Things are not always as they appear. In proving this old proverb, Karl Marx explained some key features of capitalism in a way that remains relevant today. Towards the end of the first chapter of Capital, Vol. 1, after having established the validity of the labor theory of value, Marx presents a section on the Fetishism of Commodities.

If you feel that you are not receiving your share of America’s treasure, then you are not alone. Data on income and wealth from the US show that as the American economy develops, both income and wealth become increasingly concentrated into the hands of the richest Americans.

Richard Wolff (Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst) has released a DVD titled Capitalism Hits the Fan. It contains a lecture he gave November 19, 2008, along with some supporting graphics.

Another form of public option would be a Medicare-like option that would be in the mix along with the private plans in this kind of exchange. There are many formulations of what this could look like. So what would happen?

Interviewed here are Robbie Lieberman and Clarence Lang who are co-editors of a new book titled Anticommunism and the African American Freedom Movement (Palgrave Macmillan).

If a Romare Bearden painting, a Pablo Neruda poem and a Billie Holiday blues were by means of an arcane alchemy combined to form some rare and breathtaking thing, it might be called Wandering Star, a stunning novel by the 2008 Noble Prize-winning French author J. M.G. Le Clezio.

I believe that there is a very big relationship in terms of understanding the fundamentals of capitalism and what is happening now, and what the prospects are for momentary solutions and longer-term solutions further down the road.

Pakistan stands at a crossroads, where past meets present and national identity meets regional influences. It does not seem to be at a crossroads, as some have described, between a nuclear-armed democratic state vs. a nuclear-armed failed state.

As someone who has done extensive research over decades into the history of anti-communism in the US, I see Daniel Rosenberg's new memoir, Underground Communists in the McCarthy Period, as towering above the “red diaper baby” literature that has emanated from some children of Communist Party activists over the last generation.

In this slender, but thought-provoking book, Paul Bucheit, professor at Chicago Colleges, founder of fightingpoverty.org and co-founder of Global Initiative Chicago, packs a wallop in presenting the glorified illusions of war, juxtaposing them with the realities and horrors of military force and occupation.