Monthly Review Press

Capitalism: to be “rejected, root and branch”–Michael Yates via Counterpunch

February 20, 2024

There is much discussion on the left about the connections and relative importance of class, race, gender, and the environment. Some, like political scientist Adolph Reed, take a class-first approach and criticize those who place an emphasis on race and gender as engaging in an identity politics that often shades into support for the neoliberalism that has wreaked havoc on working people for the past several decades....

A “definitive one-volume anthology”: Marxism & Philosophy reviews Samir Amin’s “Modern Imperialism, Monopoly Finance Capital, and Marx’s Law of Value”

February 20, 2024

Last August, the world lost a great Marxist theorist, Samir Amin. Amin was politically engaged throughout his life, worked in planning agencies in Mali and Senegal, and contributed to the theoretical elaboration of Marxist theory. Amin published dozens of books that cover a wide range of topics, including, amongst other topics...

Visit the Mumbai launch of India after Naxalbari: Unfinished History

February 20, 2024

On September 18, at the Mumbai Press Club in Mumbai, India, some of Bernard D’Mello’s friends gathered to help launch D’Mello’s book, India after Naxalbari: Unfinished History. Watch this panel discussion, moderated by journalist Stephen Rego, of the ongoing issues surrounding India and the Naxalite movement. The panelists are Manoranjan Mohanty, author and Distinguished Professor, Council for Social Development, New Delhi; John Mage, international lawyer and member of the Monthly Review Foundation’s board of directors; and, of course, author and journalist, Bernard D’Mello.

Countercurrents reviews Can the Working Class Change the World?

February 20, 2024

With the fall of Soviet Union, the revival of Capitalism in China and upsurge of right-wing movements and governments in large parts of the world with the exception of few countries of Latin America, author’s basic concern is whether this neo liberal right-wing trend can be overcome in favour of socialist revival? And who is going to lead this revival…

The UK’s Communist Review considers Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism

February 20, 2024

The subtitle, Capital, Nature and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy, is a straightforward summary of Saito’s argument. He challenges the repeated criticism, since the 1970s, of Marx for “Prometheanism”, or “hyperindustrialism”, an alleged naïve acceptance of the common 19th century idea advocating the complete human domination of nature. ...

New! The Biofuels Deception: Going Hungry on the Green Carbon Diet

February 20, 2024

Combining meticulous scientific narrative with devastating economic analysis, The Biofuels Deception argues that the seemingly innovative, hopeful campaign for “green energy” is actually driven by bio-technology industries and global grain-trading corporations. These corporate players are motivated by a late-capitalist need to cope with a crisis of accumulation; they have no real interest in mitigating climate change, alleviating poverty, or even creating “clean” energy….

India’s independent weekly, Frontier, reviews Michael Yates’s Can the Working Class Change the World?

February 20, 2024

This is the first of eight parts of Farooque Chowdhury’s review of this book for Frontier: An independent weekly since 1968. Look for the rest of the review, in compiled form, coming soon to MR Online...

“Understanding the political economy of what we eat”: Communist Review on A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism

February 20, 2024

Too often, food and agriculture have been left out of left-wing political discourse, as if peripheral to the class struggle. But actually, they are crucial. Family and peasant farmers need to be able to feed themselves and their families, while workers need nutritious diets too. However, capitalism needs a supply of landless labourers who have nothing to sell but their labour power ...

“The Logic of Human Survival”: Against the Current reviews A Redder Shade of Green

February 20, 2024

‘Anthropocene’ refers to a new geological period, where the activities of human beings have become the dominant factor shaping the planet’s changing geology, biology and climate, including effects on humanity. Angus, and increasingly geologists, are focusing on the period beginning around 1950, when humanity’s impact, which had been developing gradually, underwent a ‘great acceleration’ — a dialectical transformation of quantity into quality….

U.S. Must Take Responsibility for Asylum Seekers & the History That Drives Them: David L. Wilson, via Truthout

February 20, 2024

A large segment of the US public was horrified in May and June when they saw the Trump administration snatching toddlers away from Central American mothers who arrived at the US border seeking asylum. Many would still be appalled if they knew that the White House is seeking to continue the practice in a different form. Most undoubtedly feel genuine sympathy for young people trying to escape violent gangs or abusive partners. Still, a lot of these same sympathetic Americans don’t actually want the asylum seekers to come here….