A fundamental element of human nature is the need for creative work, for creative inquiry, for free creation without the arbitrary limiting effects of coercive institutions. A decent society should maximize the possibilities for this fundamental human characteristic to be realized.

Markets are lethal, if only because of ignoring externalities, the impacts of their transactions on the environment.

The U.S. - the idea that the U.S. has introduced and imposed principles of international law, that's hardly even a joke. The United States has even gone so far as to veto Security Council resolutions calling on all states to observe international law. That was in the 1980s under Reagan.

Barron and Paul...rely on 'specialists' at the State and Defense Departments...Elsewhere in the media, similiar figures are bandied about, with equal credibility.

In the major state capitalists economies, Europe and the US, it's low growth and stagnation and a very sharp income differentiation a shift - a striking shift - from production to financialization.

Credible reports came through that Syria had used chemical weapons. Whether it's true actually is still open to question, but it's very probably true. At that point, what was at stake was what is called credibility. So if you read the political actors, political leadership, foreign policy commentary, they constantly point out accurately that US credibility was at stake, and we have to maintain US credibility. So therefore something had to be done to show you can't violate our orders.

George Kennan is another extreme case. He was the American consul in Berlin until the war between Germany and the United States broke out in December 1941. And until then he was writing pretty supportive statements back stressing that we shouldn't be so hard on the Nazis if they were doing something we didn't agree with - basically repeating the idea that they were people we could do business with.