The Netherlands, Berlin's most important ally in pushing for greater budgetary discipline in Europe, has fallen into an economic crisis itself. The once exemplary economy is suffering from huge debts and a burst real estate bubble, which has stalled growth and endangered jobs. Graphic detailing the economic downturn in the Netherlands. By Christoph Schult and Anne Seith   Michel Scheepens is familiar w ...

In this animate, academic David Harvey looks beyond capitalism towards a new social order. Can we find a more responsible, just, and humane economic system? This RSA Animate was taken from a lecture given as part of the RSA's free public lecture programme. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0 ...

If we want to make poverty history, we need to understand the history of poverty. A funny and sinister animated odyssey through time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=TxbmjDngois ...

For all its vaunted efficiency, capitalism has foisted wasteful inequality and environmental ruin on us. There is an alternative. What's efficiency got to do with capitalism? The short answer is little or nothing. Economic and social collapses in Detroit, Cleveland and many other US cities did not happen because production was inefficient there. Efficiency problems did not cause the longer-term economic dec ...

AS PROTESTS against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters' worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy. The study's assumptions have attracted some criticism, but complex systems analysts contacted b ...

Radicals have a habit of speaking in the conditional. Underlying all their talk about the changes they’d like to see in the world is the uneasy knowledge that our social system places rigid limits on how much change can be accomplished now. “After the revolution…” is the wistful, ironic preface to many a fondly expressed wish on the Left. ...

Digital manufacturing with 3D printers is for some enthusiasts an anti-consumer concept, promising a return to a craft ethos and an end to outsourcing. But this may not be the real future of the technique. The third industrial revolution might come with personal or digital manufacturing, when what used to be bought in a shop could be made at home with such tools as laser cutters, 3D printers and computer nu ...

'Bedroom tax' will force people out of their homes   Tory ‘under-occupancy’ rules will force people to move when no affordable alternative is available, writes Dave Sewell The government’s attack on benefits could see thousands of people lose their homes. One attack in particular, popularly known as the “bedroom tax”, is set to push almost 100,000 social housing tenants into arrears on their rent from ...

Alexandropoulis does not want goldmine, Ambassador Robert Peck told Photo: Perama locals protest against the Eldorado mine at Perama, November 2012 (AMNA) The mayor of a area in the northern region of Thrace where a Canadian company is planning a controversial goldmine project has told the Canadian ambassador to Greece that his people want to be left in peace. "We want to be left alone to develop our fisher ...

At some point, there is a tilt; there always is. Then we shall settle down into our new historical system. Wallerstein foresees one of two possibilities: more hierarchy, exploitation and polarization; or a system that has never yet existed, based on relative democracy and relative equality. ...