When I was still in a 401(k)-like plan and approaching age sixty-five after thirty-seven years of university teaching, I took stock of my future retirement income. I wanted to know what it would look like in terms of achieving the 70 percent of pre-retirement income that retirement experts state is necessary to maintain one’s standard of living… | more…
“In short, the principle is that journalistic organizations will be paid in advance, and what they produce primarily with public monies will be instantly put in the public domain and made available to all for free. The best check on abuses will be popular voting to determine the recipients. The process will be overseen by the U.S. Postal Service, with elections taking place online and with print ballots available at or through the Postal Service. This is a renewal of the Postal Service’s historic mission of sustaining independent and competitive journalism…” | more…
Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked a bizarre question at President Joe Biden’s November 3 press briefing. The president seemed to misunderstand the question, which referred to potential settlements of a lawsuit stemming from the Trump administration’s notorious 2017–18 family separation policy. Biden bungled his response, apparently calling reports about the settlement “garbage.” Not surprisingly, the media ran with the story of Biden’s blunder. Doocy’s question, on the other hand, was mostly ignored or played down…. | more…
It is well-established that African-Americans have sought allies abroad as a way to weaken opposition at home. Often, scholars have tackled this important topic as it manifested during the Cold War. The work at hand emulates previous scholarship in detailing this trend during the antebellum and early postbellum era… | more…
“Marx, Dead and Alive” packs an extraordinary amount into its 184 pages, both historical detail and in contemporizing Marx with multifarious global contexts and examples…. it would make an excellent introduction for someone just starting to grasp Marx and wanting clear definitions of alienation, capital, class, commodity fetishism, value and wage labour – amongst other key concepts…. | more…
In the week before the COP26 international summit, John Bellamy Foster offered a lecture analyzing the climate emergency and how we can achieve climate justice: October 26th at 1 ET | more…
The ongoing debate about reviving the U.S. labor movement tries to grapple with the devastating decline in the union membership rate from one-third of the workforce in the 1950s to less than 11% today. In this discussion, occasionally a book comes along that is a great combination of labor history, thoughtful analysis of union organizing, and suggestions for ways forward. Shaun Richman’s “Tell the Bosses We’re Coming: A New Action Plan for Workers in the Twenty-First Century” is such a book. | more…
Friday, Nov 12th, join John Bellamy Foster and his colleagues Helena Sheehan (Dublin City University, Ireland), and Stefano B. Longo (North Carolina State University, Lund University, Sweden), as they engage in a discussion — chaired by Alfredo Saad Filho — of some of the themes that arise in the 2020 Deutscher Prize Winner, “The Return of Nature.” | more…
The authors begin their introduction to the book on Memorial Day of 2012, when President Barack Obama declared that: ‘Today begins the fiftieth commemoration of our war in Vietnam’ and thereby prompted nation-wide efforts to explore the record of that conflict… | more…
Chester scrutinizes the very jurists, policymakers, and political thinkers who scholars often credit with defending and advancing the cause of civil liberties during and after World War I. Mainstream scholars tend to portray Warren and President Woodrow Wilson as quintessential Progressives. But Chester’s evidence clearly demonstrates their authoritarian tendencies… | more…
“Sensing Injustice” is a modern history of American legal practice…. | more…
Chester argues that free speech must be defended as an absolute principle, decrying any ‘call to suppress the views of those on the radical right’, repeatedly arguing against ‘no platform’ policies. Certainly, the left should oppose repressive state laws, but mobilising against racists and fascists when they attempt to use public space to propagate their agenda is essential. It is a necessary part of any defence of working-class interests. | more…
Particular battles often have a significance that goes beyond the immediate context, of which even the combatants may not be fully aware at the time… The battle between the Kisan movement and the Modi government falls into the same genre. At the most obvious level, it has been seen as a climbdown by the Modi government in the face of the incredible resoluteness shown by the agitating peasants. At another level, it has also been seen as a setback for neoliberalism… | more…