December 1, 2024
What was the impact of Labor and Monopoly Capital in its day, and what is its resonance in ours? Kuang Xiaolu, Li Zhi, and Xie Fusheng take stock of Harry Braverman's influential scholarship over the last half-century. In sum, they write, "with the global expansion of the capitalist mode of production, the significance of Labor and Monopoly Capital has long surpassed narrow national boundaries and the era in which Braverman lived."
December 1, 2024
Following Harry Braverman's assertion that we must examine "by way of concrete historical specific analysis of technology…on one side and social relations on the other" in order to understand the impact of the Scientific-Technical Revolution on our daily lives, John Hedlund and Stefano B. Longo describe the explosion of the Synthetic Age of plastics, revealing the commodification of science in service of capital.
December 1, 2024
Mark Allison reviews Brian Merchant's timely Blood in the Machine (Little, Brown, and Co., 2023), finding in it a compelling historical account of the original Luddite movement with important parallels to our own age of Big Tech. However, Allison asks, are the lessons drawn from Blood in the Machine even possible within the confines of capitalism?
December 1, 2024
In this review of Andrew Drummond's The Dreadful History and Judgement of God on Thomas Müntzer (Verso Books, 2024), Paul Buhle explores how the influence of this Christian priest reverberated throughout the centuries, inspiring generations of future revolutionaries—including Karl Marx himself.
November 1, 2024
Monthly Review editors elucidate Samir Amin's concept of "delinking" in the context of the rise of global multipolarity. Delinking, they write, does not aim to isolate individual nations and populations economically, "but rather finding a way to sever connections with the main mechanisms of imperial dominance."
November 1, 2024
Christian Noakes invites readers into a literary exploration of Franz Kafka's short story, "Josephine the Singer." After all, as the author notes, "Kafka's often nightmarish stories reflect many of the social, political, and cultural dynamics inherent under capitalism." In applying this notion to "Josephine the Singer," Noakes discovers a tale that describes not only the mechanisms of domination that constrain us, but the possibilities of a new consciousness, and a new world.
November 1, 2024
In this review of Bit Tyrants by Rob Larson, Mateo Crossa finds and expands on how the powerful actors of Silicon Valley have fashioned themselves into the new, unapologetic robber barons, operating in the shadows of political lobbying to maintain their monopolistic practices in the Global North while shamelessly engaging in the naked exploitation of the workers in the Global South. Crossa echoes Larson's call for liberation from these tyrants, bringing attention to the necessity of socialism—both on- and offline—to agitate for democratic control over the technology and Internet platforms that increasingly penetrate our daily lives.
October 1, 2024
Minqi Li and Lingyi Wei look to the Chinese and U.S. economies to illustrate the contradictions of secular stagnation, concluding that both economies will likely face great challenges in the decades to come. However, they write, progressive economic policies could change China's future, encouraging massive investment into the state sector and bringing about the transition to a fully socialist society.
October 1, 2024
Since the 1980s, Chinese writers and thinkers have been engaging with Marxist ecology, constructing a theoretical system that starts with interpretation of Marx and Engels themselves. Chen Yiwen takes stock of how this framework progressed toward an overarching theory of ecological civilization, generating new questions to be answered at every stage of development.
September 1, 2024
Bernard D'Mello describes India's role as a collaborator in the U.S. anti-China Indo-Pacific project. This role, he elaborates, grows directly from the imperial/sub-imperial relationship between the United States and India, which manifests itself in border disputes, military exercises, diplomacy, economic ties, and more, has heightened hostilities in the Indo-Pacific region while benefiting the power elite of both countries.
