Z Magazine has started several weblogs. Two appear to be active and although they have a few technical glitches they’re definitely worth adding to your aggregator.
First Noam Chomsky’s Turning the Tide, which is basically Noam Chomsky on whatever happens to be turning his crank at any given time.
“The IMF is hardly more than a branch of the Treasury Department. Economist Jagdish Bhagwati, no radical, refers to the IMF- Treasury-Wall St complex that is a core part of de facto world government. The Treasury Department is part of the US government. If we had anything remotely resembling a democratic culture, actions of the government would be under the control of citizens, which would mean that citizens have to at the very least know something about them. And beyond that, we would have mechanisms to engage in political action. And in a more democratic society the third component, Wall St., would not exist in anything remotely like its present form, and what would exist would be under popular democratic control.”
Next up is a multi-author weblog called Goodbye Maggie, based clearly on Michael Albert’s participatory economics.
“Tomorrow’s Economy? Not too creative. Parecon? Very explicit, but no subtlety and pizzazz.
“Okay, opting for “Goodbye Maggie” as a title won’t appeal to everyone, but it does have its virtues.
“First, it refers to Maggie’s Farm, a fictional creation in a Dylan song about the ills of current economic arrangements. In a new economy, none of us will work on Maggie’s Farm.
“Second, it refers to Margaret Thatcher, the past British Prime Minister and most recent prominent proponent of the stance that there is no alternative to current economic relations summarized as TINA.
“So the point is, this blog is about transcending corporations and markets and all the familiar economic mess that Dylan alludes to and that Maggie Thatcher celebrates as eternal.”
Interestingly, Chomsky’s has comments enabled; Albert’s doesn’t. Both are highly recommended.
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