Watch Jeb Sprague, author of Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti, interviewed by David Zlutnick in San Francisco for Upheaval Productions. The conversation focuses on paramilitarism and its consequences in Haiti, but also touches on the roles of outside powers and their influence, Haiti’s vibrant social movements, and the country’s most recent developments. | more…
This book is part of Michael Lebowitz’s larger project of demonstrating the ever-existing necessity of a socialist transformation as the revolutionary resolution of class struggle in capitalism. It builds a theoretical foundation for such revolutionary praxis in the specific objectivity of the 21st century. Lebowitz’s previous book, Build it Now, captured and described the specificities of socialist praxis and possibilities in the Bolivarian experience of Venezuela. The Socialist Alternative can be seen as building a coherent model of an alternative by gathering and arranging the elements that are found scattered in that experience. | more…
The increasing trend of monolithic companies taking over large shares of industry has created a “financialization-stagnation trap” that’s negatively affecting economies across the world, particularly in the Global South. That’s John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney’s argument in The Endless Crisis: How Monopoly-Finance Capital Produces Stagnation and Upheaval from the USA to China (Monthly Review Press, 2012). In this excerpt from the book’s introduction, Foster and McChesney explain how understanding the rise of financialization stagnation is essential to understanding global class struggle. | more…
This landmark book, first published in 1979, met acclaim as a doubly important work of radical philosophy. Its subject, Jean-Paul Sartre, was among the twentieth century’s most controversial and influential philosophers; its author, István Mészáros, was himself establishing a reputation for profound contributions to the Marxian tradition, which would continue into the next century. The Work of Sartre was thus considered essential for its insights on Sartre and as a piece of Mészáros’s developing politico-philosophical project. | more…
The days of boom and bubble are over, and the time has come to understand the long-term economic reality. Although the Great Recession officially ended in June 2009, hopes for a new phase of rapid economic expansion were quickly dashed. Instead, growth has been slow, unemployment has remained high, wages and benefits have seen little improvement, poverty has increased, and the trend toward more inequality of incomes and wealth has continued. It appears that the Great Recession has given way to a period of long-term anemic growth, which Foster and McChesney aptly term the Great Stagnation. | more…
Join Ronnie Kasrils, author of The Unlikely Secret Agent, anti-apartheid leader, and international solidarity activist, for a talk and book signing at Busboys & Poets in Washington, DC, on Oct 19. | more…
In the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti, certain media outlets painted a picture of a country overrun by looters and at the mercy of gang members and other criminals, including thousands of prisoners jolted free by the quake. Relevant details were ignored, such as the contention by prominent Haitian human rights attorney Mario Joseph that 80 per cent of said prisoners had never been charged. The media effort perhaps aided in rendering less incongruous in the eyes of the international public the deployment of a sizeable US military force to deal with quake-affected people who did not seemingly require military attention. | more…
Join Ronnie Kasrils, author of The Unlikely Secret Agent, anti-apartheid leader, and international solidarity activist, for a talk and book signing at The Riverside Church in NYC on Oct 22. | more…
Join Monthly Review editor John Bellamy Foster for a discussion of his new book, The Endless Crisis: How Monopoly-Finance Capital Produces Stagnation and Upheaval from the USA to China, on October 20 at New York University. | more…
Why write a book about class, cocaine, Colombia and the U.S.? Oliver Villar and Drew Cottle have an answer. In Cocaine, Death Squads, and the War on Terror: U.S. Imperialism and Class Struggle in Colombia they provide data and evidence to refute Uncle Sam’s official version of relations between both nations today and yesterday. To this end, the authors present a strong counter-narrative that begins with cocoa plants and continues with the capitalist production and distribution of cocaine. | more…
Jeb Sprague is the author of Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti, new from Monthly Review Press. He is currently on a North American book tour. This talk was recorded on September 15, 2012 at the University of Victoria in Victoria, Canada. The audio is on the website of Gorilla Radio, a show on Victoria Radio FM 102.1. | more…
The following lecture was filmed on September 15th, 2012, at the Democracy Center in Cambridge, MA. It features Irv Kurki, coordinator for essential discussions, on “The Roots of Capital,” and Doug Enaa Greene, member of the Kasama Project and an activist at Occupy Boston, on “Overcoming Alienation.” | more…
Jeb Sprague’s definitive Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti (Monthly Review Press, 2012) is the product of seven years of research and writing. Since the 2004 Bush Administration-backed overthrow of the democratically-elected Jean Bertrand Aristide government, journalist and scholar Sprague has been investigating key players behind that coup. His work is especially strong on interviews with figures in anti-Aristide political and paramilitary networks, and on unearthing cables from the U.S. embassy in Port-au-Prince and other relevant documents through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Sprague also combed through all the Haiti-related documents released through the activist project Wikileaks. | more…