Tim Beal dives into the critical role that the Korean Peninsula plays in U.S. strategy for maintaining power in the Indo-Pacific. The United States, he concludes, has long used its position on the peninsula to advance U.S. interests in the Pacific theater, aiming its most recent efforts against the rise of China and Russia. | more…
In this forcefully argued piece, Dae-Han Song presents an overview of the past few decades of U.S. policy on the Korean Peninsula and its continued refusal to engage meaningfully with any peace process between the artificially separated North and South. The article ends with a series of demands that look toward a future of peace on the peninsula. | more…
Iqra Angurah elucidates the strategic role in the Indo-Pacific in the context of the New Cold War and, in particular, the country’s close ties to the forces of multinational capital and Western imperialism. The alignment of the Global North and local elites underscores the need for a popular, socialist, and anti-imperialist movement among the Indonesian working class. | more…
As the world hurtles toward planetary catastrophe, driven in large part by the unchecked burning of fossil fuels in the Global North, China has emerged as a leader in renewable energy. This dynamic, Julie de los Reyes and Jewellord Nem Singh contend, mirrors China’s ascendance in many sectors, revealing “the glaring failure of the liberal international order to address pressing social and environmental issues.” | more…
The Myth of Black Capitalism, Earl Ofari Hutchinson reflects on the relevance of his work more than fifty years after its initial publication. Even despite the promotion of wealthy Black individuals as model capitalists and COVID recovery schemes purported to help Black entrepreneurs, “Little had changed except the desperation of countless numbers of near penniless, distressed Black small business owners.” | more…
The MR editors revisit the words of Monthly Review editors Harry Magdoff and Paul M. Sweezy, writing in the twenty-fifth-year anniversary issue. Writing on the innate contradictions plaguing the capitalist system, the editors in 1974 noted that the ecological limitations of capital accumulation was “unsolvable” under capitalism, thus setting the stage for the magazine’s continued exploration of ecosocialism as humanity’s future. | more…
For our seventy-fifth anniversary issue, John Bellamy Foster revisits the legacy of Albert Einstein and his deep connections to Monthly Review, including his authorship of the article “Why Socialism?,” published in our first-ever issue in May 1949. Through historical documents and the famed physicist’s own words, Foster rediscovers Einstein’s commitment to socialism in both word and deed, and his collegial ties to MR‘s founding editors. | more…
Over six months into to Israel’s atrocity-filled assault on Gaza, Laurence Shoup digs deep to reveal a rarely discussed—but enormously influential—force within the Israel Lobby: the Council on Foreign Relations. The CFR, he writes, is more than just Wall Street’s think tank; it is an elite network of Zionist politicians and donors who comprise a significant part of the Israel lobby and the continuing U.S. commitment to funding Israel’s genocidal actions in Palestine. | more…
The International Monetary Fund, part of the Bretton Woods Agreement that helped establish the current rules of the U.S.-dominated international capitalist system, claims to aim for a world of prosperity through so-called free trade. In Latin America, David Barkin and Juan Santarcángelo write, the IMF has contributed to the impoverishment of the working class and destruction of these countries’ ecological legacies. But what does the future hold for the IMF in Latin America? | more…
In a December 2023 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Richard Haass, former special assistant to H. W. Bush, declared that the world has descended into a “new world disorder,” lamenting the long-lost dream of unending U.S. hegemony. This month’s “Notes from the Editors” reflects on not only Haass’s recent statements, but his longstanding advocacy of an “Imperial America” designed to ensure U.S. domination on the world stage. | more…
A new poem by Marge Piercy. | more…
Paul Burkett’s death on January 7, 2024, at age 67, means that the world is suddenly bereft of the figure who played the leading role over the last three decades in developing a Marxist ecological economics in the face of the growing planetary crisis. His loss leaves ecological Marxism without its foremost exponent of the ecological critique of capitalist value relations. It also means the loss of a warm and compassionate human being, and a beloved jazz musician. | more…