At the center of the United States’s New Cold War MR editors write, is the World Trade Organization, “the crown jewel of the liberal international order.” After China’s admittance into the WTO did not lead to the collapse of socialism in that country, presidents from Obama to Biden have gutted the institution and escalated the tariff war, all in the name of protecting the so-called rules-based international order. | more…
Matteo Crossa reveals the true nature of unequal value transfer from Mexico to the United States. Going beyond a simple tally of wages lost versus remittances, Crossa’s research demonstrates the true magnitude of the value stolen from Mexico, negating the claim that its manufacturing sector is a boon to the Mexican working class. | more…
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz reviews Bloodbath Nation, a poignant exploration of the painful, studiously ignored truths about gun culture in the U.S. To grapple with the epidemic of gun violence, she writes, requires confronting deeper truths about white supremacy, settler-colonialism, and the U.S. history of enslavement. | more…
A new poem by Marge Piercy. | more…
A unique historical account of poor peoples’ self-defence strategies in the face of the plunder of their lands and labor
For five centuries, the development of capitalism has been inextricably connected to the expropriation of working people from the land they depended on for subsistence. Through ruling class assaults known as enclosures or clearances, shared common land became privately-owned capital, and peasant farmers became propertyless laborers who could only survive by working for the owners of land or capital.
As Ian Angus documents in The War Against the Commons, mass opposition to dispossession has never ceased. His dramatic account provides new insights into an opposition that ranged
What is the New Washington Consensus? In this month’s Notes from the Editors, MR editors discuss Washington’s fundamental shift in its approach to China, moving from an emphasis on neoliberal globalization toward a new, more aggressive policy pursuing U.S. military and industrial supremacy. | more…
The Prosecution of Professor Chandler Davis tells the true tale of a mathematician who found himself taking an involuntary break from chalking equations to sit opposite a row of self-righteous anti-Communist congressmen at the height of the McCarthy era. Courageously asserting the First Amendment to confront a system rapidly descending into fascism, Davis testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). He became one of a small number of left wingers who served time for contempt of Congress. | more…
As the impending planetary crisis looms ever-closer, Martin Hart-Landsberg proposes a new focus on the Second World War industrial conversion experience, in which production and consumption were guided by central planning agencies. These successes and pitfalls of this period provide many useful lessons for activists and organizers working toward planned degrowth. | more…
As the Pentagon gains approval for yet another record-breaking budget, the editors examine a perennial question: Why does the United States oligarchy need such an outsized military machine in the modern era? The answer is found in the current era of naked imperialism, accompanied, as always with deadly militarism. | more…
This month, MR editors examine elements of the New Cold War rarely discussed in the mainstream media: the U.S. sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, which ensured Europe’s continued reliance on U.S. natural gas, and U.S. plans to transport B61-12 nuclear warheads to locations within striking distance of Russian targets. | more…
The working class is being robbed, both through outright expropriation and the more hidden exploitation of countless workers who are struggling to make ends meet while capitalists pocket the surplus value they produce. Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster dissect the neoliberal assault on the working class that is spurring a new generation of labor organizing. | more…
First published in 1952, I. F. Stone’s Hidden History of the Korean War was a stunning indictment of the U.S. war machine and the mass media’s unquestioning acceptance of the government’s deception. In their new introduction, Tim Beal and Gregory Elich explore Hidden History‘s continuing relevance to current events, including the rapidly escalating New Cold War. | more…