It is hard to envisage human beings doing anything were it not for emotions: feelings motivate us; they make us move (literally). There seems to be a direct link between feeling something via the senses, and feeling something emotionally...

Things are not always as they appear. In proving this old proverb, Karl Marx explained some key features of capitalism in a way that remains relevant today. Towards the end of the first chapter of Capital, Vol. 1, after having established the validity of the labor theory of value, Marx presents a section on the Fetishism of Commodities.

Interview with author Daniel Rubin about his new book "Can Capitalism Last?". Discussion of the economic crisis, Marxism, socialism and other hot topics.

I believe that there is a very big relationship in terms of understanding the fundamentals of capitalism and what is happening now, and what the prospects are for momentary solutions and longer-term solutions further down the road.

Another form of public option would be a Medicare-like option that would be in the mix along with the private plans in this kind of exchange. There are many formulations of what this could look like. So what would happen?

We live in the era of the global commons, but very few have actually met their neighbors – except as subalterns: household maids, hotel service-workers, nannies, most likely college-educated women from the Philippines.

When it comes to rational "scientific discourse" art is a language that is often excluded from the mainstream logos in a similar way to the "feminine," it being instead also associated with madness ("hysteria").

The blogosphere has lately witnessed some interest in a lecture, "Understanding Marxism" posted by Professor Brad Delong of the University of California and a former Clinton administration official.

Some of socialism’s fundamental building blocks are already present in US society. The means of production, for the most part, are sufficiently developed to support, in forseeable time – the next ten years – a workforce where at least two years of college, or equivalent, is available to every worker.

The current discussion around socialism in left and progressive circles in the U.S. needs to be placed in a more substantive arena. This is an effort to do so. I take note in advance of the criticism that the following eleven working hypotheses are rather dry and formal.

Recently appointed Attorney General Eric Holder, whose parents hail from the Barbados, aroused instant ire when he remarked last February 18 that the U.S. remains a “nation of cowards” for not talking enough about things racial.

The 20th century is well behind us, but we have not yet learned to live in the 21st, or at least to think in a way that fits it. That should not be as difficult as it seems, because the basic idea that dominated economics and politics in the last century has patently disappeared down the plughole of history.

Socialism can be defined as a phase of social-economic development during which ever-larger numbers of people in society are increasingly empowered to collectively control the direction of their lives through the process of incrementally crafting new democratic means of ownership and institutions for running the economy and other areas of social life.

In dealing with the current financial crisis, the US government is acquiring shares of financial and other corporations to which it is providing bailout funds. The press has been raising the specter that these actions are moving the United States toward socialism.

Theories of evolution after Darwin assume a dynamic of divergences. Two species can derive from one in common; every now and then, these variations can disappear gradually or abruptly, but two species never end up flowing together into one.

The fact is, capitalism is bankrupt. It's run out of capital. 'I think we just have to admit we're broke,' says House Minority Leader John A. Boehner. A system that is supposed to be self-perpetuating – albeit with ups and downs – has come up short. It's not that the banks are just stubborn about lending out money.

In the midst of the unfolding global economic crisis politicians, pundits, and bankers have engaged in much hyperbolic discussion about the prospect that major banks in the US may be “nationalized.”

The Stalin era succeeded in a massive industrialization of the country, creating a technological infrastructure for a modern society. However, great suffering and sacrifice were endured by the Soviet peoples for much of this period – only to have much that was built destroyed in World War II.

Newspapers are now filled with articles on the great economic crisis engulfing world capitalism. Few leave us any the wiser. Most of them desperately attempt to explain how it all went wrong without questioning its very essence.

“Depression economics” is a term that Krugman came up with over a decade ago. His main point is that monetary policy, once you get into a depression, becomes ineffective, and the only possible way to manage the economy or influence its direction once interest rates have reached zero – which, coincidentally, they are pretty close to right now.