Pity the US proletariat? Not author, editor and labor educator Michael D. Yates and fellow scribes in Wisconsin Uprising: Labor Fights Back (Monthly Review Press). In 16 essays, they lay out forceful portraits of last year’s political conflict in or that relate to the Badger State. | more…
When prices for many basic foods spiked in 2007 and 2008, thousands rioted in more than 30 countries from Bangladesh to Burkina Faso. In Haiti the riots drove President Réné Préval from office; in Egypt they were a key act in the prologue to the current revolution. It took the world’s intellectual establishment by surprise. By 2009 Scientific American was running articles with titles such as “Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?” After all, there can be few more serious failures of any social order than an inability to feed the population—as the Bolsheviks knew when they made the demand for “peace, bread and land” one of their main slogans in the Russian Revolution of 1917. This collection of essays is a serious attempt to theorise the crisis in the global food economy for the left. | more…
As a lifelong Wisconsin resident and union thug, almost every aspect of my life has been changed by the series of events that began with the election of Scott Walker. Everyone around me has felt the impact of his regime, personally and at work. We’ve seen a long list of losses: wages, benefits, clean government, environmental protections, collective bargaining rights, and more. But we also gained a collective voice, evidenced by the mass rallies and a million signatures on petitions aimed at recalling Walker. | more…
A list of “20 Compelling Open Lectures on Occupy,” including lectures by MR authors and contributors Fred Magdoff, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Victor Wallis, and others, compiled by Onlineuniversities.com. | more…
Domitila Barrios de Chungara, a renowned union leader, feminist, and revolutionary from Bolivia, died on March 13 at age 74. Monthly Review Press is proud to have published her classic memoir, Let Me Speak!, co-authored with Moema Viezzer. The book is a gripping account of her early life in a Bolivian mining town, her subsequent radicalization, and her efforts to organize miners and their wives in the struggle against exploitation and against U.S.-backed dictatorships. Available for a discount of 40% off until the end of April. | more…
Join Jeb Sprague, author of the forthcoming book Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti, for a teach-in with Selma James, Danny Glover, and others, at the Southern California Library in Los Angeles on Saturday, March 24. | more…
A unique phenomenon in the U.S. and the world, Left Forum convenes the largest annual conference of a broad spectrum of left and progressive intellectuals, activists, academics, organizations and the interested public. Conference participants come together to engage a wide range of critical perspectives on the world, to discuss differences, commonalities, and alternatives to current predicaments, and to share ideas for understanding and transforming the world. | more…
Michael Yates, editor of Wisconsin Uprising, discusses his new book, Bruce Springsteen’s new album Wrecking Ball, and more on KGNU’s “It’s the Economy” with Claudia Cragg. Stream or download the interview here. | more…
Listen to Michael Yates, editor of Wisconsin Uprising: Labor Fights Back, discuss the new book and the lessons we can draw from Wisconsin on KPFA’s Against the Grain. | more…
Steve Early, author of Embedded With Organized Labor: Journalistic Reflections on the Class War at Home, contributor to Wisconsin Uprising, and author of The Civil Wars in U.S. Labor (from Haymarket Books), will be speaking at the following events. | more…
Writing as en engaged public intellectual, Marsh (English, Pennsylvania State Univ.) argues that education, from preschool through graduate school, should not be viewed as a panacea for America’s economic and social ills. Instead, he calls for a drastic decrease in poverty and inequality as a more potent elixir. Marsh marshals ample historical and empirical evidence to bolster his case. | more…
The central aspect of Mészáros’ argument is the impossibility of understanding structure except through history. Furthermore, the denial of history (which is more or less explicit in structuralism and its progeny) is the necessary result of a failure to understand the dialectic of structure and history. Associated with this problem are a whole range of issues, first of all of course, the use of the Marxist concept of base and superstructure. There are also such matters as the relationship between individual and society, as exemplified, in a problematic sense, in Jean-Paul Sartre’s attempts to reconcile existentialism and Marxism. While both Sartre’s and Lévi-Strauss’ work is seen ultimately in terms of failure, Sartre is regarded with considerable respect. In contrast, Mészáros has little patience with Lévi-Strauss, for whom history in itself was a problem. | more…
Wisconsin Uprising, published by Monthly Review Press, has just done what was needed, which was publishing a book for the people’s movement. In honor of Wisconsin Uprising, here is a free download of “Oh Union,” which is a tribute to our greatest defense against corruption, the Union. Inspired in part by recent events in Wisconsin, the song describes the world without Unions. | more…