Tag Archives: Capitalism

It’s not about the baggie

Posted on March 4, 2015 by rustichello

It seems certain that Andrew Chan and Myu Sukumaran will be executed over the next few days, and there’s no question that executing them is a greater crime than importing all the heroin in the entire golden triangle. It’s a simple … Continue reading →

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stop making sense

Posted on September 21, 2014 by rustichello

Earlier this year, or perhaps late last year, a correspondent, one of my boon companions from my undergraduate years, asked me where Marx went wrong. It wasn’t that broad a question in the asking but over time and consideration it … Continue reading →

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the deployment of loathing

Posted on November 5, 2013 by rustichello

It might just be me but has anyone else noticed that Rebekah Brooks’ hair gets redder and redder, even when it’s just file footage? I’ve been wondering about this. It feels symptomatic of something being not quite right about the … Continue reading →

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we don’t need no stinking badges

Posted on May 21, 2013 by rustichello

International education is big business, no, more than that it is an enormous business. For providers of higher education the international student market is a Golden Hind full of doubloons slowly making its way across the oceans to the (Vice) … Continue reading →

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we on the sofa

Posted on March 5, 2013 by rustichello

The final scene in John Sayles’ Eight Men Out features John Cusack (as Buck Weaver) sitting on some bleachers watching a not even minor league baseball game. He’s watching the center-fielder and listening to some fans make small talk about who the center-fielder is, … Continue reading →

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Boo Radley’s house

Posted on February 5, 2013 by rustichello

Gentrification is old news, it’s been going on for a long time, but not in my neighbourhood, at least not until recently. I’m part of it, we got our place fixed up, and we’ve done the renovation thing. Nice kitchen, a cleanable … Continue reading →

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on a level playing field…

Posted on January 18, 2013 by rustichello

Late last year US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, crossed the Pacific and came to hang out with her Australian counterparts. At a news conference in Perth she said that the rise of China, in the context of the political … Continue reading →

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empire building

Posted on December 5, 2012 by rustichello

Deep in the dark recesses of the early seventies a man named Michael Oliver, a real estate entrepreneur from Nevada, formed a libertarian organization called the Phoenix Foundation. The foundation was motivated by a bog-standard post sixties vision: freedom from … Continue reading →

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Below Stairs

Posted on December 3, 2012 by rustichello

“all my life in domestic service I’ve found that employers were always greatly concerned with your moral welfare. They couldn’t have cared less about your physical welfare; so long as you were able to do the work, it didn’t matter in the least to them whether … Continue reading →

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the market ate my homework

Posted on November 28, 2012 by rustichello

So here’s a whinge, an unreconstructed rant really: markets are inventions. We make them, we devise them, we regulate them, and we invoke them as tikis to an all-powerful naturalizing force that absolves all of us for the injustices that … Continue reading →

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