Industrializing Class War By William Bowles

2 February 2018 — InvestigatingImperialism

Have you noticed that it’s no longer PC Dixon of Dock Green who mediates the relationship between the state and its citizens as he goes about his beat in your neighbourhood? Instead, it’s a Kevlar-armoured, video-monitored, taser-equipped, drone-surveilled, spit-masked supplied soldier, straight out of Star Wars, who now staggers along under the weight of an industrialized capitalism, visibly physically disconnected from the citizens they monitor by their bullet-proof uniforms, that more resemble a rack of tools in your local hardware store than the Bobby on the beat.

End of the year or end of the world (as we know it)? By William Bowles

23 December 2008

Before all the Xmas BS gets in the way, an end-of-year essay of sorts is in order, especially so given the bumpy ride capitalism has bestowed on us this past twelve months. And the portents for 2009 look to be even worse as capitalism, desperate to shed over-valued assets, descends into the abyss.

Look at it this way: after the Crash of ‘29 and the launch of the New Deal, it took some six years to engineer the outbreak of WWII, the surefire way of literally burning up surplus capital in awesome quantities.

And if history has any lessons for us, some equivalent global conflagration is now in order. However, is this possible under these new circumstances and over what timescale can such a capitalist catastrophe be engineered?

And here’s another thought… By William Bowles

24 October 2003

Although the Labour government denies that the takeover of the privatised rail maintenance contracts by the government-owned Network Rail is re-nationalisation, it admits that the reason is the vast savings that will be realised as a result, something like 25% of the current cost. It’s also got to do with the complete balls-up the various contractors have made of the job by virtue of the incredible complexity of integrating sub-contractors and sub-sub-contractors. Most of the major contractors are essentially investment corporations with neither the skills nor the infrastructure to do the work themselves (more ‘hollow’ corporations that I referred to in a previous essay).

In bed with Bush – The Bechtel story By William Bowles

13 May 2003

‘We seek them here, we seek them there, we seek those terrorists everywhere’

One could say that one of the distinguishing features of contemporary US capitalism is that it no longer bothers to hide behind a façade of the ‘free market’ and ‘defending democracy’. That’s how sure it is of itself and its ability to operate unhindered in the ‘global marketplace’.