May 1, 2026
This month's "Notes from the Editors" dissects recent attacks on historical materialism from so-called social materialism. This way of thinking, the editors write, is profoundly divorced from Marxism, in that it lacks a dialectical foundation and eliminates the ethical domain that is critical to building a revolutionary praxis.
May 1, 2026
John Bellamy Foster takes on sweeping questions of artificial intelligence and its role in today's capitalist society. "The Great Houses of AI are divided against themselves and cannot stand," he writes, "If humanity is to flourish, the forces and relations of production must be revolutionized together…creating a world of sustainable human development."
May 1, 2026
Yiwen Chen dives deep into Frederick Engels's Dialectics of Nature in order to give context to present-day debates surrounding the juxtaposition of the dialectics of nature and Marxist ecology. "It is hardly surprising that Engels's and Marx's ecological ideas are not entirely identical," Chen writes. "Nevertheless, their ideas do possess an inherent consistency."
May 1, 2026
Today, many use the term "circular economy" to describe a shift in the use of industrial waste products in a way that does not challenge the present mode of production. Returning to Marx, Benjamin Selwyn is able to show that this usage of the term is designed to facilitate the acquisitive demands of a capitalist economy, rather than a fundamental shift in resource use.
May 1, 2026
Andy Merrifield reflects on Nikolai Gogol's short story "The Overcoat," tying it to "a distinctively Marxist problematic." In the protagonist of the tale, a Russian counsellor whose life is forever changed by the acquisition of a new overcoat, Merrifield finds a character who, like Marx, knows firsthand what a single coat can tell us about the structures of society.
May 1, 2026
In this review of Ilan Pappé's Israel on the Brink, Tom Mayer considers the famed historian's assessment of the increasingly precarious Zionist state. In the book, Mayer writes, readers will find a thoughtful consideration of the past, present, and potential events that could shape a new vision for Palestine.
April 1, 2026
While the "world is rapidly approaching tipping points that spell irreversible and catastrophic climate change," write The Editors, "we are not seeing the necessary turn from ecological reform to ecological revolution, but rather the rise of ecological reaction.… An absolute no-quarters war from above is now being waged against all political attempts to address climate change." This attack is epitomized by "the Donald Trump administration's goal of removing the 2009 Endangerment Finding of the Clean Air Act that underlies all national climate legislation in the United States." While this tactic is unlikely to succeed, the proliferation of similar attacks clearly demonstrate that "[m]onopoly-finance capital has now abandoned the energy transition, which was its only answer to climate change."
April 1, 2026
What is really happening in Xinjiang? Vijay Prashad and Tings Chak write: "There is no evidence of a policy of physical annihilation of the Uyghur peoples by the Chinese government, unlike say, direct evidence of extermination by the Israeli government against the occupied Palestinian people. There are no mass graves and no accusations of systematic killing—the hallmarks of a genocide."
April 1, 2026
This article examines the resurgence of interest in Mao Zedong among China's youth, particularly at elite universities. This "Mao fever" reflects a complex mindset: indignation toward social inequality, uncertainty within a brutal job market, and a firm anti-imperialist and patriotic stance amidst the "New Cold War." In Mao’s legacy, a new generation is finding the guidance to navigate the sharpening contradictions of the present day.