June 1, 2026
June's "Notes from the Editors" revisits the fundamental concept of monopoly capitalism as expounded by Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy in their pathbreaking
Monopoly Capital. The recent resurgence of the debate around Baran and Sweezy's work, the editors write, misses not only the enduring relevance of their analysis in an era of megacorporations and hyperscalers, but the revolutionary understanding of the economic system that arises from such an analysis.
June 1, 2026
MR associate editor Brett Clark and editor John Bellamy Foster explore "the death drive of late imperialism" and its manifestations in an ecological crisis that is not parallel to, but inseparable from, increasingly open ecofascism in the United States. Drawing from Luckács's
Destruction of Reason and István Mészáros's work on imperialism, Clark and Foster present a materialist analysis that illuminates the cult of unreason so pervasive under capitalism and imperialism while pointing to a path forward that is grounded in the historical-materialist Marxist tradition.
June 1, 2026
Te Li unravels the myth of digital dematerialization so heavily promulgated by Silicon Valley and other AI boosters, which presents the technology as a phenomenon that has escaped the material realm and thus, entropy itself. In fact, Li shows that the material and energetic requirements of AI places it squarely in the physical realm, then situates the technology within the context of the metabolic rift under capitalism.
June 1, 2026
Philosopher and frequent
MR contributor Helena Sheehan considers the implications of living in a world in which a lack of meaning runs rampant, as well as how it is expressed in the literary world. If we lack coherent analysis, the varied crises of our times can seem disconnected and overpowering. A materially grounded Marxist worldview, she notes, allows us to clear away the fog of meaninglessness engulfing contemporary society and chart a path toward socialism.
May 1, 2026
This month's "Notes from the Editors" dissects recent attacks on historical materialism from so-called social materialism. This way of thinking, the editors write, is profoundly divorced from Marxism, in that it lacks a dialectical foundation and eliminates the ethical domain that is critical to building a revolutionary praxis.
May 1, 2026
John Bellamy Foster takes on sweeping questions of artificial intelligence and its role in today's capitalist society. "The Great Houses of AI are divided against themselves and cannot stand," he writes, "If humanity is to flourish, the forces and relations of production must be revolutionized together…creating a world of sustainable human development."
May 1, 2026
Yiwen Chen dives deep into Frederick Engels's
Dialectics of Nature in order to give context to present-day debates surrounding the juxtaposition of the dialectics of nature and Marxist ecology. "It is hardly surprising that Engels's and Marx's ecological ideas are not entirely identical," Chen writes. "Nevertheless, their ideas do possess an inherent consistency."
May 1, 2026
Today, many use the term "circular economy" to describe a shift in the use of industrial waste products in a way that does not challenge the present mode of production. Returning to Marx, Benjamin Selwyn is able to show that this usage of the term is designed to facilitate the acquisitive demands of a capitalist economy, rather than a fundamental shift in resource use.
April 1, 2026
While the "world is rapidly approaching tipping points that spell irreversible and catastrophic climate change," write The Editors, "we are not seeing the necessary turn from ecological reform to ecological revolution, but rather the rise of ecological reaction.… An absolute no-quarters war from above is now being waged against all political attempts to address climate change." This attack is epitomized by "the Donald Trump administration's goal of removing the 2009 Endangerment Finding of the Clean Air Act that underlies all national climate legislation in the United States." While this tactic is unlikely to succeed, the proliferation of similar attacks clearly demonstrate that "[m]onopoly-finance capital has now abandoned the energy transition, which was its only answer to climate change."
April 1, 2026
Applying Marxist labor theory to the rise of artificial intelligence and its effects on workers, Te Li presents an understanding of labor in the age of increasing reliance on algorithms and digital technologies. As Li argues: "In the civilization of general intellect labor, where the knowledge economy dominates, knowledge-intensive labor such as scientific research, technological innovation, artistic creation, and education and training will become primary forms of labor."
