Geological epochs are divided into ages. So far the Anthropocene has been dominated by a globalised system of capitalist accumulation. Foster proposes the designation Capitalinian for this first geological age of the Anthropocene in the hope that it may be superseded by another; one “stabilizing the human relation to the earth” the Communian, rather than “an end-Anthropocene extinction event resulting in the destruction of civilization and quite possibly humanity itself.” | more…
How is it that the threat of global thermonuclear war is once again hanging over the globe, three decades after the end of the Cold War and at a time when the risk of irreversible climate change looms on the horizon? What approaches need to be adopted within the peace and environmental movements to counter these interrelated global existential threats? To answer these questions, it is important to address such issues as the nuclear winter controversy, the counterforce doctrine, and the U.S. quest for global nuclear supremacy…. | more…
Heym’s own biography helps to explain why he chose Karl Radek as the central character for this historical novel. Like Heym, Radek was a literate and articulate Jew who rubbed authority the wrong way. Born Lolek Sobelsohn in Lemburg (Lviv), then under Austrian rule, Radek, like Heym, was a Marxist who became compromised as Russia went from being a beacon of revolutionary socialism to a Stalinist dictatorship. Radek helped to shape history and was also tested by it…. | more…
Dr. Gerald Horne joined episode #3 of the De Facto Podcast to discuss the roots of current events, drawing upon “Confronting Black Jacobins” in relation to the political situation in Haiti and its Revolution, Lula’s victory, American intervention, revolts inspired by the Haitian Revolution, the origins of the Dominican Republic… | more…
The book’s title is somewhat of a mockery of President Obama’s 2015 executive order declaring Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US national security…. | more…
‘John Bellamy Foster’s contribution, “Notes on Extremism for the Twenty-First-Century Ecology and Peace Movements,” is a chilling account of the development of US nuclear strategy. Carefully, he explains the shift in strategic thinking inside US governing circles. In the period before the end of the first cold war, the consensus was that the relative balance in nuclear weaponry meant that the US could not guarantee a victory in a nuclear war with the USSR…. In this context we can understand the eastward expansion of NATO from Bill Clinton to Joe Biden; the Maidan coup and promotion of an anti-Russian government in Ukraine; and the refusal to offer Russia security guarantees last year or peace negotiations this year.’ | more…
In this wide-ranging interview with Lukas Slothuus and Ashok Kumar of the Historical Materialism Podcast, John Bellamy Foster discusses, among other things, his lecture on “The Return of the Dialectics of Nature,” the influence of mechanistic worldviews on the field of ecology and 20th century Socialist thought, fundamental assumptions on the part of many Western Marxists regarding the nonexistence of a “dialectics of nature,” misunderstandings about Lukács’ supposed rejection of a dialectics of nature, Leibig’s work on the “soil crisis” and the ways that this steered Marx’s concept of the “metabolic rift,” etc. – and moves on from there. | more…
Yates provides an excellent critique of unions today and insists on a radical critique of, and alternatives to, the current reliance on social democratic parties…. | more…
“Social democrats are not great fighters. While the American right-wing does not want to admit it, (nor do centrist Dems or even, in fact, much of the left) the most effective fighters against fascism are communists and always have been….” | more…
!Brigadistas! is a valuable, accessible textual and visual representation of history. It is recommended for those who are familiar with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, the Spanish Civil War, and the left of the 1930s and would find refreshing a reminder of its history. And, even more, !Brigadistas! can serve as a vibrant tool for political education for those who would be new to the subject. | more…
…For many, willing to resign humanity to its “fate,” the idea of a way out of our current dilemma, fundamentally altering society in order to avoid the socioecological chasm before us, will undoubtedly sound utopian. But utopia, a pun coined in the sixteenth century by Thomas More meaning both “nowhere” and “good place,” and therefore often seen as representing a kind of dream state or wishful projection into the future, loses its idealistic connotation in the context of a planetary dystopia where catastrophe, measured against historical precedents, has now become normal and threatens to become irreversible on a planetary scale, due to the inherent apocalyptic tendencies of the current mode of production… | more…
In this image, Kohei Saito holds a copy of “Monopoly Capital,” by Baran and Sweezy. Saito’s book “Capital in the Anthropocene” (Editor’s note: Not to be confused with John Bellamy Foster’s book by a similar name) has become an unlikely hit among young people and is about to be translated into English… | more…
On this Labor Day, perhaps it is time for all members of the world’s working class, to ask themselves, why is work so often a “torment,” an “affliction,” done under “compulsion”? Why does it feel as if our bosses are “persecuting” us? Why does it wreck our bodies? Why does it seem so meaningless? It certainly doesn’t have to be and was not for most of our time on Earth…. | more…
