Nautilus Solar Energy and

SunDurance Energy to Build

Solar Power Facility at

William Paterson University

WAYNE, N.J., Jan. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- William Paterson University ("WPU"), Nautilus Solar Energy, LLC ("Nautilus Solar") and SunDurance Energy, LLC ("SunDurance") announced today an agreement to build the largest solar energy facility at a university in the United States. The 3.5 MW solar energy project ("Project") will comprise of rooftop and parking lot solar installations on the WPU campus in Wayne, New Jersey. The first 3 MW phase is expected to go on-line during the summer of 2010; the remaining 500 kW is expected to go on-line in early 2011.

"Nautilus Solar is proud to support WPU's leadership in sustainability by supplying low cost clean solar power," said Nautilus Solar CEO James M. Rice.

Nautilus Solar will finance, own and operate the solar facility under a 15-year Power Purchase Agreement ("PPA"), through which WPU will purchase a renewable energy source at a reduced rate without any upfront costs. The solar power system is expected to reduce WPU's energy costs by $4.3 million over the 15-year term. The Project will be designed and constructed by SunDurance Energy, a leading NJ based solar system installer. Nautilus Solar will fund the installation in part through a loan provided by New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

Stephen Bolyai, WPUNJ's Vice President for Administration and Finance, states, "This project will be a landmark project for the University. In addition to reducing our energy costs and carbon footprint, the solar facility will provide excellent learning opportunities to our students."

Reviving

Keynesianism:

A Critique

By Rick Wolff

The global crisis has undermined the neo-liberalist phase of capitalism that dominated the last 30 years of the world economy.  It has likewise challenged the hegemony of neo-classical economics as the theoretical rationale of neo-liberalism's celebration of private enterprise and markets.  The form this challenge takes is a revival of Keynesian economics.  As the crisis requires states everywhere again to intervene in the "private" economy -- and massively this time -- Keynesian economics provides much of the rationale and many of the prescriptions of what the state should do.

Of course, different interpretations of Keynes (as of Marx) have always contested with one another.  Multiple interpretations emerged because of pressures upon Keynesians from both the left (those who criticized them for "saving" capitalism) and the right (those who attacked them for "threatening" capitalism).  What matters are the stakes among contesting Keynesianisms, the social consequences that flow from the hegemony of one versus another of them.  How are we to understand differences and overlaps between Keynesianisms and Marxisms?  What political alliances might be crafted between some Keynesians and some Marxists?

Forget Rio - Austin Kids Headed to Spain

Students to learn self-empowerment

Photo: Bon voyage: Good grades and recommendations from teaches landed eight students from Austin Polytechnical Academy, a Chicago public high school, a chance to study in Spain.

By LA RISA LYNCH,

Contributing Reporter
October 07, 2009

Good grades and recommendations from teachers garnered eight lucky Austin Polytechnical Academy students a chance to study abroad. And the country of choice is where Nikki Green, 16, has dreamed about going ever since she was little.

"I always wanted to go to Spain," said Green, a junior at the academy.

Her aunt often traveled to Spain and would bring back mementos from the places she visited. Green hoped her group's nine-day trip would include a stop in Barcelona. But she will have to settle for Madrid instead.

"I'm excited," she said. "I can't wait."

Students embark on their journey today.

The trip to Spain is not your usual study abroad program. The kids will have a chance to learn the Spanish language and explore the country's history and culture while touring Madrid, Segovia and Toledo. But they will also look at how creating jobs in manufacturing revitalized one small Spanish town nearly devastated by civil war.

Students will spend five days in Madrid and then four in Mondragon, located in the Basque region in northern Spain. They'll stay in a local university dormitory while visiting a manufacturing cooperative that contributes to much of Spain's economy. The area of Mondragon is an allegory for the Austin community, said Erica Swinney-Stein, director of community programs at Center for Labor and Community Research, which is sponsoring the trip.

Photo: Green Transit via Light Rail

GM's Tragedy:

The System

Strikes Back

By Rick Wolff

Rethinking Marxism

June 15, 2009 - The greatest tragedies among many in the collapse and bankruptcy of General Motors concern what is not happening.  There are those solutions to GM's problems not being considered by Obama's administration.  There are the solutions not being demanded by the United Auto Workers Union (UAW).  There are all the solutions not even being discussed by most left commentators on the disaster.  Finally there are crucial aspects of GM's demise not getting the attention they deserve.

Let's start with an example of the last.  For 50 years, the world market for automobiles has grown spectacularly.  The company best positioned to have ridden that rising tide to success was GM, the global market leader for most of that time.  Instead, GM failed catastrophically.  Those responsible, who planned, adjusted, and competed poorly, have a name.  They are the corporation's Board of Directors: the handful of individuals chosen by and responsible to the handful of major GM shareholders.  That Board and those shareholders proved across decades that they lacked the understanding, vision, and flexibility to succeed.  A rising tide is supposed to lift all boats, but GM's captains managed to sink its boat.

Gramsci, Economic Theory of

Worker Cooperatives and the

Transition to a Socialist Economy

By Bruno Jossa

Economics, University of Naples

1. Introduction

In this paper we intend to discuss the problems arising in connection with the transition from capitalism to a system of producer cooperatives, i.e. to a system of self-managed democratic firms. This subject will be addressed against the backdrop of the ideas of Gramsci, a major theorist of workers' councils and probably the one Marxist thinker whose work has outlived the collapse of state socialism in the Soviet Union (see Buttigieg, 1995, p.105 and Baratta, 1999, p. 3).(1)

The problem is interesting because in the literature on possible forms of market socialism, the intermediate period between capitalism and socialism has received little attention right to this day. This is all the more surprising if we bear in mind that analyses of the transitional period used to occupy centre-stage in most of the debates on classical issues such as state socialism and the viability of the socialism-in-one-country option. Preliminarily, we wish to point out that, in our opinion, the transition must come about by democratic means and that we will lay particular stress on the query why Gramsci did not accept the idea that the market is a necessary option in the long-term transition to communism. Traditionally, the term 'transition' is used to describe a "shift from one production mode to another". (more...)

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