EXCERPT: How the Workers’ Parliaments Saved the Cuban Revolution
February 20, 2024
"Yes, there would be many painfully restrictive measures. But they would not be imposed by government decree, and they certainly would never be neoliberal...."
Monthly Review Press
Markets and tech won’t solve climate emergency… (Foster interviewed for “Truthout”)
February 20, 2024
as many have observed, for many people it’s easier to envision the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Foster’s book tells us that we have a choice: “ruin or revolution.” The reason for the necessity of revolution is that tinkering won’t solve our problems. Technocratic fixes won’t save the Earth as a place fit for human habitation. The problem, as he told me in the interview that follows, is systemic....
Facing the Anthropocene reviewed in T-Paine’s Newsletter
February 20, 2024
...in rejecting the possibility of half measures and compromises, Facing the Anthropocene stands with The Value of a Whale as a crucial document in the necessary joining of the environmentalist and anti-capitalist movements and should be compulsory reading.
The poisonous fruits of white supremacy: The rise of the right (Horne, on the podcast, “De Facto”)
February 20, 2024
On the recent shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo, the coup of January 6, 2021, the legacy of US and French colonialism in Haiti, China's Belt and Road initiatives, and....
Grappling with “Capital’s” entirety: Not just for first-time readers (Heinrich reviewed by ‘Marx & Philosophy Review of Books’)
February 20, 2024
Heinrich’s close attention to the original German, contrary to many anglophone scholars, is another element of his textual approach that strengthens the accuracy of the interpretation.....to say that "How to Read Marx’s ‘Capital’" is not only for first-time readers may be to state the obvious. It is a commentary that is straightforward in its exposition and indispensable for beginners, yet still challenges those who have already long dedicated themselves to a study of 'Capital'....
The Return of Nature wins ASA’s Paul Sweezy Outstanding Book Award
February 20, 2024
MR editor John Bellamy Foster’s The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2020) was the recipient of the Paul Sweezy Outstanding Book Award of the Section on Marxist Sociology of the American Sociological Association for 2022...
Labor can be used to create wealth for others…or to create life (Work Work Work in ‘Truthout’)
February 20, 2024
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....
Work could be different (Yates featured in ‘Labor Notes’)
February 20, 2024
...From the employer’s point of view, our labor power is simply a commodity, no different than the inanimate buildings, machines, tools, and raw materials purchased by businesses. Given our circumstances, we must sell this commodity to survive. But after we do, the employer has no guarantee that our capacity to toil will be converted into actual work effort. Workers have always resisted their commodity status...
Notice what Kohei Saito is reading?
February 20, 2024
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...
Inextricable connections: war and fascism abroad, and threats to workers at home (!Brigadistas! reviewed in ‘Portside NY’)
February 20, 2024
!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.