Week 3

Key Questions

• What are the contradictions embedded within capitalism? Why is crisis intrinsic to capitalism?

• What is the role of credit and finance under capitalism? How are these particularly integral to the contemporary capitalist system?

• What are historical examples of capitalist crisis? What conditions do capitalist crisis create?

Required Materials:

• Hadas Thier, A People's Guide to Capitalism: An Introduction to Marxist Economics, "Capitalist Crisis"

• Hadas Thier, A People's Guide to Capitalism: An Introduction to Marxist Economics, "Credit and Financialization"

Supplementary Materials:

• Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, "CoronaShock: A Virus and the World"

• Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, "CoronaShock and Patriarchy"

• John Smith, Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: The Globalization of Production, Super-Exploitation, and the Crisis of Capitalism, "All Roads Lead into the Crisis"

• John Bellamy Foster, Jamil Jonna, and Brett Clark, "The Contagion of Capital"

• Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster, "Stagnation and Financialization"