Michael Sandel: what money can’t buy
Michael Sandel: what money can’t buy Continue reading Michael Sandel: what money can’t buy
Tag: free market fundamentalism
What Is Anarchism? Noam Chomsky on capitalism, socialism, free markets
What Is Anarchism? Noam Chomsky on capitalism, socialism, free markets (2013) Continue reading What Is Anarchism? Noam Chomsky on capitalism, socialism, free markets
Higher education and the politics of disruption
by Henry A. Giroux We now live at a time in which institutions that were meant to limit human suffering and misfortune and protect the public from the excesses of the market have been either weakened or abolished.[1] The consequences … Continue reading Higher education and the politics of disruption
Higher education and the promise of insurgent public memory
by Henry A. Giroux What happens to the memory of history when it ceases to be testimony? – James Young[1] At a time when both political parties, anti-public intellectual pundits and mainstream news sources view the purpose of higher education … Continue reading Higher education and the promise of insurgent public memory
Death-dealing politics in the age of extreme violence
by Henry A. Giroux How a society treats its children is a powerful moral and political index of its commitment to the institutions, values and principles that inform the promises of a real democracy. When measured against such criteria, it … Continue reading Death-dealing politics in the age of extreme violence
The ghost of Authoritarianism in the Age of the Shutdown
by Henry A. Giroux In the aftermath of the reign of Nazi terror in the 1940s, the philosopher Theodor Adorno wrote: National Socialism lives on, and even today we still do not know whether it is merely the ghost of what was so monstrous that it lingers on after its own death, or whether it has not yet died at all, whether the willingness to commit the unspeakable survives in people as well as in the conditions that enclose them.[1] Adorno’s words are as relevant today as they were when he first wrote them. The threat of authoritarianism to citizen-based … Continue reading The ghost of Authoritarianism in the Age of the Shutdown
Student loans: The financialized economy of indentured servitude
by Danny Weil Get ready students: your college student loans are due to double on July 2013! The cost of higher education is spiraling and with it the cost of student loans, one of the biggest Wall Street rackets currently in existence. Both the Obama administration and the Republicans are seeking “market solutions” they say will staunch the bleeding [1]. Do not be fooled: it is ‘market solutions’ that caused the crisis and with the financialization of education, students are seen as little more than commodities to be bought, sold and monetized for profit. Education is now nothing more than a pernicious, … Continue reading Student loans: The financialized economy of indentured servitude
Capitalism’s dead zone: Chicago’s lessons on the violence of inequality
by Henry A. Giroux I consider the survival of [fascism] within democracy to be potentially more menacing that the survival of fascist tendencies against democracy. — Theodor W. Adorno Americans are confronted daily with the violence of inequality. The rich have longer life spans, better health care, access to better educational opportunities, and an abundance of food. [1] Many live in palatial homes in gated communities and wield a disproportionate amount of control and power over the major social, cultural, and political apparatuses that shape everyday life.[2] Unlike most Americans, the extravagantly rich are protected from the massive degree of … Continue reading Capitalism’s dead zone: Chicago’s lessons on the violence of inequality
Marching in Chicago: Resisting neoliberal savagery
by Henry A. Giroux Across the globe, predatory capitalism spreads its gospel of power, greed, commodification, gentrification, and inequality. Through the combined forces of a market driven ideology, policy, and mode of governance, the apostles of free-market capitalism are doing their best to dismantle historically guaranteed social provisions provided by the welfare state, define the accumulation of capital as the only obligation of democracy, increase the role of corporate money in politics, wage an assault on unions, expand the military-security state, increase inequalities in wealth and income, foster the erosion of civil liberties, and undercut public faith in the defining … Continue reading Marching in Chicago: Resisting neoliberal savagery
Advocacy philanthropy and the leveraged buy-out of public schools — Part 2
by Danny Weil [Note: This piece concludes the two-part essay. For Part 1, please see: Link] Ted Forstmann and private advocacy philanthropy as a social movement When there is an obvious financial pay-off for those promoting public policy changes through ‘advocacy philanthropy’, it behooves citizens to critically examine those advocates, their agendas and the implications of their claims. Sadly, this is not the case in America today nor was it at the time the leverage buy-out of public schools was being driven by those who posed as charitable individuals but whose real agenda was and is the incessant accumulation of … Continue reading Advocacy philanthropy and the leveraged buy-out of public schools — Part 2
Philosophers for Change 