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Review of the Month
Introduction to the Updated Edition of Arghiri Emmanuel’s ‘Unequal Exchange’
In this Introduction to the updated edition of Unequal Exchange by Arghiri Emmanuel, published by Monthly Review Press, John Bellamy Foster and Brett Clark offer readers insight into the continuing influence of Emmanuel's seminal work. Through both deep understanding thoughtful critique, the authors deftly situate Emmanuel's text as an indispensable part of an enduring tradition of Marxist analysis of the global dynamics of labor.
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Article
Epidemics and Social Metabolism: Nature, Capitalism, and Rifts
David E. Perlman and Ashly Vigneault explore the linkages between humanity's metabolic rift with nature and the accelerating emergence of epidemics, which are fundamentally related to the capitalist mode of production and concomitant alienated social metabolism. Using historical and epidemiological research that extends from the rise of the bubonic plague to the emergence of COVID-19, Perlman and Vigneault are able to deftly tie these concepts to the breach of planetary boundaries that threatens all of humanity.
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Memorial
Robert W. McChesney (1952–2025): A Personal and Political-Intellectual Memoir
John Bellamy Foster introduces our special issue celebrating the life and work of MR former coeditor and MR Press author Robert W. McChesney. In his recounting of over 50 years of close friendship and collaboration, Foster paints a portrait of McChesney as a visionary intellectual and activist whose work will reverberate through the communication field for decades to come.
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Memorial
Bob McChesney: A Life Well Lived
In this deeply personal essay, communication scholar Inger Stole shares with readers a glimpse into her life with Robert W. McChesney, her husband of 37 years. Stole reveals the depth of feeling with which McChesney approached all aspects of life, from his work as an intellectual and advocate to his role as a father and life partner.
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Article
A Democratic Socialist in Our Age
John Nichols, Robert W. McChesney's longtime collaborator and frequent coauthor, celebrates McChesney's near-clairvoyant thought and scholarship. Nichols notes that McChesney's impressive foresight enabled him to see the pitfalls of the digital age long before the Internet became a tool for the worst impulses of the elites under capitalism.
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Article
A Clarion Call for Communication Democracy
Matthew Rothschild looks back on nearly 40 years working alongside his friend and colleague Robert W. McChesney. McChesney, he writes, brought to the world a sharp analysis of not only the contradiction between corporate media and democracy, but between the capitalist system as a whole and a true democracy that serves the people.
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Article
Communication Should Be a Rebellious Field!
Sigurd Allern echoes Robert W. McChesney's call for an insurgent communication scholarship that extends beyond the borders of academia and understands media not just as an industry, but as a public good and—critically—key infrastructure for functioning democracy.
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Article
Be Realistic, Demand the Impossible
Mandy Tröger and Sydney L. Forde explore the impact that Robert W. McChesney's work has had on both the communication field and on their work as the new generation of scholars. "To honor [McChesney]," they write, "is not to look up in awe, but look out…toward the unfinished work of building a more democratic field and society."
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Article
Reinventing Local Journalism: Carrying Forward Bob McChesney’s Unfinished Project
Victor Pickard celebrates the passion and clarity that Robert W. McChesney brought to his work as an author, media advocate, and founder of Free Press—and in particular, McChesney's bold proposals for a publicly funded and democratic model of local journalism designed to serve communities, rather than corporate interests.
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Article
Capitalism in the Age of Digital Technology
In this transcript of a talk from 2015, Robert W. McChesney discusses the "great definitional communication revolutions" that have shaped humanity's trajectory. Even a decade ago, McChesney was able to see the fraught relationship between new technology and democracy, the re-emergence of fascism, and the political dangers of the Digital Age.
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Article
Fiftieth Anniversary Retrospective on Pomfret (Class of 1971)
Writing upon the fiftieth anniversary of his graduation from Pomfret School in Connecticut, Robert W. Chesney shares in his own words the story of his intellectual development, from his teen years through his studies at The Evergreen State College, and how they shaped his career as a journalist and activist—including his role as coeditor of MR.
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Article
The Anti-Monopolist
In this reprint of a Seattle Weekly article from 2004, Knute Berger details a game of Monopoly played among friends, including Robert W. McChesney and John Bellamy Foster, while students at The Evergreen College. With sly insight, Berger shows how Foster and McChesney's antics as board game robber barons revealed McChesney's perceptive analysis of the media landscape under capitalism and his passionate advocacy for democratic, monopoly-free media.
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CLASSICS
Unequal Exchange
Open Veins of Latin America
Labor and Monopoly Capital
Albert Einstein’s “Why Socialism?"
Marx’s Ecology
Discourse on Colonialism
Consciencism
Return to the Source
Racism and The Class Struggle
Anarchism
The Art of Democracy
Fanshen
Hidden History of the Korean War
New! “Silencing Fighting Bob: The Attack on Antiwar Progressives During the First World War” (Excerpt)
"Within months after the United States entered the war, progressives and social democrats became the primary targets of repression. Unfortunately, far too often, they relied on the good faith of the authorities..."
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New light on the origins of Marx’s thought
For Foster, Epicurus and Marx are individuals of equivalent stature: even Marx couldn’t “make bricks without straw”. One example: Marx’s well known statement about standing Hegel on his feet seems to have come from Epicurus’ Roman populariser, Lucretius, who said of the idealist philosophers of his day that they stood with their heads where their feet belong...
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Who said, “Anthropology is a child of imperialism”?
“Anthropology is a child of Western imperialism,” asserted the Marxist anthropologist Kathleen Gough in 1968, during an intense period of anti-colonial struggle in Asia and Africa. Since then, this assertion,... READ MORE
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LISTEN/WATCH: Chris Gilbert’s Commune or Nothing!
Now available as an audio book: Listen to the full book by searching for Kudoslive on YouTube… In the public eye: Cosmonaut: Cosmonaut covered the history of the Venezuelan communal... READ MORE
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