Category: Monthly Review Press /

Biology Under the Influence reviewed by the Weekly Worker

February 20, 2024

In this review I discuss one particular chapter of the book, entitled 'Dialectics and systems theory'. Though prolific writers, these two famous research biologists and evolutionists, Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin, are mostly known for their classic, 'The dialectical biologist', a gem more relevant today than when written in 1985. The chapter I am investigating here was written by Levins. When Hegel, Marx or Engels wrote of 'things', they were commenting on the dynamics of everything: all things (matter-energy) are born or emerge (from other things); they live or exist, then decay and die. These things are all that exist - everything is in permanent flux and "all that is solid melts into air" (Communist manifesto).

NEW! Global Imperialism and the Great Crisis: The Uncertain Future of Capitalism by Ernesto Screpanti

February 20, 2024

In this provocative study, economist Ernesto Screpanti argues that imperialism—far from disappearing or mutating into a benign "globalization"—has in fact entered a new phase, which he terms "global imperialism." This is a phase defined by multinational firms cut loose from the nation-state framework and free to chase profits over the entire surface of the globe. No longer dependent on nation-states for building a political consensus that accommodates capital accumulation, these firms seek to bend governments to their will and destroy barriers to the free movement of capital. And while military force continues to play an important role in imperial strategy, it is the discipline of the global market that keeps workers in check by pitting them against each other no matter what their national origin.

Alan Wieder discusses Ruth First & Joe Slovo in the UK

February 20, 2024

Join Alan Wieder, author of Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War against Apartheid, for two upcoming events in London, UK. He will be discussing the book at Housmans Bookshop and presenting at the launch of a special issue of the Review of African Political Economy dedicated to Ruth First.

A Freedom Budget for All Americans reviewed by Counterfire

February 20, 2024

This history of the Freedom Budget offers a challenge to the mainstream retelling of the story of the Civil Rights movement as well as the neoliberal economic agenda. It does this by being an inspiring history of the movement itself and its key characters in their aim to link 'racial justice for African Americans with the goal of economic justice for all Americans' (p.9). By understanding the movement without the diluting and sanitizing effects of mainstream historians, it offers an insight into victories, defeats and individuals, altogether acting as a siren song to call activists to action. At the same time, the authors offer a concrete vision of what a 'different, more egalitarian and humane society' would look like (p.241). As such, this is a book not just for the historian but for the activist as well. It would make excellent reading for a study or book group, especially the final chapter that suggests a framework for a new Freedom Budget for the neoliberal world.

Lettuce Wars author Bruce Neuburger interviewed on Flashpoints

February 20, 2024

Bruce Neuburger is the author of Lettuce Wars: Ten Years of Work and Struggle in the Fields of California, a memoir of the decade he spent as a farmworker and radical organizer. He was interviewed on Flashpoints, the investigative news program broadcast by KPFA, about the conditions of farmworkers today.

Walter A. Rodney reviewed in the Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History

February 20, 2024

Walter Rodney was born in 1942 in colonial Guyana (then called British Guiana) and died in 1980 in postcolonial Guyana, almost certainly assassinated by the government of Guyana. In a short thirty-eight years, Rodney lived an amazing life, becoming at once a renowned scholar and a brave political activist. After finishing high school in Guyana, Rodney attended the Jamaica campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI). He subsequently obtained a Ph.D. in African history from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.

Steve Early discusses Save Our Unions on Black Sheep Podcast

February 20, 2024

Steve Early, author of Save Our Unions, is interviewed by Andrew Sernatinger and Tessa Echeverria for the Black Sheep Podcast. He discusses his new book, the state of the U.S. labor movement today, prospects for progressive organizing, and more. Click here for a transcript of the interview or follow the link and listen to the entire podcast.

The Work of Sartre reviewed in Science & Society

February 20, 2024

István Mészáros had been a friend and student of Georg Lukács in Hungary. He continues to be an important Marxist philosopher. The Work of Sartre is a carefully argued analysis of Sartre's writings and political commitments, from the 1930s to his death in 1980. Mészáros' position on Sartre is balanced and carefully thought through. He analyzes Sartre's novels, plays, political essays, and biographies as well as his major philosophical works. He also treats Sartre's political activities during the Cold War.

5/7: "Organizing and Winning for Twenty-First Century Movements" Event in Portland, OR

February 20, 2024

Join Johanna Brenner, author of Women and the Politics of Class; Steve Early, author of Save Our Unions; and Arun Gupta, contributor to Socialist Register 2014: Registering Class, for a discussion of "Organizing and Winning for Twenty-First Century Movements" on Wednesday, May 7, 2014, 7:15pm-9:30pm, Portland State University, Smith 238, Portland Oregon.

NEW! The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxian Political Economy (New Edition) by John Bellamy Foster

February 20, 2024

John Bellamy Foster is a leading exponent of the theoretical perspective that continues in the tradition of Baran and Sweezy's Monopoly Capital. This new edition of his essential work, The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism, is a clear and accessible explication of this outlook, brought up to the present, and incorporating an analysis of recently discovered "lost" chapters from Monopoly Capital and correspondence between Baran and Sweezy. It also discusses Magdoff and Sweezy's analysis of the financialization of the economy in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, leading up to the Great Financial Crisis of the opening decade of this century.