It is crucial to understand how radically Mészáros’s critique of the state, viewed in this way, differs from liberal theories of the state, as well as from more critical/social-democratic approaches struggling to operate within the parameters established by the hegemonic liberal- democratic theory…. | more…
When you defy the imperial, capitalist American state, when you denounce the crimes done to its own people, especially the poor, immigrants, and African Americans, as well as the crimes it commits abroad, when you have a global audience in the tens of millions that admires and respects you for your courage and integrity, when you cannot be intimidated or bought off, then you are targeted for destruction…. | more…
How do we get there? The text notes the role of U.S. imperialism and the imperialism of other capitalist powers in promoting Israel’s domination of Palestinians. The leadership role of Palestinians, first, and secondarily, of Jews, in the anti-Zionist struggle is evident in this volume. However, it will take a broad anti-imperialist movement supported by the working class of the capitalist countries if Zionism is to be defeated… | more…
With few exceptions, Jewish children reared in religiously observant households are taught to revere Israel as a place of respite and safety, a country whose intrepid founders made “a desert bloom.” What’s more, they’re taught that the area was a perfect set up, “a land without people for a people without land.” This, of course, is a complete fabrication. | more…
In this past week, we Palestinians have been shocked time and again, realising that the global community has been gaslighting us for years…. | more…
With Germany pledging to re-arm, we also witness the shortsightedness of world imperialism, which refuses to learn the lessons of the 20th century, especially the catastrophe of world war ending with the uncovering of industrial funeral pyres in 1945. Not only Washington but London, Brussels and Paris should be shuddering right now…. | more…
The widespread shortfall in retirement income is the result of a bipartisan effort going back decades to move our savings away from traditional pensions to accounts like 401(k)s that enrich the financial services industry at our expense. | more…
The economic expansion just prior to the pandemic seemed to justify optimism about inequality. But Covid-19 showed just how little grounds there were for optimism. The pandemic demonstrated how poorly prepared for such a crisis a society could be that fails to provide universal, high-quality health care to a significant proportion of its population, as the case and death rates in the United States have demonstrated… | more…
Those who berate Zionism’s critics—and undoubtedly will target this book—often complain we are unfairly “singling out” Israel. Quite the contrary is true. A main purpose of A Land With A People, and of this historical introduction, is to show how Zionism is of a piece with many other cases of settler colonialism and racism…. | more…
Patnaik and Patnaik unpick the realities of capitalism: First, as thriving on exogenous rather than endogenous stimuli––namely colonialism followed by state intervention after the Second World War––thus negating its capacity to be self-contained and perpetual; and second, leading to high unemployment through deindustrialization and land grabs for export crops and property accumulation which push petty producers and peasants into joblessness. | more…
March is the month to dig in to Mészáros. Join “Essential Discussions” with Irv Kurki, or The Marxist Education Project’s “Capital Studies Group” respectively focusing on ‘Beyond Leviathan’ and ‘The Necessity of Social Control.’ | more…
Were the original rifts within the French left in Henri Lefebvre’s and Louis Althusser’s time, so genuine and lasting that these two figures could not themselves have overcome them? | more…
…might offer, even further, one route out of the disciplinary cul de sac that is ‘economics’ strictu sensu when it comes to an analysis of capitalism as a historically specific economic form and mode of social reproduction…. | more…