capitalism

Joe Biden is poised to enact the first veto of his presidency. Photo: Evan Vucci (AP)President Joe Biden is expected to issue the first veto of his term to defend the right for retirement plan managers to direct client investments based on environmental and social considerations. The anticipated action follows the advancement of a Republican-backed resolution through the House and Senate this week aimed at targeting so-called “woke capitalism,” or environmental social governance (often abbreviated as ESG).ESG is nothing…

Anglo American = blue, Glencore = turquoise, Rio Tinto = orange. Credit: Trading View Ron DeSantis, Florida's Republican governor and likely future presidential contender, has opened up a new front in his party's war on "woke capitalism." He is proposing to change the rules around how public bodies within Florida borrow from the markets by issuing bonds. …

“When we talk about uber-capitalism in its rawest form – about greed that knows no limit, about corporations that viciously oppose the right of workers to organize, about the abuses of wealth and power that tear apart our society – we’re talking about Amazon,” writes Bernie Sanders in his new book. “And when we’re talking about Amazon, we’re talking about Jeff Bezos.”These are typical lines in what comprises an attack on the status quo from every conceivable direction. Sanders addresses his own two ultimately thwarted…

Those of you who who sit up at night fretting about how American financial institutions are getting too damn woke, don’t worry: Your champion has arrived, and he’s gunning for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination. On Tuesday, investor Vivek Ramaswamy, who has been called the “The CEO of Anti-Woke, Inc.” by The New Yorker, went on Tucker Carlson Tonight to announce that he will be running for president in 2024.If you haven’t heard of Ramaswamy before now, chances are you haven’t been watching Fox News when they cover…

The movie, which stars Taron Egerton, hits Apple TV+ on March 31st.The story behind how became a global phenomenon is the basis of an upcoming movie. The film will hit the streaming service on March 31st and Apple has just dropped the first trailer. Taron Egerton stars as Henk Rogers, a Dutch entrepreneur who (spoiler) secured deals to distribute Tetris on the and other consoles. Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov (played by Nikita Yefremov) created the game during the Cold War, but because he was a government…

Achieving greater transparency and accountability in democratic governance and in capitalist economics must occur simultaneously. Credit: shutterstock Secrecy has become as important for corporations as transparent and taxable profits used to be, according to Raymond W. Baker in his new book Invisible Trillions. Global capitalism, he argues, operates beyond the rule of law. This contributes to extreme inequality that threatens…

Last year, I spoke with Cory Doctorow and Rebecca Giblin about their new book, Chokepoint Capitalism. It’s a book about artists and technology and platforms and how different kinds of distribution and creation tools create chokepoints for different companies to capture value that might otherwise go to artists and creators. In other words, it’s a lot of Decoder stuff.As we were prepping this episode, the Decoder team realized it previews a lot of things we’re going to talk about in 2023: antitrust law; Ticketmaster;…

Surveillance capitalism just got a kicking. In an ultimatum, the European Union has demanded that Meta reform its approach to personalized advertising—a seemingly unremarkable regulatory ruling that could have profound consequences for a company that has grown impressively rich by, as Mark Zuckerberg once put it, running ads.The ruling, which comes with a €390 million ($414 million) fine attached, is targeted specifically at Facebook and Instagram, but it’s a huge blow to Big Tech as a whole. It’s also a sign that GDPR,…

At corporations and organizations like universities, policies meant to promote equity, diversity and inclusion are being used to enhance wealth and status. Credit: Sam Balye, Unsplash In capitalistic economies like those in the West, wealth and status accumulation often drive our every endeavor. Education, skills training and social…

MONTREAL — At 3 on Monday morning Marco Lambertini was awake, seated in a giant conference room downtown, lit by fluorescent light and surrounded by government officials from around the world. It was far from the Swiss mountain trails he likes to hike, but he wasn’t going to miss one of the most important moments in his four-decades-long career. Lambertini helms the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the planet’s largest environmental organization, with roughly 9,000 employees and 72 offices. That Monday, he was…