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Monthly Review Volume 76, Number 11 (April 2025)

April 2025 (Volume 76, Number 11)

This month, MR editors take on the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, a pale imitation of the five authentic Nobel Prizes that is aimed at reinforcing the ideology of neoclassical economics and awarded to mainstream liberal economists who defend the institutions of capitalism. In line with this tradition, the editors note, the most recent winners are keen apologists for settler colonialism and Zionism. | more…

New this week!
Trump in the White House: Tragedy and Farce

The U.S. Ruling Class and the Trump Regime

John Bellamy Foster revisits and critiques the contention that the U.S. capitalist class is not a “governing” class, or indeed a class-conscious bloc in any sense. However, he writes, the fact that the ruling-class oligarchy is now openly wielding power on the national and international stages as part of the Trump regime shows that the overwhelming political influence of the capitalist class is no longer in dispute as this alignment pushes the country deeper into neofascism. | more…

The Danger of Fascism in the United States: A View from the 1950s

This article will be released in full online April 21, 2025.

“The Big Business-military coalition in the United States,” Paul A. Baran wrote in this prescient reprise from 1952, “assumes all of the functions of a fascist regime…. And it develops rapidly into its own American variety of government under capitalism in an age of imperialism, wars, and national and social revolutions. It becomes fully adapted to its sinister historical mission—to be the instrument of ruthless class struggle on the national and international planes.” | more…

Arghiri Emmanuel

Arghiri Emmanuel and Unequal Exchange: Past, Present, and Future Relevance

Torkil Lauesen delves into the legacy of celebrated Arghiri Emmanuel, whose theory of unequal exchange resonates well into the twenty-first century. Introduced in 1962, Emmanuel’s critique of Ricardian and neoliberal capitalism further illuminated the Marxist concept value as it relates to global exchange and the ongoing exploitation of the Global South by the Global North. | more…

Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century

Braverman, Monopoly Capital, and AI: The Collective Worker and the Reunification of Labor

December’s Monthly Review begins the fiftieth-anniversary celebration of Harry Braverman’s seminal work, Labor and Monopoly Capital (Monthly Review Press, 1974), with this Review of the Month by John Bellamy Foster, which explores the connections between Marx’s “collective worker,” Braverman’s “collective scientist,” and the struggle against the degradation of work in the digital age. | more…

Workers in a fiber optic cable factory

The Classic Transcending Borders and Ages: Commemorating the Fiftieth Anniversary of ‘Labor and Monopoly Capital’

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.” | more…

Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech, Brian Merchant

The Attenuated Politics of Popular Luddism

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? | more…

Pages from 'A Hunger Artist' published by Twisted Spoon Press

Hegemony and the Subaltern in Kafka’s “Josephine the Singer”

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. | more…

Bit Tyrants The Political Economy of Silicon Valley by Rob Larson

Bit Despotism: The Genesis of High-Tech Monopolies

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. | more…

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