Who owns this ‘country’?
A new poem by Marge Piercy. | more…
The Ecological Crisis of Capitalism and Human Survival
In this remarkable reprise reprinted from Monthly Review‘s October 1992 issue, Harry Magdoff and Paul Sweezy look ahead to the ecological crisis that has continued to unfold into the twenty-first century. Presaging the critical juncture at which we find ourselves today, they write that “only a change in the in the nature of power structures on a global scale could bring a realistic hope for the long-term continuation of human civilization…. If you think that is true, what do you think are the implications?” | more…
The Political Economy of Migration
In this review of Immanuel Ness’s Migration as Economic Imperialism, Torkil Lauesen illuminates the links between the migration of labor to theories of equal exchange, which have traditionally focused on international trade. These connections, Lauesen writes, relate to transfer of labor power from the periphery to the core, and the concomitant exploitation of vulnerable workers from the Global South. | more…
March 2024 (Volume 75, Number 10)
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…
Engels for Our Times: Gender, Social Reproduction, and Revolution
“It is surprising,” Marnie Holborow writes, “how often in Marxist accounts of women’s oppression Frederick Engels is overlooked.” In responding to this gap in analysis, Holborow examines his influential work, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, finding his observations on gender roles and social reproduction under capitalism—and their expressions based on class—are not only astute for Engels’s time, but very much for ours as well. | more…
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…
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…
Do It Yourself, Brother: Cultural Autonomy and the New Thing
Christian Noakes tells the story of the struggle to liberate jazz from the exploitative, white-controlled music industry in 1950s and beyond. Recounting the seminal events of the movement and backlash from white civil society, Noakes reveals a legacy of Black cultural autonomy and resistance led by such jazz legends as Charles Mingus, Max Roach, Eric Dolphy, Bill Dixon, and others. | more…
Eleven Theses on Music
This lyrical vignette from the recently departed Paul Burkett is the author’s final, posthumously published piece for Monthly Review. In it, the eminent ecological economist and jazz musician muses on the nature of creativity, technology, and the corporatization of music—and the struggle to decommodify it, freeing musicians and their craft from the confines of capitalism. | more…
February 2024 (Volume 75, Number 9)
As Israel continues its atrocities in Gaza, the editors examine the nature of exterminism and its relation to what threatens to become a permanent Nakba. The explicit aim, they contend, of Zionism’s settler colonial project is nothing less than the extermination—in the classical sense of the term—of the entire Palestinian population. | more…
The U.S. Quest for Nuclear Primacy: The Counterforce Doctrine and the Ideology of Moral Asymmetry
John Bellamy Foster discusses the past and present state of U.S. nuclear policy, asserting that its reliance on belligerent approaches endangers the entire world. “Only a minimalist, as opposed to a maximalist, approach to nuclear arms can put humanity on the road to nuclear disarmament,” he writes, concluding that “the answer lies in a worldwide shift away from dying capitalism to…complete socialism.” | more…
Marx and Engels as Polyglots
Drawing on writings, historical accounts, and personal letters, Kaan Kangal surveys the considerable extent of Marx and Engels’s interest in language and capabilities as polyglots. This interest, he argues, was part and parcel of their political commitment to building worldwide socialism. | more…
The Case for Socialist Veganism
There is a paradox, Benjamin Selwyn and Charis Davis write, at the heart of corporate veganism in the Global North. While vegan products are sold to consumers as environmentally conscious alternatives to meat and dairy, the world’s largest producers of such products are rapacious, ecologically destructive, and exploitive of populations in the Global South. The authors argue that a turn toward socialist veganism can advance the goals of decommodifying and democratizing our food system. | more…