STUDYING DAS KAPITAL: Part 1 (of 8)

I can’t argue with William Roberts. Reading Capital, Volume 1, feels like Hell. Marx, in the French preface, likens the reading to the climbing of a mountain. I’m taking baby steps, though.

There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits.

Preface to French Edition

STUDYING DAS KAPITAL: Part 1 (of 8)

William Roberts argued persuasively in his book “Marx’s Inferno” that Karl Marx structured Das Kapital Volume 1 to parallel Dante’s Inferno. Look over the diagram below which is taken from Robert’s book.

The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism

The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism

People always have been the foolish victims of deception and self-deception in politics, and they always will be until they have learnt to seek out the interests of some class or other behind all moral, religious, political and social phrases, declarations and promises. Champions of reforms and improvements will always be fooled by the defenders of the old order until they realise that every old institution, how ever barbarous and rotten it may appear to be, is kept going by the forces of certain ruling classes. And there is only one way of smashing the resistance of those classes, and that is to find, in the very society which surrounds us, the forces which can—and, owing to their social position, must—constitute the power capable of sweeping away the old and creating the new, and to enlighten and organise those forces for the struggle.

Foreign Policy of Russian Tsardom

Foreign Policy of Russian Tsardom

It is true, that whoever reads Russian newspapers, might suppose that all Russia enthusiastically applauds the Tsar’s policy of conquest; in them there is nothing but Jingoism, Panslavism, the deliverance of Christians from the Turkish, of Slavs from the German and Magyar, yoke. But, firstly, every one knows in what chains the Russian press lies bound; secondly, the Government itself has for years fostered this Jingoism and Panslavism in all schools; and thirdly, these newspapers express — so far as they express any sort of independent opinion, only the opinion of the town population, i.e. of the newly-created Bourgeoisie, naturally interested in new conquests as extensions of the Russian home market.

Tax Flight Is a Myth

Tax Flight Is a Myth

Related:

Dispelling the Myth of Tax-Induced Capital Flight

A study by the American Sociological Association in 2016 found that while massive top rate tax hikes might cause some millionaires to move from their high-tax state to a low-tax state, the amount of them doing so for this reason was negligible. Millionaires moved for tax purposes around 2.2% of the time. Indeed, in any event the rate of inter-state migration generally was lower for millionaires, at 2.4%, than it was for the general population, at 2.9%.

Debunking the Myth of the Fleeing Millionaire

Pentagon Profiteers: Executive Compensation in the Arms Industry

Pentagon Profiteers: Executive Compensation in the Arms Industry

Another way to understand the size of CEO compensation at the big contractors is to look at how many jobs would be created if that $287 million were spent on something else. The answer is that spending that money on productive activities would create thousands of jobs: 2,812 jobs in clean energy or infrastructure; 4,104 jobs in health care; and 4,362 in education, calculated using data on the jobs impact of government spending generated by Heidi Peltier for the Brown Costs of War Project.

Bill Gates Failed Effort to Feed Africa:Was he even trying to help in the first place?

Healthcare administration students in the United States have no choice but to learn about private vs public interests, and the power that private interests have in crafting the Nation’s healthcare policy. Essentials of Health Policy and Law is a fairly standard healthcare administration textbook that budding health policy experts are given to study in American universities. The text uses health policy decisions made in recent years by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as an example of the way private interests control public health policy. According to the book, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation “provides grants to develop crops that are high in essential vitamins and minerals to improve the nutrition of people in developing countries” (Wilensky, 2023). A very uncritical examination of the way investors like Gates use their wealth to make important decisions that affect millions.

Bill Gates Failed Effort to Feed Africa:Was he even trying to help in the first place?

Resources:

Gates-funded ‘green revolution’ in Africa has failed, critics say

Bill Gates: ‘We’re in a Worse Place Than I Expected’

Irish Potato Famine: How Belief In Overpopulation Leads To Human Evil

Serve the people: The eradication of extreme poverty in China.