Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

The Internet is not your friend

Global capitalism is what it is not only because it is global but, above all, because it is capitalist. The problems we associate with globalization - the social injustices, the growing gap between rich and poor, ‘democratic deficits’, ecological degradation, and so on - are there not simply because the economy is ‘global’, or because global corporations are uniquely vicious, or even because they are exceptionally powerful. These problems exist because capitalism, whether national or global, is driven by certain systemic imperatives, the imperatives of competition, profit-maximization and accumulation, which inevitably require putting ‘exchange-value’ before ‘use-value’ and profit before people. Even the most benign or ‘responsible’ corporation cannot escape these compulsions but must follow the laws of the market in order to survive - which inevitably means putting profit above all other considerations, with all its wasteful and destructive consequences. These compulsions also require

Fuelling narcissists’ worst desires, making debate near impossible

“‘The world still has plenty of superrich people. Indeed, overall, the superrich are likely to emerge from the crisis in better financial shape than anyone else.’ Therefore, crucially, ‘the reservoir of wealth to fund philanthrocapitalism is still there.’ This self-fulfilling cycle—capitalism creates wealth, and thereby inequality, and thereby the conditions for the rich to spend surplus money on helping the poor, without ever alleviating poverty—dates back (Bishop points out) to the Renaissance, when both capitalism and philanthropy were born.” Charitable giving among the super-rich has one goal, and it isn't to change the world

It will exceed $600 billion in the next decade

 Another piece using the so-called divide to throw dust and hide the real divide. Red or blue, capital rules. ‘The misunderstood state’

Reconsidering the business of business

Some good points here, but I think it lacks a crucial aspect. There is also contradiction among the ruling class(es) . Currently, the US-China trade war, the major Western and regional powers role in Libya and Syria are only two examples of conflicting interests. Climate crisis means the ruling class has failed

Essays by Arundhati Roy

"Half of England is owned by less than 1% of its population, according to new data shared with the Guardian that seeks to penetrate the secrecy that has traditionally surrounded land ownership. The findings, described as “astonishingly unequal”, suggest that about 25,000 landowners – typically members of the aristocracy and corporations – have control of half of the country."  Who owns England? See also a long read here

"Neoliberalism" according to the BBC

Land Grabbing Journeys in the New Colonialism

" The Parallax View is in a sense a meta-conspiracy film: a film not only about conspiracies but about the impotence of attempts to uncover them; or, much worse than that, about the way in which particular kinds of investigation feed the very conspiracies they intend to uncover. It is not only that the Warren Beatty character is framed/killed for the crime he is investigating, neatly eliminating him and undermining his investigations with one pull of a corporate assassins trigger; it’s that, as Jameson noted in his commentary on the film in The Geopolitical Aesthetic , his very tenacity, quasi-sociopathic individualism, make him eminently frameable. 
The terrifying climactic moment of The Parallax View – when the silhouette of Beatty’s anonymous assassin appears against migraine-white space – for me now rhymes with the open door at the end of a very different film, Peter Weir’s The Truman Show . But where the door in the horizon opening onto black space at the end of Weir

" I would like to use this opportunity in the run-up to International Human Rights Day to focus on the greatest threats to our common humanity, and why states need to throw their weight behind genuine international cooperation and human rights..." " That’s why we must ensure that the powerful uphold and respect international rules and international law." "Genuine corporate accountability must apply to all of the activities of their subsidiaries and suppliers. Impunity for corporations that violate human rights or wreck our environment, as in the mineral-driven conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, must be brought to an end." " There are now more refugees and displaced people around the world than at any time since the Second World War." No mention of the biggest human disaster since the genocide in Rawanda; the killing machine Al-Assad regime. One can list Brexit, Trump, climate change, etc, but fails to mention a brutal murder

France Cuts in corporate tax (that's assuming corporations are paying taxes). How is that even Nordic, Financial Times? One of the things that made Sweden as it is today was that the Social Democrats in the country imposed 40% corporate tax. Slashing of 150,000 jobs and cuts in public spending? The recipe is more riots and more burning of cars. Thos who will lose their jobs could join the police to face the riots :) Whether a right-wing or a far-right government, France will be heading towards serious social conflicts. France: Macron's electoral programme

"As we know, Trump supporters tend to be white, tend to be older, tend to be male, tend to live in households with slightly higher income, and tend to have less education. Interestingly, his base is also significantly more likely to be self-employed overall, among other whites, and among other Republicans. In key respects, Trump represents the revenge of Joe the Plumber — and indeed Joe supports him. Many feel more comfortable casting his bid as some abhorrent anomaly. But Trumpism is no oddity. Instead it’s the expression of the anxieties of the petit bourgeoisie and a result of a break between two wings of the capitalist class in the Republican Party that began with the emergence of the Tea Party." The Revenge of Joe the Plumber

"Here is the biggest problem with elevating sexism to the defining explanation of Mrs. Clinton’s loss: It lets her machine and her failed policies off the hook. It erases the role played by the appetite for endless war and the comfort with market-friendly incremental change, no matter the urgency of the crisis (from climate change to police violence to raging inequality). It erases the disgust over Mrs. Clinton’s coziness with Wall Street and with the wreckage left behind by trade deals that benefited corporations at the expense of workers." — Naomi Klein

This is suppoed to be a discovery. How the sugar industry shifted the blame to fat

Leading Olympic expert Jules Boykoff takes the 2012 Olympics in London as a case study of corporate greed and popular resistance against Celebration Capitalism .