1999
Robert Brenner,
The Economics of Global Turbulence: A Special Report on the World Economy, 1950-98 (Special issue of
New Left Review, no. 229, May/June 1998), 262 pp.
It is tempting perhaps to attribute all the problems of capitalism to excessive competition. After all, capitalism is generally presented within contemporary ideology as a system which is nothing more than a set of competitive relations governed by the market. Is it not possible then that the economic contradictions of capitalism, and indeed the present world crisis, can be explained in terms of the globalization of competition which now knows no bounds, and is undermining all fixed positions, resulting in a kind of free fall? This seems to be the view of the distinguished Marxist historian and social theorist Robert Brenner in his ambitious attempt to account for the present global economic turbulence | more…
Two years ago, the tectonic plates of the world economy shifted. Within a matter of months, the crisis in Thailand had engulfed East Asia. Global financial markets were rocked a year later when Russia defaulted on forty billion dollars in foreign loans. Just as markets were starting to shrug that one off, economic panic hit Brazil this January, sending stock markets crashing and knocking down the country’s currency, the real, more than 40 percent. Pundits are no longer asking if another country will be next, but who will be next | more…
This issue marks our fiftieth anniversary. We’re sure our readers don’t need to be told about the odds against a socialist magazine surviving through this particular half century. We began at a time when socialism was a dirty word in the United States, and we’re still here today, in fact growing again, after a decade in which people have been abandoning socialism in droves. | more…
A Socialist Magazine in the American Century
In a human life, attainment of the fiftieth year, while cause for reflection, is nothing exceptional, statistically speaking. For a magazine of the American left, fifty years is a veritable eternity. Simply to reach the age is a stunning achievement | more…
The twentieth anniversary issue of Monthly Review in May 1969 carried the announcement that Harry Magdoff—the independent economist-had officially joined Paul Sweezy as co-editor, replacing Leo Huberman, who had died in 1968
What a fuss people made about the recent Olympics scandal. You would think the existence of bribery and corruption in the sporting world came as a great revelation, and that people had reason to expect the Olympic games to be immune to practices that are widespread not only in sports but in other commercial enterprises on this global scale.…But there’s still something interesting to talk about here—not so much about the specific case of the Olympics scandal but about the whole idea of corruption. There is something interesting about the moral indignation we’ve been hearing. For that matter, the very notion of corruption is a curious one, really. What does it actually mean? | more…
In his speech from the dock, at his 1962 trial for inciting African workers
to strike and leaving the country without a passport, Nelson Mandela described
the initial formation of his political ideas: | more…
In Zimbabwe, is a post-nationalist politics propelled by progressive currents finally on the horizon? Has fatigue associated with the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union’s (ZANU’s) malgovernance and economic mistakes finally reached a breaking point? If so, do these developments reflect a general dynamic in the broader social struggle against the globalized, neoliberal form international capitalism now takes? Will a new labor party emerge as the organizational basis for popular aspirations? | more…
If the United States has ever had a “welfare state,” Social Security must surely be the heart of it. In the world’s most predatory capitalism, this is the closest thing to a humane and equitable institution. An International Monetary Fund (IMF) study has even suggested (but who trusts the IMF?) that the U.S. state pension system is more redistributive than the one in social democratic Sweden. What, then, should we make of Clinton’s proposal for “rescuing” the system? | more…
The Chinese character for “crisis” combines the ideas of danger and opportunity. In the span of about one year, a regional economic “miracle,” with its promise of continued high economic growth and opportunity for all, was transformed into a severe regional, and potentially global, economic collapse. It has seriously endangered the livelihood of millions of people, causing untold misery and suffering | more…
Back in December, while the January issue was going to press, the U.S. and Britain were bombing Iraq, and Congress was impeaching Bill Clinton. Our publication schedule spares us the temptation to say the first thing that comes into our heads when a major news story breaks. But sober reflection hasn’t changed our first reaction: if Clinton were being impeached for bombing Iraq, it wouldn’t be hard to support his removal from office—though if all U.S. presidents were fired for their imperialist adventures, impeachment would now be as normal and regular a political event as election | more…
Challenging the Audacity of Capital
I will address some aspects of globalization in our time and what they mean for working people. I will start with some general definitions and suggest that the most significant features of what is called globalization have always been part of capitalist development, even if the forms are different in different periods (including our own). I will then discuss the arrogance of capital as it tries to remake our world in its preferred image. In this regard, I will contrast U.S. initiatives in the area of labor standards with worker demands for labor rights. I will then consider the institutions of an internationalized capitalist regime, which seeks to impose itself using vehicles such as the International Monetary Fund and the proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment. Finally, I will talk about resistance | more…
In the academic social sciences, students are taught to think of culture as representing the customs and mores of a society, including its language, art, laws, and religion. Such a definition has a nice neutral sound to it, but culture is anything but neutral. Much of what is thought to be our common culture is the selective transmission of class-dominated values. Antonio Gramsci understood this when he spoke of class hegemony, noting that the state is only the “outer ditch behind which there [stands] a powerful system of fortresses and earthworks,” a network of cultural values and institutions not normally thought of as political | more…