capitalism
Do We Dream of Electric Sheep Like Blade Runner’s Corporate-Produced Replicants?
The isolation of Blade Runner 2049‘s inhabitants reinforces their need for genuine connection, which the divisive effects of global capitalism undermines.
Poetry and Economics in ‘Everything is Broken Up and Dances’
A passionate first-hand account from two Italian writers depicts the ravages of neoliberal capitalism in poignant, poetic prose.
‘Chronicles of a Liquid Society’ and the Best Dinner Companion for End Times
The significance of Umberto Eco's work as collected here is found not in his astonishing foresight but in his reasoning.
Graphic Fiction ‘The Smell of Starving Boys’ Inverts Images and Expectations
Loo Hui Phang emphasizes the nature of image-making from the first panel: an upside landscape as viewed through the inverting lens of the protagonist's camera.
In Today’s Intangible Economy, Not Seeing Is Believing
Yet another form of inequality has emerged, and solutions are evasive. But to solve a problem one must first define it. To this end, with Capitalism Without Capital, Haskel and Westlake have begun a necessary conversation.
Don’t Google It! How Search Engines Reinforce Racism
Algorithms of Oppression addresses the growing concern about the consequences of commercial control over information and the harm it does to communities.
What’s Wrong with Our Food System? Capitalism.
Our food system is working exactly as it should under capitalism.That's the problem. An interview with Food First Director Eric Holt-Gimenez.
Alexander Payne’s ‘Downsizing’ Is No Small Misfire
The new social satire from normally reliable director Alexander Payne is a well-meaning premise in search of a story.
In ‘Downsizing’ Shrinking Means Big Money and Bigger Problems
Being the size of a dog's chew toy might not be to everybody's taste, but it's certainly a shortcut to a kind of upper middle-class luxury unobtainable for most of humanity.
‘Ants Among Elephants’ Is a Riveting Account of Left-wing Politics and Casteism in India
Sujatha Gidla's memoir is an example of history as told from down below, by the people who were involved in the labour and caste protests and the women who did the reproductive labour for the revolutionaries.
McDonald’s Story ‘The Founder’ Illustrates Yankee Ingenuity’s Fall and American Innovation’s Rise
Though the word "innovative" is spoken only once in The Founder, this plot point is just one example of how the film deftly skewers the hollow nature of American Innovation, a meretricious form of late capitalist creativity that currently exerts outsized influence on American society.