What Do We Learn about Capitalism from Chip War?
Chip War (Simon and Schuster, 2022) by Chris Miller is a detailed accounting of the U.S. efforts to retain control of the computer chip industry—an industry that has become vital to nearly all aspects of modern life. Rahul Varman explores and expands on these themes, asking all the while: What can the escalating wars over this crucial technology teach us about global capitalism? | more…
Platform Company Dominance and Labor Struggles in the Digital Economy: The Case of South Korea
Kyung-Pil Kim charts the history of the Korean platform economy through the rise of Naver and Kakao, the major firms dominating the markets. How do these companies operate? How did they achieve dominance? Finally, what are recent developments and challenges of labor organizing in this sphere? | more…
‘Ballad of an American’: The Illustrious Life of Paul Robeson, Newly Illustrated
Michael Yates reviews Ballad of an American, a newly released graphic biography of Black actor, singer, and activist Paul Robeson. The book gives an uncompromising look at a complicated, passionate man, wholly dedicated to the cause of liberation. | more…
October 2023 (Volume 75, Number 6)
At the center of the United States’s New Cold War MR editors write, is the World Trade Organization, “the crown jewel of the liberal international order.” After China’s admittance into the WTO did not lead to the collapse of socialism in that country, presidents from Obama to Biden have gutted the institution and escalated the tariff war, all in the name of protecting the so-called rules-based international order. | more…
Marxian Ecology, East and West: Joseph Needham and a Non-Eurocentric View of the Origins of China’s Ecological Civilization
Following the work of scientist and Sinologist Joseph Needham, this talk by John Bellamy Foster illuminates the conceptual linkages between the ancient Greek and Chinese thought and modern dialectical materialism and ecological civilization. This interweaving of intellectual traditions, he writes, has created a “powerful organic ecological-materialist philosophy.” | more…
China’s Health and Health Care in the “New Era”
What is the state of health care in China? Wei Zhang analyzes the deep institutional issues that plague China’s health care system. Despite its timely and effective efforts to mitigate the COVID-19 crisis, the system still faces deep-seated challenges, many of which can be traced directly to the marketization of hospitals and medical care. | more…
Relative Pauperization and Involution in Contemporary China: A Survey of Jingzhou City
There is a growing sense in China, Alex Witherspoon, Amir Khan, and Yu Zhou write, that the timeworn methods of social advancement are yielding diminishing returns. Using an original survey of 301 individuals in Jingzhou City, the authors lay bare the roots of this widespread feeling of involution. | more…
Unequal Value Transfer from Mexico to the United States
Matteo Crossa reveals the true nature of unequal value transfer from Mexico to the United States. Going beyond a simple tally of wages lost versus remittances, Crossa’s research demonstrates the true magnitude of the value stolen from Mexico, negating the claim that its manufacturing sector is a boon to the Mexican working class. | more…
A Nation of Guns
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz reviews Bloodbath Nation, a poignant exploration of the painful, studiously ignored truths about gun culture in the U.S. To grapple with the epidemic of gun violence, she writes, requires confronting deeper truths about white supremacy, settler-colonialism, and the U.S. history of enslavement. | more…
Out of kilter
A new poem by Marge Piercy. | more…
September 2023 (Volume 75, Number 4)
What is the New Washington Consensus? In this month’s Notes from the Editors, MR editors discuss Washington’s fundamental shift in its approach to China, moving from an emphasis on neoliberal globalization toward a new, more aggressive policy pursuing U.S. military and industrial supremacy. | more…
What Every Child Should Know about Marx’s Theory of Value
Michael Lebowitz expounds on the simple truths found in Marx’s theory of value—truths that, nonetheless, have been obscured by decades of incomplete theorizing that has failed to make key distinctions in the relationship between labor, value, and money. | more…
The Double Objective of Democratic Ecosocialism
Humanity in this moment faces two major crises: one ecological, growing more acute with every planetary boundary passed; the other social, leading to deprivation and despair across the globe. An effective ecosocialist approach to these crises, Jason Hickel writes, must aim to resolve both in a single stroke. | more…