
    in

     “Practical Utopia:  Strategies for a Desirable Society by Michael Albert:  A Review Essay”  Oakland:  PM Press, 2017.  ISBN:  978-1-62963-381-7 By Kim Scipes   This is an important book.  It’s important because it asks questions that rarely if ever get asked, and it tries to provide coherent answers to them.  However, whether you agree or not…

  • When Cuban Polyclinics Were Born

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    by

    fitzdon
    in

    As discontent increases with overly expensive and totally inadequate US health care, it is time to look closely at the beginnings of the modern Cuban medical system. Like the US, Cuba had unintegrated, overlapping medical institutions that failed the poor, especially black, population of the island. Though several European countries have developed health care systems…