Articles by Doug Dowd
(with some additional
pieces by his friends)



Also see excerpts from Doug Dowds book,
The Broken Promises of America: At Home and Abroad, Past and Present
 

Alphabetical listing

Chronological listing

Reverse Chronological Listing                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

Article (click on the title)

Description

Date of First
Publication

Toward a Fully Democratic Society or More Disasters? It’s up to us — “We the People”

FDR was pressured into The New Deal. Will Obama be pressured into a similar, but better, program? If we don't push him, he won't do it. And without major change, we face disasters. Our fate is in our hands...

online publication 2009

Latin America: Spitting in Uncle Sam's Eye

From its birth as a nation until now the USA has been busy building what became the most far-reaching empire in history. By hook or by crook. The USA has always taken it for granted that grabbing what we want is our right, our historic duty, a gift to those we conquer; no matter where, when, or how: If the land of the free and home of the brave does it, that makes it OK. But now the U.S. empire is on the decline. And look who's on the ascent!

2007

The Dynamics, Contradictions, and Dissent of Today’s China

Book review and commentary on two books: 1) China’s New Order: Society, Politics, and Economy in Transition, by Wang Hui. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2003. Hardcover $22.95. 256 pages. (Edited by Theodore Huters); 2) One China, Many Paths. Chaohua Wang, Editor. Verso. Paperback $36. 368 pages.

2005

The United States Becomes Its Own Worst Enemy A comparison of the current degenerate state of the U.S.A. and "The New South," a seldom-discussed "toxic brew of institutionalized cruelty and systemic irrationalities, fueled by fear, greed, and hatred." The New South itself was the result of the little-known Compromise of 1877, whereby presidential candidate Tilden, who had a quarter million plurality, was denied the office through tawdry and dubious machinations centering around Florida. (Sound familiar?) This article also lists nine "worrisome tendencies over which the U.S.A. presides."

2005

La guerra infinita Una intervista fatto a Doug Dowd di Luca Molinari, Il Domani, Bologna, Italia

2004

Globalization: The Ideology and Self-Destructive Tendencies of Capitalism, Past and Present

A talk delivered at the American Sociological Association conference in San Francisco

2004

Havoc, Inc.: Running Amok with Uncle Sam

A review of Larry Everest, Oil, Power and Empire: Iraq and The U.S. Global Agenda (Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2004), 391 pages, paper $19.95.

2004

On the Election

This is no time for venting our spleen. It is very much the time to preserve what Howard Zinn has recently seen as “a ledge” from which we can hold on and climb toward what we need and want. That ledge will be cheerfully obliterated by a Second Bush II Administration. I am firm in the belief that all who seek a sane and decent and peaceful world must vote for Kerry.

2004

A review by Doug Dowd of Michael Meeropols's Surrender: How the Clinton Administration Completed the Reagan Revolution

Doug Dowd's review of Michael Meeropol's book analyzing the major economic problems and controversies since the 1970s; published in the Review of Radical Political Economics

2003

Don't Waste Time in Mourning: Organize!

This is the most dangerous time in USA history since Doug was born in 1919. Things get scarier every day. Yet there is reason for hope. But we have to (1) learn from the past and (2) we have to work exceptionally hard. The likely alternative is a kind of fascism USA-style (or "friendly fascism"). We're heading that way, and we'd better try to stop the momentum.

2002

Capitalism: To the Trash Heap of History, by Troy Skeels

Capitalism depends on exploitation. The cheap raw materials are now just about all gone; there's nowhere for the system to turn. Let's turn it off. "What we really need is true free enterprise....The most secure investment for the future is the one that sustains a community that you are part of."

2002

Karl Marx: The Needs of Capital vs. the Needs of Human Beings, by Michel A. Lebowitz

A chapter from the forthcoming Understanding Capitalism, Doug Dowd, Ed., London: 2002, Pluto Press

 2002

Fascism With a Happy Face

Fascism is a response to capitalism in crisis. Contemporary capitalism is lurching toward another crisis. The political processes of contemporary Italy are, like those of the USA, only superfically democratic. Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian PM since May 2001 (and for a time also his own foreign minister) looks and acts like Benito Mussolini, another Italian PM who was also his own foreign minister. In Italy and the USA, the future looks grim, indeed. Unless we do our work.

2002

Market Mystification: The Mechanism Laid Bare, by Bertell Ollman

People’s daily experiences as buyers and sellers in the market are the chief cause of capitalist ideology. Besides giving them/us a distorted view of social relations, nature, human nature, money, freedom and equality, it mystifies the whole sphere of production, which in terms of its extended effects may be the most harmful mystification of all.

2002

Return of the Iron Triangle, by James M. Cypher

Military spending must go up, say the members of the Iron Triangle. The sides of the triangle are the decision makers of the U.S. military: (1) the “civilian agencies” (NSA, CIA, NSC, Office of POTUS), (2) the military brass, and (3) the 85,000 private military contractors. With the current administration, there will, of course, be money abounding, but how will the spoils be divided up? (From Dollars and Sense)

2002

The ideology of globalization as that of capitalism writ large and, necessarily, writ always larger

A talk delivered to the conference entitled Reflections on the Social Impact of American Multinational Corporations, in Grenoble, France, January 2002

2002

Bankers and Globalization, Past and Present: From Pinstriped Conservatism to 7/24 Speculation

A talk delivered to the conference entitled Reflections on the Social Impact of American Multinational Corporations, in Grenoble, France, January 2002

2002

Depths Below Depths: The Intensification, Multiplication, and Spread of Capitalism's Destructive Force From Marx's Time to Ours

The Marxian analytical framework remains essential for the understanding of contemporary capitalism; however, given the enormous changes since his time, its constituent elements are not only in need of “updating,” but the relationships between them require important shifts in emphasis.

This is a talk delivered to the annual conference of the Union for Radical Political Economics, August 2001, to be published in a forthcoming issue of the Review of Radical Political Economics.

2001

Refuting the Big Lie

A review of Hugh Stretton's excellent new economics textbook

2001

NAFTA's Lessons: From Economic Mythology to Current Realities, by James M. Cypher

An analysis of the effects of NAFTA upon Mexico, the United States, and the workers of both countries; from Labor Studies Journal

2001

What Is Political Science? What Should It Be?, by Bertell Ollman

This paper examines the five myths that govern political science: that it studies politics; that it is scientific; that one can study politics cut off from the other social sciences and history; that the State is neutral; and that the bulk of the work in the discipline furthers the cause of democracy.

2000

The virtues of their defects and the defects of their virtues

Reflections on John Kenneth Galbraith and Thorstein Veblen, from Michael Keaney (ed.), Economics with a Public Purpose: Essays in Honour of John Kenneth Galbraith (Routledge, 2000). The book title notwithstanding, this essay is critical of Galbraith.

2000

Toward a Political Economy for Our Times

Lectures Notes from the Econ Y2K 1999 classes

2000

Capitalism and Technology: To whose benefit, at what costs?

This paper was given as the keynote address for the 32nd Annual Pacific Northwest Labor History Assn Conference, Tacoma, Wash. 

2000

The New Economy: Stairway to the Stars or House of Cards?

The notion of today’s widely-touted “new economy” are addressed by comparing and contrasting its key elements with what was called “the new era” of the 1920s—under the headings Then and Now.

2000

Injustice, Italian-Style (The Sofri Case)

Although the case is uniquely Italian, it recalls sordid episodes from our own history, mixing elements from the trials and tribulations of Sacco and Vanzetti in the 1920s, Hiss in the 1950s, and the Black Panthers (inter alia) in the 1960s. And, as a Guardian (of London) writer has suggested, the Sofri case could be following a script written by Lewis Carroll, except that the madness in Alice was stirred with whims. There is nothing to smile about here. 

1999

Toward Understanding Capitalism

A primer on the form of social organization known as capitalism

1999

The Radical Political Economics of Douglas F. Dowd, by Michael Keaney

An explication and analysis of the views of Doug Dowd, by Michael Keaney, Glasgow Caledonian University; this paper was presented at the Post Keynesian Economics Study Group Microeconomics Seminar, Glasgow Caledonian University. 

1998

Invitation to a Feast

A review in Monthly Review of Wall Street: How It Works and for Whom, by Doug Henwood (editor of the Left Business Observer)

1997

Against Decadence: The Work of Robert A. Brady (1901–1963)

Article from the Journal of Economic Issues; Brady was an economics professor at Berkeley

1994

Orwell Cubed

A review of Beyond Hypocrisy: Decoding the News in an Age of Propaganda (including the Doublespeak Dictionary), by Edward S. Herman, illustrated by Matt Wuerker

1992

Militarized Economy, Brutalized Society

A synoptic view of “what has been done to the consciousness and the character of our population by the decades of economic militarization.” 

1982

Marxism for the Few, Or, Let 'Em Eat Theory

An article from Monthly Review

1982

Capitalism with the Gloves Off

A review of in the Monthly Review of Friendly Fascism, by Bertram Gross. This article is relevant in the year 2002.

1981

Consciousness, Character, and Capitalist Development

The preliminary stages of an effort to improve our understanding of an abiding question of both analytical and political importance: what causes social consciousness to be what it is and what it becomes in the social process?

1978

Stagflation and the Political Economy of Decadent Monopoly Capitalism

An explanation of the seemingly paradoxical simultanaeity of inflation and stgnation. This paper was presented at the meetings of the Western Economic Association, June 26, 1976, San Francisco, and was first published in Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Economiche e Commerciali (Milan). It later appeared in Monthly Review.

1976

Social Commitment and Social Analysis: The Contribution of Paul Baran

A talk given at Stanford University for the symposium “The Political Economy of Growth: A Belated Tribute to Paul Baran and His Work” 

1974

What Must the University Be?

New York Times op-ed piece

1971

The State, Power and the Industrial Revolution

From the editor's note in the original publication (H. M. Wachtel in URPE Occasional Paper No. 4): “This paper is designed as an introduction to economic history and will be especially useful for individuals without substantial knowledge of economic history. Its purpose is to invite further study of questions raised rather than to settle those questions for all time.”

1971

On The Economic History of the United States in the Twentieth Century

This examination (a critique, really) of the economic history of the USA was one-half of the first edition of the Occasional Papers of the Union for Radical Political Economics.

1969

When Laws Should Not Be Obeyed

An examination of the advisability and morality of civil disobedience in the USA

1968

Chicagoslovakia (1968)

Ruminations on the 1968 police riot in Chicago

1968

Chicago 1968: The Dog Beneath the Skin

What happened in Chicago in 1968 can be laid at the feet of LBJ, HHH, all the rest. This analysis seems uncannily appropriate as we approach yet another season of national party conventions.

1968

An End to Alibis (America Fouls Its Dream)

A bittersweet piece that originally appeared in The Nation and was reprinted in Dialogue (a Cornell student mag “of the arts and politics”). What to do about the increasing divergence between the myth of America and the reality of the United States? Let us harbor no illusions; let us organize!

1967

On Veblen, Mills...And the Decline of Criticism

Article from Dissent

1964

 

2000-08-13