July 1, 2024
As the world hurtles toward planetary catastrophe, driven in large part by the unchecked burning of fossil fuels in the Global North, China has emerged as a leader in renewable energy. This dynamic, Julie de los Reyes and Jewellord Nem Singh contend, mirrors China's ascendance in many sectors, revealing "the glaring failure of the liberal international order to address pressing social and environmental issues."
April 1, 2024
In a December 2023 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Richard Haass, former special assistant to H. W. Bush, declared that the world has descended into a "new world disorder," lamenting the long-lost dream of unending U.S. hegemony. This month's "Notes from the Editors" reflects on not only Haass's recent statements, but his longstanding advocacy of an "Imperial America" designed to ensure U.S. domination on the world stage.
March 1, 2024
The recent arrest of Newsclick editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha is a chilling development in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's campaign of repression against free media. The current "moral panic" being mobilized against Purkayashta, Sam Popowich notes, represents Modi's attempt to gain popular legitimacy for his Hindutva program and silence dissent.
March 1, 2024
According to most Western commentators, North Korea is an "enigma" plagued by "irrational" leadership, poverty, and pervasive food shortages. Zhun Xu charts the evolution of North Korean industrial agriculture and the country's efforts to feed its population from the Soviet era up until today. What, Xu asks, can we learn from the country's efforts to industrialize its agricultural sector, and what do they tell us about the future of agriculture under socialism?
January 1, 2024
Using the lens of Neeraj Ghaywan's film Geeli Pucchi, Aratrika Bose, Tanupriya, and Anuja Singh explore the ways in which lesbian characters negotiate the trappings of hegemonic femininity embedded in Indian culture, from marriage and home life to the workplace, and the role of the body and "beauty" in the navigation of feminine identities.
December 1, 2023
Mahesh Maskey, editor of Bampanth (Nepal), interviews John Bellamy Foster about the growing emphasis on Marxian ecology among socialists in the Global South and North and the history of solidarity between MR and Nepali leftists.
November 1, 2023
In 2022, China released its "Global Civilization Initiative," a document enumerating China's commitment to fostering diversity, equality, and cultural exchange. The editors analyze how the U.S. foreign policy community and media jumped to attack the initiative in the interest of defending U.S. imperial strategy around the globe.
November 1, 2023
Kyung-Pil Kim charts the history of the Korean platform economy through the rise of Naver and Kakao, the major firms dominating the markets. How do these companies operate? How did they achieve dominance? Finally, what are recent developments and challenges of labor organizing in this sphere?
October 1, 2023
At the center of the United States's New Cold War MR editors write, is the World Trade Organization, "the crown jewel of the liberal international order." After China's admittance into the WTO did not lead to the collapse of socialism in that country, presidents from Obama to Biden have gutted the institution and escalated the tariff war, all in the name of protecting the so-called rules-based international order.
October 1, 2023
Following the work of scientist and Sinologist Joseph Needham, this talk by John Bellamy Foster illuminates the conceptual linkages between the ancient Greek and Chinese thought and modern dialectical materialism and ecological civilization. This interweaving of intellectual traditions, he writes, has created a "powerful organic ecological-materialist philosophy."