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Marxism

James Needham

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…

Marxism and the Philosophy of Science

Totality: Decades of Debate and the Return of Nature

“How is it,” Helena Sheehan asks, “that classical Marxist authors were able to address such a stunning array of issues”? The answer can be found, she writes, is in the totality of their intellectual efforts: “Marxism is the only intellectual tradition on the scene capable of embracing…what needs to be comprehended to understand and cope with our world.” | more…

Statues of Marx and Engels in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

Frederick Engels: The First Marxist?

In the history of Marxism since Karl Marx’s death, Frederick Engels has cut a controversial figure across the centuries. Through an examination of their correspondence and collaborations, McFarlane presents Engels as not only a stalwart friend and colleague to Marx, but a fascinating organizer, editor, and strategist in his own right. | more…

New! The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis: McCarthyism, Communism, and the Myth of Academic Freedom

The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis tells the true tale of a mathematician who found himself taking an involuntary break from chalking equations to sit opposite a row of self-righteous anti-Communist congressmen at the height of the McCarthy era. Courageously asserting the First Amendment to confront a system rapidly descending into fascism, Davis testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He became one of a small number of left wingers who served time for contempt of Congress. | more…

Racism and the Class Struggle: The Meaning of Black Revolt in the United States

Having just written his groundbreaking book, The American Revolution, Detroit autoworker James Boggs sat down in the early 1960s to continue his study of revolution. Boggs looked at the Black Power uprisings then beginning in the United States within the global context of the overthrow of rightwing puppet regimes in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In Racism and the Class Struggle, Boggs produced thirteen powerful and prescient chapters that wrestled with topics such as the specific character of American capitalism and its intricate relationship to American democracy, the historic mission of the Black revolution in the United States, and the need for the 1960s Black

Monthly Review Volume 75, Number 3 (July-August 2023)

July-August 2023 (Volume 75, Number 3)

Writing at the end of the nineteenth century, Frederick Engels foresaw that without disarmament, Europe would soon be plunged into war. Modern weaponry has made the question of disarmament even more urgent. In this month’s “Notes from the Editors,” the editors put forward the objectives for a contemporary socialist disarmament strategy. | more…

Illustration of Degrowth

Planned Degrowth: Ecosocialism and Sustainable Human Development

In the introduction to this summer’s special issue on “Planned Degrowth,” John Bellamy Foster outlines the major themes of degrowth thought, including, above all, a recognition of the need to challenge current notions of “growth” and “prosperity” and move toward a more sustainable model of human development, one that meets the needs of individuals and communities. This, Foster writes, requires a massive revolutionary shift in the social relations governing the means production and the prioritization of planning our economy around the survival of the species, rather than the endless drive to accumulation that has devastated the planet. | more…

High-speed train at Taichung Station, China

On Technology and Degrowth

There is a common misconception among critics that degrowth proponents do not engage with the question of technology, instead leaving the implementation of technological solutions to the planetary crisis to green growth advocates. Jason Hickel shows that not only is this narrative false, it obscures the possibilities for technology unfettered by capitalism. | more…