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Item Open Access Monetary Expansionism, Global Commodity Prices, and Global Inequality(2025) Kim, JongchulAn early analysis of the imperialist implications of the surge of global commodity prices was conducted in 2014 by Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler. However, their analysis did not consider how the US monetary and fiscal expansionist policies have contributed to the rise of global commodity prices. This article fills this gap. Arguably, under the current international fiat money system established in the early 1970s, the US has had the opportunity to use artificial money-creation mechanisms to enjoy the wealth produced by people outside the US without cost. This article argues that the US monetary and fiscal expansionist policies, including quantitative easing, are cases where the US takes advantage of such an opportunity and that the free transfer of wealth is a cause of the surge in global commodity prices.Item Open Access Capital as Power in the 21st Century. A Conversation(2025) Hudson, Michael; Nitzan, Jonathan; Di Muzio, Tim; Fix, BlairOn December 3, 2024, Michael Hudson met with capital-as-power researchers Jonathan Nitzan, Tim Di Muzio and Blair Fix to discuss the intersections between their two lines of research. YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBOU4xBg2pAItem Open Access Tracking the Fortunes of Corporate Psychedelia(2024) Hager, Sandy BrianIn recent years, new biotech companies have emerged hoping to cash in on a medical psychedelics market expected to be worth billions. This article examines the business models of two of the largest such companies. According to conventional wisdom, for-profit players are best positioned to deliver new cures for mental illness at scale because of their ability to tap capital markets. The analysis presented here challenges this story on two counts. First, it argues that profitability in the pharmaceutical business depends not on rapid scaling per se, but on controlling and restricting access to maintain pricing power. Second, it claims that the unruliness of sychedelics – manifested in the presence of cheap generics, murky intellectual property claims, and high costs of administration – raises serious questions about their commercial viability. The article then assesses the sector’s embrace of Johnson and Johnson’s patented form of esketamine, Spravato, as its prototype for commercialization. Spravato may provide a pathway for profitability, but patients must contend with high prices and a drug that provides only short-term relief and requires indefinite dosing. Rather than disrupt Big Pharma, corporate psychedelia replicates its main features, raising questions about its claims to tackle the mental health crisis.Item Open Access Earning Through Obsolescence. An Examination of Falling Household Durables Usage Lifespans in the United States 1970–2018(2025) Dillon, SeanThis study examines the declining usage lifespan of household consumer durables in the United States between 1970 and 2018, situating the phenomenon within a heterodox political economy framework. While mainstream economic narratives attribute the rising rate of consumer durable waste over this time to “overconsumption” driven by consumer materialism, this study challenges that perspective through an empirical analysis of waste generation, consumer spending, depreciation rates, and corporate profitability within the consumer durables sector. The findings reveal a significant divergence between rising levels of durable goods waste and relatively stable per capita ‘real’ consumer spending, suggesting that falling product longevity is largely not demand-driven. Instead, the data indicates that manufacturers have profitably reduced product durability, as evidenced by increasing rates of geometric depreciation and a rise in total sectoral earnings without proportional increases in earnings margins. These findings align with the theory of “planned obsolescence,” whereby firms deliberately shorten product lifespans to drive replacement purchases and sustain profit growth. Given that this strategy cannot be adequately explained within conventional neoclassical economic models, the article draws the Veblenian theory of “strategic sabotage” to conceptualize the deliberate underutilization of technological capacity in pursuit of pecuniary gains. The study provides both empirical and theoretical evidence that the decline in consumer durables product longevity observed between 1970 and 2018 is structurally embedded in capitalist production of consumer durables goods.Item Open Access Military Spending and Economic Growth: A 2025 Update(2025) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, JonathanThe start of the second millennium brought a growing sense that capitalism was becoming more ‘authoritarian’ and ‘illiberal’, with various indicators suggesting that ‘democracy’ is waning around the globe, that the protection of human and civil rights is in retreat and that the number and intensity of military conflicts is on the rise. This angst is now greatly amplified by the domestic and foreign policies of the new Trump administration. Having returned to office in early 2025, Trump promptly launched a highly publicized crusade against his country’s ‘deep state’, with blasé disregard for its laws and con-stitution; announced his intentions to retreat from his country’s traditional postwar role as leader and protector of the Western world; and embarked on seemingly unhinged acts against friends (Canada, Mexico, Denmark, Panama and, primarily, Ukraine) while cozying up to long-term foes (Russia). One possible consequence of this growing angst is a global ‘arms race’.Item Open Access Partisan Politics and the Road to Plutocracy(2025) Fix, BlairAs billionaires dance in the halls of the second Trump administration, it’s haunting how well Plutarch’s two-thousand-year-old words describe the state of American politics. It’s a barren landscape of plutocratic insatiability. How did it get this way? One way to tell the story is to look at the battle between the ruling class and everyone else — a battle which elites are obviously winning. But another way to understand the struggle is to look at the war between factions of the ruling class — a battle that plays out largely within partisan politics. On this partisan front, the historical backdrop is that for forty years, Republicans have been playing a political shell game. As Jay Michaelson puts it, Republicans “appear populist … but act plutocrat”. What’s disorienting is that this shell game has worked. Although Republicans have historically governed for the benefit of the rich, they have recently rebranded themselves (successfully, it seems) as the party of the working class. Is this new Republican messaging sincere? Or is it gaslighting? Well, Trump’s billionaire-stacked administration is quickly answering the question for us. However, this essay is not primarily about Trump, nor is it focused on the future. Instead, it’s a journey into how the partisan politics of the past have shaped the American plutocracy of today. The essay consists of a deep dive into the realm of US state politics. The story will be simple and repetitive. Across states, I will measure the degree to which Republicans control each state’s legislature. Then I will observe, in a statistical sense, the policies and social outcomes that follow. That’s it. Of course, I’ll add commentary along the way. But the goal is to let the evidence speak for itself. And what leaps from the data is this: Republican control of state legislatures is systematically associated with the rich being (and becoming) richer. In short, American plutocracy seems to be a quintessentially Republican affair. And that’s not all. As we journey into the depths of US state politics, the plot will thicken. We’ll find striking partisan differences in the language used in state bills. We’ll see the many ways that Republicans help the rich and hurt workers. We’ll see the impact partisan politics have on the population as they work longer hours with less security. We’ll see the toll that Republican control takes on human welfare. And we’ll study the ways that Republicans gain power, despite enacting policies that are self-evidently bad for the majority. And we’ll reflect on the reasons that plutocracy can become self-reinforcing. Think of the evidence that follows as a case study in how the machinery of democracy can be used to benefit the few and harm the many. It’s a warning from the past about tactics that will no doubt be intensified by Trump and his posse of plutocrats.Item Open Access The American Housing Crisis: A Theft, Not a Shortage(2024) Fix, BlairIf mainstream economics teaches us one lesson, it’s that when something becomes unaffordable, it’s because of a shortage. And that brings me to the US housing crisis. In America, housing is getting less affordable. So there must be a short supply, right? Not necessarily. You see, shortage is not the only route to unaffordability. There’s also … theft. Here’s how it works.Item Open Access From Commodity to Asset: The Truth Behind Rising House Prices(2024) Fix, BlairWhen it comes to rising house prices, nearly everyone has a theory about the cause. There’s ‘too much foreign money’. There are ‘too many immigrants’. There’s ‘too little construction’. And so on. What unites these explanations is that they appeal, in some way, to the idea that rising prices are caused by a mismatch between supply and demand. And surely that’s true, right? Yes, it is true … in the same way that death is caused by dying. But of course, that’s circular logic. And so it goes with ‘supply and demand’. Since prices are always caused by the interplay between what we want and what we can get, evoking ‘supply and demand’ leads us pretty much nowhere. Worse, it often puts the focus on short-term patterns, when the real scientific payoff lies in studying price trends over the long term. Speaking of the long term, many people assume that rising house prices are a recent problem. But in the United States, the pattern dates to the early 1970s. For almost a century before that, US house prices had been dropping against income. And so Americans treated their house like a ‘commodity’ — a thing they bought to live in. But from 1972 onward, house prices began to slowly appreciate against income. And so Americans started to treat their house like an ‘asset’. It’s this transformation — from commodity-like depreciation to asset-like appreciation — that is the real story of house prices. And the truth is that this story can’t be understood using popular scapegoats. To see why US house prices headed south and then north, we need to forget about supply and demand and instead, peer into the belly of industrialism. We need to ground house prices in the use of energy. Now, if going from prices to energy sounds like a non sequitur, I’ll show you why it makes sense. And I’ll show you how, when we bring debt into the energy fold, we can explain almost all of the historical variation in US house prices. The lesson here is simple yet disturbing. When it comes to rising house prices, the trend has less to do with a ‘supply crisis’, and more to do with basic physical limits to industrial supply chains.Item Open Access A Tour of the Jevons Paradox: How Energy Efficiency Backfires(2024) Fix, BlairAccording to mainstream thinking, efficiency is a potent tool for conservation — a way to live better while using fewer resources. Unfortunately, this simple narrative is contradicted by overwhelming evidence. Instead of spurring conservation, efficiency seems to stimulate the consumption of more resources. This paper surveys the evidence for efficiency backfire and concludes that efficiency is a general tool for catalyzing technological sprawl.Item Open Access Re-Considering the Origins of the Climate Emergency: War, Finance, and the State(2023) Di Muzio, Tim; Dow, MatthewOne of the most important and recurring debates in the field of International Political Economy and international affairs are the links between capitalism, fossil fuel energy and climate change. In these debates, the origins of our current climate emergency are rooted in how Britain became the first country to become reliant on mass production and consumption coal (fossil fuels) for economic growth, industrialization, as well as social reproduction. Britain becoming a coal-fire capitalist-imperial global empire deeply influenced and structured the current world order and global political economy which is still locked-into a vicious cycle of path dependency whereby balance of power, production and social reproduction is dependent on energy, predominately fossil fuels.Item Open Access Measuring Hierarchy(2024) Carbonell-Nicolau, OriolThis paper presents a novel axiomatic approach to measuring and comparing hierarchical structures. Hierarchies are fundamental across a range of disciplines – from ecology to organizational science – yet existing measures of hierarchical degree often lack systematic criteria for comparison. We introduce a mathematically rigorous framework based on a simple partial pre-order over hierarchies, denoted as ≽H, and demonstrate its equivalence to intuitively appealing axioms for hierarchy comparisons. Our analysis yields three key results. First, we establish that for fixed-size hierarchies, one hierarchy is strictly more hierarchical than another according to ≽H if the latter can be derived from the former through a series of subordination removals. Second, we fully characterize the hierarchical pre-orders that align with ≽H using two fundamental axioms: Anonymity and Subordination Removal. Finally, we extend our framework to varying-size hierarchies through the introduction of a Replication Principle, which enables consistent comparisons across different scales.Item Open Access נסיכי הנפט מול קואליציית ההיי-טק (The Oil Princes versus the High-Tech Coalition)(2024)ספרם של שמשון ביכלר ויונתן ניצן "הדרך לעזה" נראה כמקרה בוחן פרטי וכהרחבה של טענתם הכללית בדבר מהות ההון "כמוסד השליטה במשטר הקפיטליסטי", מעבר לכאן ועכשיו. ניתן לומר שהשאלה הנידונה היא כיצד הגענו מהקהילה הקמאית השוויונית דרך "משטרי כוח" בהשראתו של אל עליון כל-יכול, עד שלטון ההון במשטר הקפיטליסטי של ימינו. הטענה (הפסימית) היא, שמבחינתם של "אנשי התחתית", אין חדש תחת השמש ושלטון ההון הקפיטליסטי כישות זרה וכל-יכולה, איננו אלא המשך שלטון האוליגרכיות של העת העתיקה. אף על פי כן, למרות הטקסט הביקורתי, קשה שלא לראות את הסב-טקסט הניאו-מרקסיסטי של הספר. כלומר, כדיאלוג ביקורתי עם המרקסיזם. [. . .] קשה לקבל את הטענה "הגלובלית" כהסבר לכאן ועכשיו. אך "הדרך לעזה" הוא ללא ספק ספר מאתגר ומעורר מחשבה הראוי לקריאהItem Open Access Rentiership and Intellectual Monopoly in Contemporary Capitalism: Conceptual Challenges and Empirical Possibilities(2024) Baines, Joseph; Hager, Sandy BrianThe concepts of rentiership and intellectual monopoly have gained increased prominence in discussions about the transformation of global capitalism in recent years. However, there have been few if any attempts to construct measures for rentiership and intellectual monopoly using firm-level financial data. The absence of such work, we argue, is symptomatic of conceptual challenges in delineating what precisely qualifies as rent, intellectual or otherwise. In place of static conceptions of rent and intellectual monopoly, we develop a dynamic framework for analyzing the processes of rentierization and intellectual monopolization and apply this framework to the analysis of the transformation of non-financial firms in the United States since the 1950s. We find that the timing and intensity of rentierization and intellectual monopolization differs significantly across sector and firm size and is heavily mediated by the uneven ramifications of government policy across companies and industries. Overall, our framework illuminates the variegated landscape of corporate power in the US, and offers a useful guide for critically interrogating rentierization and intellectual monopolization in other contexts.Item Open Access The Road to Gaza, Part II: The Capitalization of Everything(2024) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, JonathanOur recent article on ‘The Road to Gaza’ examined the history of the three supreme-God churches and the growing role of their militias in armed conflicts and wars around the world. The present paper situates these militia wars in the broader vista of the capitalist mode of power. Focusing specifically on the Middle East, we show the impact these militia wars have on relative oil prices and differential oil profits and explain how the wars themselves, those who stir them and the subjects that fight them all get discounted into capitalized power.Item Open Access Ontology of Finance Redux(2017) Breitling, Dustin“Ontology of Finance Redux” is an abridged version of Suhail Malik’s long essay “The Ontology of Finance: Price, Power, and the Arkhéderivative” published in Collapse Volume VIII Edited by Robin Mackay. Interweaving the works of Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler, Elena Esposito and Elie Ayache, Malik provides a tour de force critique of the critique of political economy to demand an engagement with the byzantine operation of finance. The essay is an examination of the array of derivative tools and their constitutive role in hedging and speculating futures. It explains how the organizing element of ‘Capitalization’ via price renders all conceptions of temporality as a revisable, adaptable, and ultimately contingent operation. Malik’s philosophical assertion is that the traditional notions of social order and norms have always been subject to perpetual restructuring. ‘Risk-Order’as the primary ingredient of ‘capital-power’ poses a tremendous challenge not only for Marxist and neoclassic political economy but also for Left-Accelerationaism and its underlying neorational philosophies.Item Open Access Making America Great Again, 2024(2024) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, JonathanIn 2019, we published a RWER paper assessing Trump’s promise to ‘Make America Great Again’. Here are updates of two key charts from this paper.Item Open Access הדרך לעזה: על משטרי הכוח וכנסיות האל העליון היחיד (The Road to Gaza: On Modes of Power and Supreme-God Churches)(2024) Nitzan, Jonathan; Bichler, Shimshonמלחמת הקודש המתנהלת בין המיליציות הרבניות לבין המיליציות האיסלמיות הינה מסוג חדש. אבל הדרך למלחמה בעזה נסללה עוד לפני כששת אלפים שנה, בעת שקמו לראשונה משטרי המלוכה-כהונה במסופוטמיה. אוליגרכיות אלה היו הראשונות שיצקו תשלובת חזקה של מלך עריץ בארמון וכוהני אל-עליון במקדש. ילידי המזרח התיכון היו הראשונים בהיסטוריה האנושית שזכו בכבוד להתקיים כנתינים כנועים במשטרי המלוכה-כהונה. אין פלא אפוא שמוצאן של שלוש כנסיות האל העליון היחיד – הכנסייה הרבנית, הנוצרית והאיסלמית – היה באזור זה. ככל שאופי-הכוח המדיני התמסד בקיסרויות המאוחרות יותר, באלף הראשון להולדת האל ישו – בביזנץ, באירופה ובמזרח התיכון – כך עלה והתמסד פולחן האל הריכוזי היחיד ונציגו המלך הארצי שכונה בשמות שונים (מלך, קיסר, צאר, ח'ליף, סולטן ועוד). המשטר הקפיטליסטי במאה ה-21 הוא בינתיים האחרון במשטרי הכוח שנכפו על החברה האנושית. בראשית דרכו, המיר הקפיטליזם את המשטר הישן של מלוכה-כהונה בדגם חדש של מדינה לאומית ("של כל אזרחיה"). הנתינים הכנועים זקפו עתה גבם והפכו לאזרחים חופשיים. הם החליפו את שכירי החרב המלוכנים כחיילים בחינם במטחנות הבשר של צבאות העם ולחמו במלחמות העולם של האימפריות החדשות. ההון הפך לאל הגדול במקומם של יהוה-ישו-אללה, אשר לא התאימו עוד ליחסי השליטה החדשים. את מקומם של כוהני הכנסייה הישנים ירשו כוהני האקדמיה וכנסיות הרציונליות בשירות שליטי ההון, ופולחן הקפיטליזציה הפך לאבן הכעבה של המאמינים החדשים. אלא שמאז שנות השמונים של המאה ה-20, הלך וגדל הקיטוב בין קבוצות ההון הדומיננטי לבין אנשי התחתית המתרבים ושכבות הביניים המצטמקות. המדינה הלאומית נמצאת מאז בתהליך פירוק ובמקומה צומחת מדינת ההון האוליגרכית. יחסי השליטה החדשים מבוססים על פולחני הניאו-ליברליזם והפוסטיזם, ומנגד על כנסיות אל עליון יחיד הישנות המעוצבות בלבוש חדש. מכאן מתחילות "מלחמות הדת" החדשות המנוהלות ברחבי העולם על ידי מיליציות בחסות ובמימון שליטי ההון הדומיננטי. בספרים קודמים עסקנו בתהליך המרכזי של הקפיטליזם העולמי, שהוא גם המנוע העיקרי המפעיל את המלחמות המחזוריות במזרח התיכון: רווחי קבוצות ההון הדומיננטיות. בעבר התמקדנו ברווחים הדיפרנציאליים של קואליציית הנפט-נשק ובעיקר בירידות המחזוריות ברווחים אלה המעוררות את המלחמות. ספר זה מדגיש את הצלע השלישית במשולש התאגידי-מדיני החבויה בתוככי אופי הכוח הקפיטליסטי ומלחמותיו: כנסיות האל העליון היחיד. כותבי הספר, יהונתן ניצן ושמשון ביכלר, הם מרצים לכלכלה-פוליטית באוניברסיטאות ובמכללות בקנדה ובישראל. *** The book is available for purchase on Amazon and in independent Israeli bookstores.Item Open Access 30 Years to the AIC. A Speech at Beit Sahur(2013) Bichler, ShimshonThe following is the text of a presentation delivered by Dr. Shimshon Bichler at the 30-year celebration of the Alternative Information Center (AIC), on October 5, 2013. Dr. Bichler is a political economist and veteran member of the AIC Board of Directors.Item Open Access The Road to Gaza, Part II: The Capitalization of Everything(2024) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, JonathanOur recent article on ‘The Road to Gaza’ examined the history of the three supreme-God churches and the growing role of their militias in armed conflicts and wars around the world. The present paper situates these militia wars in the broader vista of the capitalist mode of power. Focusing specifically on the Middle East, we show the impact these militia wars have on relative oil prices and differential oil profits and explain how the wars themselves, those who stir them and the subjects that fight them all get discounted into capitalized power.Item Open Access The Road to Gaza(2024) Bichler, Shimshon; Nitzan, JonathanThe war that started in 2023 between Hamas and Israel is driven by various long-lasting processes, but it also brings to the fore a new cause that hitherto seemed marginal: the armed militias of the Rabbinate and Islamic churches. The Rabbinate militias, embodied in Jewish settler organizations, have taken over not only Palestinian lands, but, gradually, also Israeli society. The Islamic militias, represented by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, rose to prominence after the traditional resistance groups of the Palestinians – primarily the PLO and the PFLP and, by extension, also the Palestinian Authority – weakened and proved unable to reverse, let alone stop, the Israeli occupation. The rise of these militias, though, is hardly unique to Israel/Palestine, or even the Middle East. It is part of a broader, global process, in which ‘private’ military organizations, financed by states, church-related NGOs and/or organized crime, fight for and against states as well as each other. The ascent of such groups is closely related to the decline of the nation-state and its popular armies, a model that developed in the wake of the French Revolution but no longer resonates with the increasingly globalized nature of capital accumulation. Our previous studies of Middle East wars emphasized the ‘state of capital’ – our notion that the capitalist mode of power fuses state and capital into a single logic in which dominant capital groups are driven by the power quest for differential accumulation. We showed that, in the Middle East, this logic was imposed by a Weapondollar-Petrodollar Coalition of large oil and armament corporations, OPEC, financial institutions and construction firms, whose differential incomes and profits were tightly correlated with – and helped predict – the cyclical eruption of ‘energy conflicts’. But this mode of power comprises not two elements, but three. In addition to state and capital, it also includes the supreme-God churches, and in this paper we outline the role of these churches and their militias in capitalism generally and in Middle East wars specifically.