Monthly Review Press

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….

Could the people who voted for Trump or Clinton overthrow capitalism? Climate & Capitalism reviews Michael Yates’s new book

February 20, 2024

The title of Michael Yates’ new book asks a question that every socialist has heard many times. We hear it from liberals who think changes can only be made by working inside the system. We hear it from radicals who simply can’t imagine working people moving against the system. ¶ Is it really possible that people who voted for Trump or Clinton — two faces of global reaction — might one day overthrow capitalism?….

New! Michael Tigar’s Mythologies of State and Monopoly Power

February 20, 2024

Mythologies,” writes veteran human rights lawyer Michael Tigar, “are structures of words and images that portray people, institutions, and events in ways that mask an underlying reality.” For instance, the “Justice Department” appears, by its very nature and practice, to appropriate “justice” as the exclusive property of the federal government. In his brilliantly acerbic collection of essays, Tigar reveals, deconstructs, and eviscerates mythologies surrounding the U.S. criminal justice system, racism, free expression, workers’ rights, and international human rights.

November 26, Rockford, IL: Howard Waitzkin on “Health Care Under the Knife”

February 20, 2024

Howard Waitzkin, author — along with the Working Group on Health Beyond Capitalism — of "Health Care Under the Knife: Moving Beyond Capitalism for Our Health," will speak on the U.S. health-care system, and how it could rescued and made an integral part of a new and radically different society.

New! From Commune to Capitalism: How China’s Peasants Lost Collective Farming and Gained Urban Poverty

February 20, 2024

In the early 1980s, China dismantled its socialist rural collectives and divided the land among millions of small peasant families. Mainstream history argues that this "decollectivization campaign" greatly improved agricultural productivity and the lives of the peasants. A closer examination suggests a much different and more nuanced story....

Marx & Philosophy on Michael Lebowitz’s The Socialist Imperative: From Gotha to Now

February 20, 2024

During the past two decades, economist Michael A. Lebowitz has written a number of books, proposing to build socialism as a practical alternative. Lebowitz’s new book, The Socialist Imperative from Gotha to Now, is a continued project about proposing the building of socialism in the 21st century…. Lebowitz’s book attempts to establish a theoretical vision of socialism and the lessons from the experience of ‘real socialism’...