Analysis

Mining After Apartheid

The mining industry has long been considered the fulcrum not only of South Africa’s economy, but of its social and racial order as well. With the discovery of gold in 1886, the mineral revolution turned the disparate colonies under Boer and British rule into the beating heart of the global economy, drawing in black and white workers from across the world and developing new forms of racial labor.

From Domination to Extermination

Since its founding, Israel’s market for weapons has developed in tandem with its war objectives. The institutionalized lack of discipline that characterizes Israel’s campaign of annihilation in Gaza represents another strategic shift in Israel’s privatized arms industry: an increase in domestic weapons consumption, a shift from high-tech equipment to low-tech arms, and artillery designed to accommodate smaller, more ideologically driven units over precise coordination and discipline. While overwhelmingly dependent on imported weapons, mainly from the US, Israeli weapons manufacturing has undergone significant changes in the aftermath of October 7.

Growing Pains

How can a Sánchez administration that enacts a successful progressive agenda—and a PSOE party that retains and even increases its share of voters while handling a succession of unprecedented crises—become so fragile electorally? To grasp the extent of this vulnerability, it is necessary to understand the limits of Spain’s new and old growth models, and the EU’s shifting security and macroeconomic priorities.

Coordinating Tamil Nadu

Amid India’s grand ambitions for manufacturing growth, Tamil Nadu stands out as an outlier. The state ranks first in the number of factories in the country and accounts for one out of every seven manufacturing jobs in the country. Tamil Nadu’s transformation into a manufacturing powerhouse speaks to the importance of coordination mechanisms in industrial policy.

How Mexico Doubled the Minimum Wage

The minimum wage in Mexico has more than doubled in real terms over the last six years. This is no small feat, especially if we take into account that the policy neither led to feared job losses nor price increases. How did Mexico manage to accomplish this? The answer lies in the monopsonistic nature of Mexico’s economy, and the skewed balance of power between employers and labor.

Lula’s Fiscal Cage

Among the factors securing Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s victorious return to power in the 2022 Brazilian presidential elections, the most important was the promise to increase government spending. But two years later, disputes over the public budget already show that through the new rule the progressive fiscal agenda that brought Lula back to power has shot itself in the foot.

Military Unification?

The institutionalization of European defense policy has navigated tenuous terms since the Treaty of Rome and the formation of the EU. Concerns over national sovereignty have typically stood in the way of a coherent supranational industrial policy and effective defense coordination, leading to redundancies in both defense contracting and the common market. Today, faced with the pressures of the Ukraine war in the east and Trump's America First policies in the west, the EU is making a bid to overcome its paradoxical status quo through coordinated defense spending.

Rebuilding the Kingdom

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s Saudi Vision 2030 promises to transform the oil power’s economy and society. The plan has prompted an enormous wave on construction—in just a few years, Saudi Arabia is poised to host the largest construction market in the world. This massive project has significant implications for class relations, financial markets, and Saudi Arabia’s place in the world.

After Seville 

The fourth UN Financing for Development conference, which concluded in Seville earlier this month, was a high-stakes event. The climate crisis is accelerating while climate commitments are weakening; official development assistance is shrinking while debt service is eviscerating poor countries’ education and health budgets. The negotiated outcome from the conference, known as the “Seville Compromiso,” is a mixed bag.

Fentanyl, Avocados, and Tariffs

In 2022, the US accounted for 98.8 percent of reported global seizures of non-prescription fentanyl. Supply-focused policies over the last few years have only intensified the violence associated with the trade. As fentanyl production has shifted from China to Mexico, the drug remains central to reignited geopolitical tensions in North America.

Rearming Europe

The main justification for the EU’s recent dramatic reorientation toward defense is the proliferation of threats to European security emerging from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But rather than defense or growth, ReArm Europe aims to enhance Europe’s geopolitical power and prestige within a volatile international order.

Technolatinas

The past decade has seen the proliferation of new consumer-oriented technology companies across Latin America. Yet despite their significant market growth, these “technolatinas” remain largely dependent on the digital infrastructures owned and operated by companies like Google, Amazon, and Alibaba. This has produced profound technological and market asymmetries that ultimately reinforce the longstanding economic power imbalances between the North and South.

BRICS in 2025

Within the BRICS group, two competing global models of energy, growth, and influence. The future of the world’s majority will be decided by the pace of the contest between green technologies and fossil fuels.

Monetizing Primacy

On the question of the dollar, Trump administration policy can be characterized as confused. It wants a weak dollar to spur reindustrialization in the US and a strong dollar to offset any inflationary pass-through from tariffs. But it is also determined to retain the centrality of the dollar in the international monetary system, even though several key administration officials believe—mistakenly—that dollar centrality leads to undesirable dollar strength. 

Dismantling an Energy Giant

Since assuming office in May 2022, Costa Rican president Rodrigo Chaves has announced his intentions to revamp the country’s electricity sector. By October, his government had given private companies a more prominent role in the currently state-dominated energy sector, both in electricity generation and transmission.

Pay Equity at Kroger

After the Southern California supermarket strike of 2003–2004, Kroger Co. and the UFCW compromised on a two-tier provision preserving current employee benefits and pay, but reducing both for new hires. Since then UFCW locals have struggled to reverse the effects of the compromise. Generational divides and occupational segregation within and between grocery stores have handicapped worker solidarity in the supermarket industry.

Industrial Policy and Imperial Realignment

More than 2500 industrial policies were recorded in 2023, but they are being deployed asymmetrically across the global economy. The pace at which advanced economies and less-developed countries are adopting industrial policies is diverging, with the former better positioned to take advantage of the current period of turbulent change.