Portside

A gas tax that fully corrected for the social impact of car reliance would upend life as we know it.

In the wake of the tragedy, many publications across the West have rushed to print reproductions of Charlie Hebdo covers as proof that terrorist violence cannot dampen free expression. Such homage to the magazine in its agony is in one sense fitting and proper, but in another sense it is the precise opposite of what the living Charlie was about.

Potemkin Review met with Thomas Piketty at his Paris office and talked to him about his book Capital in the 21st Century, asking detailed questions about his arguments therein as well as on broader issues, which anyone who has been following the debate should find useful.

With our banking system in private hands, the simple truth is that as the debt levels accelerate, so does runaway inequality. Therefore key to controlling runaway inequality is to dramatically curtail the power of high finance.

While protestors in Mexico have amplified their demands, multiple protests have been organized abroad in more than fifty countries. One of the largest and most notable is in United States, known by the hashtag #USTired2. The protests were organized in November to coordinate nationwide protests on Dec. 3 in support of the Ayotzinapa families. The #USTired2 protests are geared toward pressuring the U.S. government to end Plan Mexico, the bilateral security aid package...

On Friday, on the eve of the annual meeting of The American Economic Association in Boston, attended by many of the top economists in the United States, the agents of the heterodoxy had come to declare war on the profession. The small group threw their messages onto the side of the Sheraton Boston in glowing, six-foot tall letters: “BEFORE ECONOMICS CAN PROGRESS, IT MUST ABANDON ITS SUICIDAL FORMALISM.”

Cologne Cathedral provost Norbert Feldhoff told N-TV that the move was meant to send the message to Pegida's anti-Muslim protesters that "You’re taking part in an action that, from its roots and also from speeches, one can see is Nazi-ist, racist and extremist. And you’re supporting people you really don’t want to support."

Naomi Klein disses dystopia; Mexican-American Naomi Klein disses dystopia; Mexican-American studies showdown; The cost of free speech; Philanthropreneurship; Cosby, himself; She's Beautiful

Below is the governmental program of the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) announced by Alexis Tsipras at the Thessaloniki International Fair, September 15, 2014. According to the latest opinion poll, SYRIZA is at 36.5%, with a seven percentage point lead over the conservative New Democracy. The current contest for the presidency of Greece looks likely to lead to a new parliamentary election.

Essential reading for ecosocialists. Paul Burkett shows that humanity's relationship to nature is central to Marx's critique of capitalism and vision of socialism.