September 2026
Dear Friend of Monthly Review,
The overriding issue in the United States today is “the affordability crisis,” highlighting the class nature of society for all to see. Yet, while there are innumerable ongoing discussions of the worsening conditions of those at the bottom of society, serious explanations of how these conditions came about—beyond references to inflation, war, and government spending—much less what to do about them, are entirely absent in establishment discourse. The reason for this of course is that in order to address the affordability crisis in a serious way, a critique of present-day capitalism is necessary, something that is completely out of the question for ruling-class circles.
In contrast, Monthly Review has been committed to such a critique since the magazine’s inception. As far back as Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy’s Monopoly Capital in 1966, now marking its sixtieth anniversary, Monthly Review editors and writers have argued that the normal state of the mature monopoly capitalist economy is stagnation, combining slow growth with rising excess capacity and declining employment opportunities. Since the 1970s, when the post-Second World War boom ended, the rate of growth in the United States and other core capitalist economies has been slowly declining decade by decade. The means used to counter this prolonged stagnation—among them military spending, a gargantuan sales effort, and financialization—have been only partly successful and have in turn added further contradictions to the general economic malaise.
Yet, despite this sluggish growth, the rich have been growing richer at an accelerating rate, to the point that the economy is now dominated in every sector, particularly tech and finance, by a small number of billionaires and even centibillionaires. What explains this rapid increase in wealth at the top of society while the overall economy is stagnating? The answer is straightforward: If we think of the economy each year as a single income pie, and if the size of this pie grows only very marginally from year to year, then some people can claim much larger pieces only if others are receiving much smaller pieces.
This is essentially what has been happening. In May 2023, Fred Magdoff and I wrote an article for Monthly Review entitled “Grand Theft Capital: The Increasing Exploitation and Robbery of the Working Class” (now expanded into a book published by Monthly Review Press). We showed (based on a RAND Corporation study) that if income growth in the United States had followed an equitable pattern between 1975 and 2018, with everyone retaining their same share of the pie, the bottom 90 percent of the population would have received a cumulative $47 trillion more in pretax income over the entire period than they actually received.
On top of this grand theft of income, the financialization process has allowed corporations to shift costs across society in their favor. Just think of healthcare, housing, insurance, education, and pensions—not to mention taxes. Today, taking out a mortgage on a typical home in the
United States requires an annual income tens of thousands of dollars more than the median household income, putting the purchase of a home all but out of reach for the working class.
The affordability crisis might seem to have a straightforward solution: simply reverse course and enact reforms that would make the country affordable again. Class struggles are now breaking out all over the United States with that very goal in mind.
But the worsening conditions of workers in recent decades are not due simply to the excesses of monopoly-finance capital or ruling-class greed. Rather, this crisis is integral to the entire present system of exploitation, accumulation, waste, and destruction. With U.S. hegemony over the world economy in rapid decline, we see increased recourse to the exercise of military power and financial extortion. The result is a war without end: capitalism’s ultimate solution. Meanwhile, so-called artificial intelligence, touted as a panacea for the world’s problems, instead points to higher monopoly rents while displacing tens of millions of workers; devouring untold amounts of rare minerals, energy, and water; and accelerating carbon emissions. It therefore promises to undermine the livelihoods of workers everywhere while heightening the planetary ecological crisis threatening life on the planet.
Under these circumstances, there is no genuine solution to the affordability crisis in and of itself that does not also require confronting the “Global Structural Crisis of Capital”—the subject of Monthly Review’s July–August 2026 issue. Such a response requires nothing less than a movement toward socialism aimed at the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large. It is this understanding, and an abiding hope for humanity, that lies at the core of Monthly Review magazine, together with Monthly Review Press. But to continue this important work, we need your help.
It is important to note that the affordability crisis confronts not only individuals but publishers as well. The costs of paper, printing, mailing, and shipping—to name but a few of the components of our work—rise unabated. More than ever, we are making a strong appeal to you to provide us with the financial help we need to keep operating by becoming a supporting member at whatever level you can. Our voice survives in large part due to the support of our Associates, something that has been true since the earliest years of Monthly Review.
If you are already an Associate, please renew, if possible, at a higher level. Raise your contribution and become a Sustainer, Friend, or Benefactor. The benefits of membership include a one-year subscription to Monthly Review, a 50 percent discount on all MR Press books for a period of one year, and a free book. In return we will continue to do what we have in the past—to address the structural crises of capitalism and humanity’s necessary struggle for a socialist world order.
Please help us now in whatever way you can.
In solidarity,
John Bellamy Foster