Monthly Review Press

NEW! The Contradictions of “Real Socialism”: The Conductor and the Conducted by Michael A. Lebowitz

February 20, 2024

What was "real socialism"—the term which originated in twentieth-century socialist societies for the purpose of distinguishing them from abstract, theoretical socialism? In this volume, Michael A. Lebowitz considers the nature, tendencies, and contradictions of those societies. Beginning with the constant presence of shortages within "real socialism," Lebowitz searches for the inner relations which generate these patterns. He finds these, in particular, in what he calls "vanguard relations of production," a relation which takes the apparent form of a social contract where workers obtain benefits not available to their counterparts in capitalism but lack the power to decide within the workplace and society.

The Invisible Handcuffs of Capitalism reviewed on Marx & Philosophy Review of Books

February 20, 2024

Perelman addresses the whole range of problems with work and the work process within capitalism: the way it stifles the creativity of the worker, the waste of social productive powers by the many jobs and technical applications created solely to safeguard the managerial power of capital, the superior knowledge workers have of the work process and the struggle over the extraction of this knowledge, the inefficiencies of production all these combine to generate within capitalism, and finally the various kinds of theoretical apologetics generated within economic theory to justify this sorry state of affairs.

José Carlos Mariátegui: An Anthology reviewed on Marx & Philosophy Review of Books

February 20, 2024

José Carlos Mariátegui is not exactly a household name among Marxists outside Latin America, let alone among the wider left. In Latin America, however, his writings have played an influential role in the development of socialist politics and have impacted on recent progressive governments that have been elected in the wake of the collapse of the dictatorships and the neo-liberal economies associated with them. For this reason alone, this recent publication of an anthology of his writings is long overdue and much to be welcomed.

NEW! Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti by Jeb Sprague

February 20, 2024

In this path-breaking book, Jeb Sprague investigates the dangerous world of right-wing paramilitarism in Haiti and its role in undermining the democratic aspirations of the Haitian people. Sprague focuses on the period beginning in 1990 with the rise of Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and the right-wing movements that succeeded in driving him from power. Over the ensuing two decades, paramilitary violence was largely directed against the poor and supporters of Aristide's Lavalas movement, taking the lives of thousands of Haitians. Sprague seeks to understand how this occurred, and traces connections between paramilitaries and their elite financial and political backers, in Haiti but also in the United States and the Dominican Republic.

Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti reviewed by Inter Press Service

February 20, 2024

Haiti's brutal army was disbanded in 1995, yet armed and uniformed paramilitaries, with no government affiliation, occupy former army bases today. President Michel Martelly, who has promised to restore the army, has not called on police or U.N. troops to dislodge these ad-hoc soldiers. Given the army's history of violent opposition to democracy, Martelly's plan to renew the army "can only lead to more suffering", says Jeb Sprague in his forthcoming book Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti, to be released mid August by Monthly Review Press.

The Endless Crisis discussed in the Guardian

February 20, 2024

Larry Elliott, economics editor of the Guardian, sums it up: "The Marxist perspective, exemplified in a new book by John Bellamy Foster and Robert McChesney, is also useful. This argues that the strong western growth rates in the middle of the 20th century were something of a mirage, caused by high military spending, postwar reconstruction, higher welfare spending and the investment in road networks that allowed the full flowering of the age of the automobile. Since then, a number of things have happened. There has been a concentration of capital but a shortage of profitable investment opportunities. So far, there has not been a wave of innovations like the car, the plane, cinema and TV to give the global economy a shot in the arm, although it is possible that digital, robotics, genetics and green technology could act as a catalyst. The result has been a declining trend rate of growth, and the increased financialisation of western economies as the surpluses have been re-cycled through the banks in a search for yield. Hence the Latin American debt crisis. Hence the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Hence the inability of the global economy to emerge from its torpor."

Mészáros discussion in Boston

February 20, 2024

Join Irving Kurki and Doug Enaa Greene for an installment of the ongoing "Occupy Consciousness" lecture series, where they discuss the work of István Mészáros and its application to our time and the Occupy Movement.

Jeb Sprague's Op-Ed in the Miami Herald

February 20, 2024

Haiti's government is making plans to revive the country's disbanded army, an institution guilty of many of the worst crimes ever perpetrated in the country. At the same time, special police units have been used to drive earthquake victims out of camps. While civil society and grassroots organizations in Haiti are campaigning against a return to the era of Duvalierist repression, people in the United States should be made aware of our government's long history with that country's military and security forces.

Oliver Villar interviewed in Asia Times Online

February 20, 2024

What has been your main motivation to spend 10 years of your life to the subject of the drug trade?

Oliver Villar: The main motivation goes sometime back. I think it has to do firstly with my own experiences in growing up in working class suburbs in Sydney, Australia. It always has been an area that I found very curious and fascinating just to think about how rampant and persuasive drugs really are in our communities, and just by looking at it in more recent times how much worse the drug problem has become, not just in lower socio-economic areas, but everywhere. But from then on, when I finally had the opportunity to do so, I actually undertook this as a PhD thesis. I spent my time carefully looking at firstly what was written on the drug trade, but as coming from Latin America, I was very interested in particular in the Latin American drug trade as well.

Critique of Intelligent Design reviewed in International Socialism

February 20, 2024

In a debate that is often dominated by right wing creationists and reactionary neo-atheists, the authors manage to chart a different course. They succeed in showing how life has developed without needing to invoke supernatural forces. At the same time they sensitively discuss how materialist ideas have developed over the last several thousand years in a way which allows the reader to appreciate how radical and powerful such ideas can be.