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Prabir Purkayastha

The Specter of ‘Knowledge as Commons’

The recent arrest of Newsclick editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha is a chilling development in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s campaign of repression against free media. The current “moral panic” being mobilized against Purkayashta, Sam Popowich notes, represents Modi’s attempt to gain popular legitimacy for his Hindutva program and silence dissent. | more…

Logo of the Union of Agricultural Workers of Korea

Industrial Agriculture: Lessons from North Korea

According to most Western commentators, North Korea is an “enigma” plagued by “irrational” leadership, poverty, and pervasive food shortages. Zhun Xu charts the evolution of North Korean industrial agriculture and the country’s efforts to feed its population from the Soviet era up until today. What, Xu asks, can we learn from the country’s efforts to industrialize its agricultural sector, and what do they tell us about the future of agriculture under socialism? | more…

Ajeeb Daastaans

Hegemonic Femininity in Popular Culture: Heteronormative Appropriation of Lesbian Sexualities in Contemporary India through Neeraj Ghaywan’s ‘Geeli Pucchi’

Using the lens of Neeraj Ghaywan’s film Geeli Pucchi, Aratrika Bose, Tanupriya, and Anuja Singh explore the ways in which lesbian characters negotiate the trappings of hegemonic femininity embedded in Indian culture, from marriage and home life to the workplace, and the role of the body and “beauty” in the navigation of feminine identities. | more…

Monthly Review Volume 75, Number 6 (November 2023)

November 2023 (Volume 75, Number 6)

In 2022, China released its “Global Civilization Initiative,” a document enumerating China’s commitment to fostering diversity, equality, and cultural exchange. The editors analyze how the U.S. foreign policy community and media jumped to attack the initiative in the interest of defending U.S. imperial strategy around the globe. | more…

KakaoTalk fire

Platform Company Dominance and Labor Struggles in the Digital Economy: The Case of South Korea

Kyung-Pil Kim charts the history of the Korean platform economy through the rise of Naver and Kakao, the major firms dominating the markets. How do these companies operate? How did they achieve dominance? Finally, what are recent developments and challenges of labor organizing in this sphere? | more…

Monthly Review Volume 75, Number 6 (October 2023)

October 2023 (Volume 75, Number 6)

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…

James Needham

Marxian Ecology, East and West: Joseph Needham and a Non-Eurocentric View of the Origins of China’s Ecological Civilization

Following the work of scientist and Sinologist Joseph Needham, this talk by John Bellamy Foster illuminates the conceptual linkages between the ancient Greek and Chinese thought and modern dialectical materialism and ecological civilization. This interweaving of intellectual traditions, he writes, has created a “powerful organic ecological-materialist philosophy.” | more…

Red Cross Hospital in Xining, Qinghai, China.

China’s Health and Health Care in the “New Era”

What is the state of health care in China? Wei Zhang analyzes the deep institutional issues that plague China’s health care system. Despite its timely and effective efforts to mitigate the COVID-19 crisis, the system still faces deep-seated challenges, many of which can be traced directly to the marketization of hospitals and medical care. | more…

Relative Pauperization and Involution in Contemporary China: A Survey of Jingzhou City

There is a growing sense in China, Alex Witherspoon, Amir Khan, and Yu Zhou write, that the timeworn methods of social advancement are yielding diminishing returns. Using an original survey of 301 individuals in Jingzhou City, the authors lay bare the roots of this widespread feeling of involution. | more…

AE Solar Factory in China (April 1, 2017)

Degrowing China—By Collapse, Redistribution, or Planning?

Minqi Li asks: How can China, the world’s largest energy consumer, be “de-grown”? What policies and institutions must change, and what are the potential social implications? How can social ownership of production, redistribution of wealth the working class, and democratically controlled planning bring the country closer to a zero growth scenario? | more…