Monthly Review Press

Is Capitalism a Barrier to Food Justice? Author Eric Holt-Giménez interviewed by Civil Eats

February 20, 2024

No consumer, farmer, or activist participates in the food system without also participating in capitalism. To Eric Holt-Giménez, the director of Food First, this is a basic truth that’s too often overlooked in the struggle to change our broken food system. In his new book, A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism, Holt-Giménez delineates the basic truths of capitalism and how they are connected to the history of our food system. Part history book, part practical guide, the book links many of the injustices associated with food to other inequities, arguing that capitalism fuels and is fueled by oppression. If we better understand “the rudiments of how capitalism operates,” he explains, ‘we can better grasp why our food system is the way it is, and how we can change it

Foodies: “Why is it so critical to understand our food’s origins, while we fetishize the perfect morsel?”

February 20, 2024

Holt-Giménez: “We already produce one and one-half times more than enough food to feed every man, woman, and child on the planet… People go hungry not because there’s not enough food; they go hungry because they can’t afford food…”

ResoluteReader reviews A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism

February 20, 2024

There is a growing movement of people thinking about how their food is grown, what it contains and its impact on their health and the environment. Often this is tied up with an individualistic view of improving the world – the idea that you can save the world by simply choosing the best food with the least impact on the planet. Eric Holt-Giménez explains he wrote "A Foodie’s Guide to Capitalism" precisely to argue that this approach is inadequate...

Ecosocialism or planetary barbarism: International Socialist Review considers Facing the Anthropocene

February 20, 2024

According to Stephen Bannon and Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt, poor little America got hoodwinked by devious Asians, signing a deal that would wreck the economy and throw millions of people out of work, especially (white) coal miners in Appalachia, whom the president loves dearly. Climate change is an insignificant issue compared to these hardships and injustices. Coal is a fantastic fuel that will return America to greatness. ¶ Contrast this with the closing of Ian Angus’s Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System...

New! Rethinking Democracy: Socialist Register 2018

February 20, 2024

For years, intellectuals have argued that, with the triumph of capitalist, liberal democracy, the Western World has reached “the end of history.” Recently, however, there has been a rise of authoritarian politics in many countries. Concepts of post-democracy, anti-politics, and the like are gaining currency in theoretical and political debate. Now that capitalist democracies are facing seismic and systemic challenges, it becomes increasingly important to investigate not only the inherent antagonism between liberalism and the democratic process, but also socialism. Is socialism an enemy of democracy? Could socialism develop, expand, even enhance democracy?

“Red All Over”: Socialist.ca reviews A Redder Shade of Green

February 20, 2024

At 179 pages, this is a must-read book for everyone wanting a just society and a sustainable environment. Marxist Ian Angus is a prolific writer on science and socialism. He states, “Red and green together are the colours of ecosocialism…there can be no true ecological revolution that is not socialist, and no true socialist revolution that is not ecological.” – hence the name of the book…

“‘Vanilla ISIS’ in Charlottesville want to take us back to the 18th century”: Gerald Horne & Andrew Batcher on RT America

February 20, 2024

Gerald Horne, author of Confronting Black Jacobins and the forthcoming The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism, talks with Andrew Batcher, organizer of DC Anti-fascist Coalition, about rise of the far-right across the United States and the painful aftermath of Charlottesville, via Ashlee Bank‘s “Race in America,” on RT.

“The Rise and Fall of Syriza: Finding a New Way Forward for Greece’s Radical Left”: Helena Sheehan talks to The Real News Network

February 20, 2024

Helena Sheehan, author of "The Syriza Wave: Surging and Crashing with the Greek Left," talks to Sharmini Peries of The Real News Network about her book and about Syriza’s embrace of the austerity measures it once promised to stand against, and the current situation in Greece. Note: this interview consists of three parts.

Hurricane Harvey, Climate Change, and Capitalism: Fred Magdoff on Sputnik Radio

February 20, 2024

Fred Magdoff, author, with Chris Williams, of Creating an Ecological Society: Toward a Revolutionary Transformation, talks with Brian Becker on “Loud and Clear,” via Sputnik Radio. Listen, below, or at Sputnik News

A Redder Shade of Green reviewed by The Progressive Populist

February 20, 2024

Society and nature are weighty topics. Ian Angus confronts them with force in A Redder Shade of Green: Intersections of Science and Socialism. ¶ We read of the related work of 19th century natural and social scientists, from Charles Darwin, Justus von Liebig and Karl Schorlemmer to Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Their revolutionary critiques blend with those of Earth System scientists of the 21st century, from Paul J. Crutzen to John R. McNeill and Will Steffen. ¶ I read Angus’ informative and provocative book as Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria pounded Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico. Climate chaos is here. Blame fossil-fuel-driven imperatives of capitalism to grow endlessly...