For five days in 1919, union members took control of the city of Seattle. They arguably ran it better, and certainly more justly, than it had ever been run before. ¶ The strike began when waitresses, laundry workers, streetcar workers, and more—65,000 union workers in all—walked off the job on February 6, 1919, to support striking shipyard workers. ¶ Thousands of workers volunteered to keep Seattle’s essential services operating. People were fed at 21 different locations; on February 9, volunteers served more than 30,000 meals…. | more…
Michael Heinrich opens the first volume of his biography on Marx and the modern society he grew up in by noting that ‘Marx probably would not have wanted a biography, and certainly not one planned for multiple volumes’. Seeing as Marx did not desire a personal biography, and that dozens already exist, Heinrich’s project raises the question: why write this book at all? While this review will diverge from the ubiquitous praise being offered elsewhere and offer some slightly critical commentary, it can confidently be said that Heinrich’s completed biographical series will easily eclipse previous Marx biographies… | more…
Lengthening hours, lessening pay, no parental leave, scant job security… Never have so many workers needed so much support. Yet the very labor unions that could garner us protections and help us speak up for ourselves are growing weaker every day. In an age of rampant inequality, of increasing social protest and strikes—and when a majority of workers say they want to be union members—why does union density continue to decline? Shaun Richman offers some answers in his book, Tell the Bosses We’re Coming | more…
Historian and prolific author Gerald Horne–whose latest book The Dawning of the Apocalypse will be published in July–recently talked to Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash, hosts of WBAI’s Building Bridges, the longest running labor and community affairs radio program in the New York Metropolitan area, about the history of inequality behind the current horrific impact of the coronavirus…. | more…
All human societies, from the most primitive to the most modern, have an important commonality—the need to work. Water, food, shelter and other basics of life don’t arrive as gifts. Work is required to secure them and to raise the next generation. ¶ So fundamental is this basic principal of human life that generations of Marxist theorists have based analyses of social societies and structures on the economic base of a given society…. | more…
Dr Helena Sheehan is a well-known left-wing intellectual. Her book, Marxism and the Philosophy of Science: Critical History, published in 1985, became a classic work on its subject. ¶ She has now written her autobiography, and this is the first volume, covering her life from the 1940s to the 1980s, a book which is full of interest for a particular view of Ireland and the world today…. | more…
Twenty years ago, John Bellamy Foster’s Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature introduced a new understanding of Karl Marx’s revolutionary ecological materialism. More than simply a study of Marx, it commenced an intellectual and social history, encompassing thinkers from Epicurus to Darwin, who developed materialist and ecological ideas. Now, with The Return of Nature, Foster continues this narrative. In so doing, he uncovers a long history of efforts to unite issues of social justice and environmental sustainability that will help us comprehend and counter today’s unprecedented planetary emergencies…. | more…
Students at A-level are taught to back up their arguments with data obtained from reputable sources. Teachers guide them towards official institutions such as the IMF and World Bank. Donnelly in this book warns us to be cautious of the assumptions made when collecting data, and the argument which the data is supporting…. | more…
Professor Horne is under no illusions as to the reception which such bold, defiant assertions will be received by bourgeois and liberal historians, because every statement in the book is scrupulously footnoted, and indeed there are no less than two in the introductory paragraph quoted above. Professor Horne comes to the field of combative ‘history from below’ both well-armed and unwilling to take prisoners. This is an assertive position, which in the view of this reviewer, is well due admiration and applause…. | more…
Recently, commemorations took place across the country to mark the 50th anniversary of the Kent State massacre on May 4, 1970. But often left out of the history books is the Jackson State massacre. Two students were killed and 12 wounded eleven days later when, on May 15, 75 state and local policemen opened fire on a dormitory at the predominantly Black Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi. Police said there was a sniper on the roof of the dorm. That turned out to be a lie…. | more…
