Capitalism, Coronavirus and War

Capitalism, Coronavirus and War investigates the decay of neoliberal financialised capitalism as revealed in the crisis the novel coronavirus triggered but did not cause, a crisis that has been deepened by the conflict over Ukraine and its repercussions across the globe. Leading domestically to economic and political breakdown, the pandemic accelerated the decline of the US-led capitalist world’s imperial power, intensifying the tendency to lash out with aggression and militarism, as seen in the US-led West’s New Cold War against China and the proxy war against Russia over Ukraine. The geopolitical economy of the decay and crisis of this form of capitalism suggests that the struggle with socialism that has long shaped the fate of capitalism has reached a tipping point. The author argues that mainstream and even many progressive forces take capitalism’s longevity for granted, misunderstand its historical dynamics and deny its formative bond with imperialism. Only a theoretically and historically accurate account of capitalism’s dynamics and historical trajectory, which this book provides, can explain its current failures and predicament. It also reveals why, though the pandemic—by revealing capitalism’s obscene inequality and shocking debility—prompted the most serious critiques of capitalism to emerge in decades, hopes of ‘building back better’ were so quickly dashed. This book sheds searching light on the dominant narratives that have normalised the neoliberal financialised capitalism and the dollar creditocracy dominating the world economy, with even critics unable to link capitalism’s neoliberal turn to its financialisations, historical decay, productive debility and international decline. It contends that only by appreciating the seriousness of the crisis and rectifying our understanding of capitalism can progressive forces thwart a future of chaos and/or authoritarianism and begin the long task of building socialism. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars and researchers of international relations, international political economy, comparative politics and global political sociology

Canada as an Ordinary Imperialist Country: Comments on Paul Kellogg’s Escape from the Staple Trap: Canadian Political Economy after Left Nationalism

Canada as an Ordinary Imperialist Country: Comments on Paul Kellogg’s Escape from the Staple Trap: Canadian Political Economy after Left Nationalis

Capitalism, Coronavirus and War

Capitalism, Coronavirus and War investigates the decay of neoliberal financialised capitalism as revealed in the crisis the novel coronavirus triggered but did not cause, a crisis that has been deepened by the conflict over Ukraine and its repercussions across the globe. Leading domestically to economic and political breakdown, the pandemic accelerated the decline of the US-led capitalist world’s imperial power, intensifying the tendency to lash out with aggression and militarism, as seen in the US-led West’s New Cold War against China and the proxy war against Russia over Ukraine. The geopolitical economy of the decay and crisis of this form of capitalism suggests that the struggle with socialism that has long shaped the fate of capitalism has reached a tipping point. The author argues that mainstream and even many progressive forces take capitalism’s longevity for granted, misunderstand its historical dynamics and deny its formative bond with imperialism. Only a theoretically and historically accurate account of capitalism’s dynamics and historical trajectory, which this book provides, can explain its current failures and predicament. It also reveals why, though the pandemic—by revealing capitalism’s obscene inequality and shocking debility—prompted the most serious critiques of capitalism to emerge in decades, hopes of ‘building back better’ were so quickly dashed. This book sheds searching light on the dominant narratives that have normalised the neoliberal financialised capitalism and the dollar creditocracy dominating the world economy, with even critics unable to link capitalism’s neoliberal turn to its financialisations, historical decay, productive debility and international decline. It contends that only by appreciating the seriousness of the crisis and rectifying our understanding of capitalism can progressive forces thwart a future of chaos and/or authoritarianism and begin the long task of building socialism. This book will be of great interest to students, scholars and researchers of international relations, international political economy, comparative politics and global political sociology

How Bad is US Unemployment?

This article assesses the significance of the January 2009 US unemployment figures. The steep fall of 4 million jobs is greater than any 12-month fall in history. Does this mean that 2007-2008 heralds the worst recession since 1929? This article assesses the empirical evidence of the US payroll figures to date.Keywords: Credit Crunch; Investment; Liquidity Preference; Rate of Profit; State; Welfare State; War; Military Keynesianism

THE ABSENT GEOPOLITICS OF PURE CAPITALISM

The first Marxist theories of capitalist geopolitics emerged in the early 20th century as theories of imperialism and uneven and combined development. They were also the first theories of capitalist geopolitics. While they explained the intensification of imperialism through new interpénétrations of politics and economics in national states and economies, the revival of Marxist thinking about capitalist geopolitics in the English-speaking world in recent decades suffers from a pure, purely economic, conception of capitalism, uncontaminated by politics, by nation-states. It is, as a consequence, also a cosmopolitan conception of capitalism. In it the very object of study disappears. This article argues that it does so because so many Marxists have come to share the cosmopolitan biases of mainstream thinking by accepting the discourses of "globalization" and "empire" and shows how this is so in the case of two pioneers of the recent revival of Marxist geopolitical thinking, Justin Rosenberg and Benno Teschke. </p

Introduction: The Materiality of Nations in Geopolitical Economy

This introduction contextualizes the articles that follow in a discussion of relevant elements of the critical theme of the “materiality of nations” in geopolitical economy. In particular, it focuses on the need to understand the evolution of capitalist states and their domestic and international economic roles in terms of the contradictions of capitalism; the need to unite the normally separated economic and political logics of capitalism in an overall historical understanding; the need to understand combined development as including capitalist combined development and the dialectic of uneven and combined development as the key driver of capitalist international relations

The New Communists of the Commons: 21st Century Proudhonists

If Proudhonism in the 19th century was, as Marx argued, a petty bourgeois ideology, this paper argues that the new communism of the commons propounded by Badiou, Hardt and Negri and Žižek is a 21st century avatar of it. It speaks not for what Poulantzas called the ‘traditional petty bourgeoisie’, as Proudhon did, but for the ‘new petty bourgeoisie’ of ‘non-productive wage-earners’, which has also lately styled itself the ‘creative class.’ A failure to comprehend the dynamics of capitalist accumulation and a general antipathy to any general organization of labour in society, and thus to any serious politics, are common to both. In addition, the paper shows that the protection of the cultural commons, the core of the project, is but a programme aiming for the continued reproduction of the creative class within capitalism. It is also prey to a series of misunderstandings - of the concept of the commons itself, of contemporary capitalism whose dynamics forms the backdrop of their project and key economic and political ideas of Marx whose authority they seek to attach to their project. This is a pre-print of an article published in the journal International Critical Thought (c) 2011 Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. The article is available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21598282.2011.58416

COVID-19 and Diabetes

Patients with Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) have been found to have increased mortality and morbidity for COVID-19 and are at higher risk for severe disease once infected with COVID-19. Clearly, there exists a relationship between T2D and COVID-19 that requires more attention. In order to understand the mechanisms by which T2D contributes to more severe COVID-19 disease, attention was turned to extracellular vesicles (EVs). It was speculated that viral RNA components of the COVID-19 virus may have originated from circulating EVs that came from infected cells and use a Trojan Exosome method to infect host cells. It is necessary to characterize the EVs and viral RNA components of COVID-19 patients to understand the infection mechanisms. EV purification, liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrophotometry, nanoparticle tracking analysis, Real Time-Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR), and Bioanalyzer analysis were performed for this using patient samples from Advent Health Orlando. Results found that qPCR was unable to detect COVID-19 viral RNA in the EVs of these patients, most likely a result of poor sensitivity. This study contributes towards defining the proteomic landscape of circulating EVs in people with COVID-19 and T2D and identifying biological mechanisms driving the interaction between the two diseases. Future directions include profiling the small noncoding RNAs found in COVID-19 patients and utilizing different methods to analyze isolated RNA to identify COVID-19 viral materials in EVs

Inflammatory mechanisms associated with type 1 diabetes mellitus and oral diseases

PhD ThesisDiabetes is a well-known risk factor for periodontal disease; however, the pathogenic links between periodontal disease and type 1diabetes (T1DM) are not completely understood. Therefore, this study evaluated, longitudinally over 6 months, the impact of periodontal disease and its treatment on clinical outcomes, glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c), high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP), lipids and local and systemic levels of pro-inflammatory biomarkers [matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9), B-cell activating factor, resistin, epithelial neutrophil activating peptide-78/CXCL5 (ENA-78/CXCL5) and interleukin-8, (IL-8)] in patients with T1DM. 57 T1DM and 43 non-T1DM patients were recruited. Pre-treatment, T1DM patients had significantly lower diastolic BP, non-HDL and cholesterol compared to non-T1DM patients. T1DM periodontally healthy patients had significantly higher bleeding on probing (BOP) scores compared to non-T1DM periodontally healthy patients. Serum MMP-9, resistin and ENA-78/CXCL5 levels were significantly higher in T1DM patients compared to non-T1DM patients. Furthermore, T1DM periodontitis patients had significantly higher serum MMP-9 levels compared to non-T1DM periodontitis patients. Regardless of diabetes status, GCF MMP-9 levels were significant predictors of clinical periodontal condition. Moreover, T1DM periodontally healthy patients had significantly higher GCF MMP-9 and IL-8 levels compared to non-T1DM periodontally healthy patients. In T1DM and non-T1DM patients, all clinical periodontal parameters significantly improved at 3 and 6 months following non-surgical periodontal management (NSM), and both groups demonstrated significant reductions in GCF MMP-9 levels at month 6 following NSM. Furthermore, following NSM, GCF IL-8 levels significantly reduced at 3 and 6 months in T1DM patients and at month 3 in non-T1DM patients. In T1DM patients, HbA1c showed 0.45% and 0.90% reductions at 3 and 6 months following NSM, respectively, although these reductions were not statistically significant. In conclusion, NSM led to significant reductions in GCF MMP-9 and IL-8 levels, and these inflammatory mediators may play a role in the pathogenesis of periodontitis in patients with T1DM.Newcastle University Overseas Research Scholarshi