In this review of three new books, Robert Jensen ruminates on what we can learn about contemporary crises by thinking about human origins. He begins: We label as “crazy” those members of the human species whose behavior we find hard to understand, but the cascading crises in contemporary political, economic, and cultural life make a […]

Despite overwhelming evidence of the depth of the ecological crises we face, mainstream political and theological institutions have avoided talking about the radical changes that are necessary. “The Apocalypse of the Teacher (The Book of the Great Divide)” is one writer’s attempt to present those questions in the form of a modern fable. The story […]

Wendell Berry  is at his most insightful in the 2012 Jefferson Lecture, “It All Turns On Affection.” Here’s one of those many insights: Economy in its original—and, I think, its proper—sense refers to household management. By extension, it refers to the husbanding of all the goods by which we live. An authentic economy, if we […]

NPR rarely engages radical critics, but this week the syndicated interview show “On Point” featured Noam Chomsky for an hour. Here’s how the show introduced the interview: These seem like big troubled times and Noam Chomsky joins us to give us his take on everything from the Occupy Movement to the Arab Spring. Noam Chomsky […]

Alternet’s Joshua Holland offers a clear explanation of how firms such as Bain Capital make their money. Were it not such a sad statement about how superficial our political discourse has become, the indignant defenses of Bain Capital by self-flattering “centrists” in the media would be almost comical. The simple reality that has been totally […]

Former Washington Post managing editor Steve Coll gave an excellent talk at BookPeople in Austin about his book on ExxonMobil, “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power.” A video of that presentation is online. (Thanks to Jeff and Grace of ZGraphix.) As former ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond said, “Presidents come and  go; Exxon doesn’t come and go.” […]

Alternet is running a series on innovative thinking in economics. The first piece was by Gar Alperovitz, “The Rise of the New Economy Movement.” As our political system sputters, a wave of innovative thinking and bold experimentation is quietly sweeping away outmoded economic models. In ‘New Economic Visions’, a special five-part AlterNet series edited by […]

Noam Chomsky continues to help us focus on the key political questions in this new essay on TomDispatch.com, “A Rebellious World or a New Dark Age?” As is typical for Chomsky, he doesn’t back away from an honest account of what we face: We’re really regressing back to the dark ages. It’s not a joke.  […]

At a New York University conference on finance capitalism sponsored by a “Rethinking Capitalism” initiative, I had a chance to meet the great Indian economist Prabhat Patnaik. My interview with him is summarized in an essay, which is posted on a number of websites, including the Monthly Review. It begins: After an engaging half-hour interview […]