The latest Review of the Month, written by Spanish geologist Carles Soriano, considers the implications of idea of the Capitalocene, the historical determinations affecting the study of the Earth Sciences, and how our views of the current planetary crisis are often shaped by inadequate narratives. Current approaches, he writes are “non-dialectic and non-materialist regarding the study of social reproduction modes, and this renders the whole understanding of the planetary crisis not only incomplete but idealist, for the capitalist mode is assumed as absolute rather than historical.” | more…
The perception that we are living in a critical historical period regarding the conditions of habitability on Earth—not only for humans but for many other living organisms too—is gaining more and more adepts among common people, academics, politicians, and social movements. This critical period has been typified as the planetary crisis of the Anthropocene Epoch and studies undertaken in the present century show that habitability on Earth is progressively deteriorating. | more…
Two years after the peak of the 2020 street protests for reproductive rights in Poland, Magdalena Muszel and Grzegorz Piotrowski explore the movement’s effects on Polish society. Despite the dissipating energy of the participants and continued intransigence of most major parties, this cycle of protests shifted the values and political preferences of specific gender and age groups, as well as affecting the common perception of protest movements in Poland. | more…
Bhima Koregaon is that rare sequence in Indian politics today that can challenge reveal the true powers of being able to retroactively “change the past” in order to liberate the future, much in the manner of Marx’s historical materialism. The case, Saroj Giri writes, forces us to revisit the question of historical oppression based on caste from within the present, and beckons us to reject the capitalist accelerationist-futurist “progressive politics” of much of the left, taking us closer to the class struggle of Marx. | more…
In this reprint of the February 1994 “Notes from the Editors,” former MR editors Harry Magdoff and Paul M. Sweezy ask: “The United States could not have won a more decisive victory in the Cold War. Why, then, does it continue to act as though the Cold War is still on?” | more…
Mariko Frame reviews The Future is Degrowth: A Guide to the World Beyond Capitalism, by Matthias Schmelzer, Andrea Vetter, and Aaron Vansintjan (Verso, 2022) and its explorations of the policies, vision, and strategies for social change required for the burgeoning movement. | more…
