socialist-economics

Playing the capitalist game: heads they win, tails you lose https://economicfront.wordpress.com/2021/08/11/playing-the-capitalist-game-heads-they-win-tails-you-lose/ ccording to an  Economic Policy Institute   report , between 28 and 47 percent of U.S. private sector workers are subject to noncompete agreements.  In brief, noncompete agreements (or noncompetes) are provisions in an employment contract that ban workers from leaving their job to work for a "competitor" that operates in the same geographic area, for a given period of time.  In a way, it's an attempt to recreate the power dynamics of the employer-dominated company towns of old—with workers unable to change employers if they want to continuing working in the same industry. It is not just top executives that are forced to accept a noncompete agreement.  Companies also use them to restrict the employment freedom of many low wage workers, including janitors, security guards, fast food workers, warehouse workers, ...

China's crackdown on the three mountains https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2021/08/08/chinas-crackdown-on-the-three-mountains/ Michael Roberts Marxist approach to China development challenges is provocative. Plus, unlike some dogmatic Marxist tendencies, completely free of phrase mongering and anarchism. A December 2020 meeting of the Chinese Communist party Politburo, vowed to end what it called a  "disorderly expansion of capital" .  The Chinese leaders were worried that the capitalist sector in China had got too big for its boots.  Companies like Jack Ma's Ant Group had expanded into consumer financing and looked to raise foreign funds to do so.  In effect, the Ant Group aimed to take over household lending from the state banks.  Ant was going to do what it liked and said so with a lot of fanfare in the press.  Ant and other Chinese capitalist tech and media companies were increasingly engaged in typically 'Western'-type mergers, secret contracts and o...