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In 1968 Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress. In 1972 she launched a campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, breaking another political barrier.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
The Pyramid of Capitalist System is a common name of a 1911 American cartoon caricature critical of capitalism, copied from a Russian flyer of c. 1901.[1][2] The graphic focus is on stratification by social class and economic inequality.[3][4] The work has been described as "famous",[5] "well-known and widely reproduced".[3] A number of derivative works exist.
It was published in 1911 by the Industrial Worker (The International Publishing Co., Cleveland, Ohio), a newspaper of the Industrial Workers of the World, and attributed to "Nedeljkovich, Brashich, & Kuharich".[6][7][4]
The work is based on older similar pictures. In 1900, the Belgian Labour Party used a picture called "Pyramide à renverser" (lit. 'a pyramid that has to be overthrown') during its electoral campaign.[8] A year later Nicolas Lokhoff's 1901 caricature of Imperial Russian society by the Union of Russian Socialists was published.[1][9] The original picture showed workers supporting the pyramid on their backs, with the stanza: "The time will come when the people in their fury will straighten their bent backs and bring down the structure with one mighty push of their shoulders."[1]
Notable differences between the Russian 1901 original and the American 1911 imitation include the replacement of the Russian Empire's black eagle with a money bag, the Russian tsar and tsarina with a more generic trio of a monarch and state leaders in suits, two of the three Orthodox clergy with a Catholic cardinal and a Protestant minister, and the Russian Empire army with a more generic group of soldiers; no revolutionary stanza is present. In both pictures, a fallen child or child worker symbolizes the plight of the workers.[3] Another shared element is a red flag raised amongst the workers, symbolizing the emergence of the socialist movement.[10]
The basic message of the image is a critique of the capitalist system, depicting a hierarchy of power and wealth. It illustrates a working class supporting all others, and if it withdrew its support from the system, it would topple the existing social order. This type of criticism of capitalism is attributed to the French socialist Louis Blanc.[5]
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
The Pyramid of Capitalist System is a common name of a 1911 American cartoon caricature critical of capitalism, copied from a Russian flyer of c. 1901. The graphic focus is on stratification by social class and economic inequality. The work has been described as "famous", "well-known and widely reproduced". A number of derivative works exist. It was published in 1911 by the Industrial Worker (The International Publishing Co., Cleveland, Ohio), a newspaper of the Industrial Workers of the World, and attributed to "Nedeljkovich, Brashich, & Kuharich". The work is based on older similar pictures. In 1900, the Belgian Labour Party used a picture called "Pyramide à renverser" (lit. 'a pyramid that has to be overthrown') during its electoral campaign. A year later Nicolas Lokhoff's 1901 caricature of Imperial Russian society by the Union of Russian Socialists was published. The original picture showed workers supporting the pyramid on their backs, with the stanza: "The time will come when the people in their fury will straighten their bent backs and bring down the structure with one mighty push of their shoulders." Notable differences between the Russian 1901 original and the American 1911 imitation include the replacement of the Russian Empire's black eagle with a money bag, the Russian tsar and tsarina with a more generic trio of a monarch and state leaders in suits, two of the three Orthodox clergy with a Catholic cardinal and a Protestant minister, and the Russian Empire army with a more generic group of soldiers; no revolutionary stanza is present. In both pictures, a fallen child or child worker symbolizes the plight of the workers. Another shared element is a red flag raised amongst the workers, symbolizing the emergence of the socialist movement. The basic message of the image is a critique of the capitalist system, depicting a hierarchy of power and wealth. It illustrates a working class supporting all others, and if it withdrew its support from the system, it would topple the existing social order. This type of criticism of capitalism is attributed to the French socialist Louis Blanc.
Criticism of capitalism typically ranges from disagreement with particular aspects or outcomes of capitalism to rejection of the capitalist system in its entirety. Criticism comes from various political and philosophical perspectives, including anarchist, socialist, religious, and nationalist viewpoints. Some believe that capitalism can only be overcome through revolution, while others believe that structural change can occur gradually through political reforms. Some critics believe that capitalism has merits and wish to balance it with some form of social control, typically through government regulation (e.g., the social market movement). Prominent among critiques of capitalism are accusations that it is inherently exploitative, alienating, unstable, and unsustainable; that it creates massive economic inequality, commodifies people, is anti-democratic; and leads to an erosion of human rights and national sovereignty. Meanwhile, it incentivises imperialist expansion and war and benefits a small minority at the expense of the majority of the population. Environmental scientists and activists, leftists, and degrowthers have also criticised capitalism for depleting resources, causing climate change, biodiversity loss, topsoil loss, eutrophication, and for generating massive amounts of pollution and waste.
"Capitalism as Religion" (German: Kapitalismus als Religion) is Walter Benjamin's (1892–1940) unfinished work, written in 1921. It was published in 1985 and forms part of Benjamin's early sketches on social and political theory, religion, and the theory of history. In this fragment, Benjamin argues that capitalism should be understood as a religion. This thesis reinterprets Max Weber's view of the Protestant work ethic as a condition for capitalism’s emergence. Rather than viewing capitalism as influenced by religious origins, Benjamin argues it is itself a religious phenomenon. He identifies three key features: its nature as a pure cult without dogma, its continuous duration, and its emphasis on guilt rather than atonement. Rather than directly opposing Weber, Benjamin radicalizes and extends his ideas. The text employs allegory and metaphor, particularly the term Schuld, which can mean both guilt and debt. Capitalism, according to Benjamin, creates an escalating cycle of guilt, ultimately implicating even God and leading to despair and world-destruction. He critiques thinkers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud for replicating capitalist logic in their theories. It remains unclear whether Benjamin envisions a way to escape this system of guilt. This fragment marks the first instance in Benjamin’s work of a theological interpretation of capitalist modernity. It anticipates later themes in his Arcades Project and related writings. Scholarly interest in the text grew in the early 21st century, particularly in the context of post-secular thought. The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben further developed its ideas on capitalism as a religious formation.
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and its use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically in several stages and is defined by a number of constituent elements: private property, profit motive, capital accumulation, competitive markets, commodification, wage labor, and an emphasis on innovation and economic growth. Capitalist economies tend to experience business cycles of economic expansion followed by recessions. Economists, historians, political economists, and sociologists have adopted different perspectives in their analyses of capitalism and have recognized various forms of it in practice. These include laissez-faire capitalism, free-market capitalism, state capitalism, and welfare capitalism. Different forms of capitalism feature varying degrees of free markets, public ownership, barriers to free competition, and state-sanctioned social policies. The degree of competition in markets, the role of intervention and regulation, and the scope of state ownership vary across different models of capitalism. The extent to which markets are free and the rules defining private property are matters of politics and policy. Most of the existing economies in the world today are mixed economies that combine elements of free markets with state intervention and, in some cases, economic planning. Capitalism in its modern form emerged from agrarianism in England, as well as from mercantilist practices in European countries between the 16th and 18th centuries. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century established capitalism as a dominant mode of production characterized by factory work and a complex division of labor. Through globalization, capitalism spread across the world in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially before World War I and again after the end of the Cold War. During the 19th century, capitalism was largely unregulated by the state but became more regulated in the post–World War II period through Keynesianism, followed by a return of more unregulated capitalism termed neoliberalism starting in the 1980s.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Mae Jemison, aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour in 1992.
