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
Andy Merrifield reflects on Nikolai Gogol's short story "The Overcoat," tying it to "a distinctively Marxist problematic." In the protagonist of the tale, a Russian counsellor whose life is forever changed by the acquisition of a new overcoat, Merrifield finds a character who, like Marx, knows firsthand what a single coat can tell us about the structures of society.
May 1, 2026
In this review of Ilan Pappé's Israel on the Brink, Tom Mayer considers the famed historian's assessment of the increasingly precarious Zionist state. In the book, Mayer writes, readers will find a thoughtful consideration of the past, present, and potential events that could shape a new vision for Palestine.
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
This article examines the resurgence of interest in Mao Zedong among China's youth, particularly at elite universities. This "Mao fever" reflects a complex mindset: indignation toward social inequality, uncertainty within a brutal job market, and a firm anti-imperialist and patriotic stance amidst the "New Cold War." In Mao’s legacy, a new generation is finding the guidance to navigate the sharpening contradictions of the present day.
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."
March 1, 2026
"To make sense of present developments," MR editors write in this month's "Notes from the Editors," "it is essential to understand the dialectic of continuity and change in U.S. imperial grand strategy." By charting the evolution from post-Second World War dominance to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the eventual demise of the "Unipolar Moment," the Editors tie the reactionary impulses of MAGA to the raw shows of imperial force driven by Trump's policies.
March 1, 2026
In 1966, Johns Hopkins hosted a seemingly innocuous international conference titled "The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man," featuring leading figures of what would later be known as "French Theory." However, John Bellamy Foster writes, far from a simple meeting of intellectuals, this represented a "politically motivated attempt to create a beachhead for French structuralism in the United States that would counter the radicalization then taking place."
March 1, 2026
Vijay Prashad critiques the argument that colonialism was, at most, ancillary to the transition between capitalism and feudalism in Western Europe. Instead, Prashad argues, "capitalism as it historically emerged—industrial, global, racialized, and imperial—was inseparable from colonial expropriation." This reality must fuel a Marxist conception of the global struggle for reparations for those who have been oppressed and exploited at the hands of empires past and present.