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The Anti-Capitalist Chronicles

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This global neoliberal counterrevolution, we should remember, was the product of political and class struggles; ones that could have had, and that still could have, different outcomes. — location: 109 ^ref-39035

so-called free market solutions to problems backed with the full weight of state repression and the criminalization of protest. — location: 149 ^ref-64487

“the figure of the ‘organic intellectual’ leader, made so much of in Antonio Gramsci’s work, the autodidact who comes to understand the world first hand through bitter experiences, but shapes his or her understanding of capitalism more generally, has a great deal to say.” — location: 162 ^ref-49266

The poor, the working class, and the dispossessed have been essentially rendered disposable even while their labor is recognized as essential. — location: 183 ^ref-272

from the 1970s onwards, net debt started to increase in relation to gross domestic product (GDP). — location: 680 ^ref-10440

From the 1980s onwards we see all sorts of games played by the state in support of capital. — location: 692 ^ref-33144

Given a choice between supporting the banks and the financial institutions, on the one hand, or supporting the people, on the other, the clear choice was to support financial institutions. This emerged as one of the key rules of the neoliberal political game, which was ruthlessly followed in the years to come. — location: 719 ^ref-62354

Only tariff wars and maybe anti-immigration policies are outside of the neoliberal playbook. From the standpoint of the economy, Trump is basically following the neoliberal gospel. — location: 758 ^ref-62091

Up until the 1970s, financial activities were not included in national accounts. They were not part of the measure of GDP, because they were seen simply as transactional rather than productive activities. — location: 775 ^ref-8757

We have constructed an insane economy right now, which is so entirely financialized as to forget about production, at the same time as it is increasingly loaded down with debts that either foreclose upon the future or turn out to be unpayable. — location: 876 ^ref-58883

The state should enter in and control the speculative side while facilitating the benevolent side. But the speculative side is, of course, what the capitalists favor, particularly if it offers a higher rate of return. — location: 884 ^ref-33351

As wages have been falling in relative terms, so demand had to be maintained by increasing resort to credit. — location: 902 ^ref-63580

recognized. The passage to the future that he envisaged is blocked by a moral obstacle, he observed, and the moral obstacle was something which he called “liberal utopianism.” — location: 1144 ^ref-24431

“Planning and control,” Polanyi wrote, “are being attacked as a denial of freedom. Free enterprise and private ownership are declared to be the essentials of freedom.” — location: 1147 ^ref-20441

the paradox of our current situation: that in the name of freedom, we’ve actually adopted a liberal utopian ideology which is a barrier to the achievement of real freedom. — location: 1158 ^ref-33148

the realm of freedom is only possible when we have actually provided all of the basic necessities which we’ll need for everyone to lead a decent, adequate life. — location: 1222 ^ref-58917

the task is to maximize the realm of individual freedom, but that can only happen when the realm of necessity is taken care of. — location: 1229 ^ref-41516

One of the big misunderstandings about China is that everybody in the West thinks of it as a highly centralized economy. It is not. It’s an incredible machine in which centralization and decentralization work together. Essentially, the Party in Beijing proposes something. The rest of the country responds in a totally decentralized and localized way. People try to find their own distinctive way to respond to what it is that the central government is asking. The central government proposes, while the locality disposes. Decentralization is a very significant tool for perpetuating centralized power. — location: 1379 ^ref-16353