International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

Global profits: an upward turn?

Michael Roberts — 2026-06-17T14:25:13Z

At the end of 2025, corporate profits in the major economies accelerated after stagnating in 2024. The global figure below is calculated from a weighted (by GDP) average of profits in the US, UK, Japan, Germany and China (taken from national accounts and in national currencies).

- Features / Economy, Features

Liberation day

Michael Roberts — 2025-04-03T08:43:27Z

It's not April Fools day (1 April). But it might as well be as later today US President Donald Trump announces another barrage of tariffs on imports into the US in what Trump calls ‘Liberation Day' and what America's voice of big business and finance, the Wall Street journal, has called “the dumbest trade war in history.”

- IVP603 - April 2025 / United States (USA), Economy

BRICS: getting bigger, but is it any stronger?

Michael Roberts — 2023-08-25T09:47:16Z

The three-day summit of the BRICS leaders ends today. [1] The BRICS are Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Russian leader Putin was not present in person – he has plenty on his plate already!

- IV583 - August 2023 / Economy

Saito: the metabolic rift and de-growth communism

Michael Roberts — 2023-01-06T10:58:53Z

Kohei Saito is an associate professor at Tokyo University and an erudite Marxist scholar. Not a candidate for a best-seller in the non-fiction book world, you might think. But you would be wrong in this case.

- Reviews section / Marxism, Ecology and the Environment, Economy, Reviews

Can global capitalism endure?

Michael Roberts — 2023-01-06T10:58:32Z

Can global capitalism endure? William Robinson tries to answer this question in his book entitled with the same question. Robinson is professor of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In a fast-moving account, Robinson covers a lot of ground in offering the reader a vision of the global capitalist crisis and the accompanying international conflagration.

- Reviews section / Economy

The Crash after the Sugar Rush

Ashley Smith, Michael Roberts — 2022-10-30T13:51:30Z

“We need to end all the destructive wars that we have seen in the Twenty-First century in Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine, sub-Saharan Africa; and more to come perhaps in central Asia. Not only does this mean the loss of lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions, but it is also a massive waste of resources and a huge hit to the environment.”

- IV573 - October 2022 / Economy

A Trump boom?

Michael Roberts — 2016-12-09T05:59:37Z

The US stock market continues to jump and has now reached a record high.

- IV503 - December 2016 / United States (USA), Economy

Testing Trumponomics

Michael Roberts — 2016-11-30T07:45:44Z

Before Donald Trump was elected, stock markets went down every time he improved in the public opinion polls. Finance capital did not want him to win. But since his surprise election, stock markets have not slumped. On the contrary, they have risen substantially along with a strengthening dollar. It seems that ‘the Donald' could be a good thing for Capital after all.

- IV502 - November 2016 / United States (USA), Economy, Japan