This article will be released in full online August 12, 2023.
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.” | more…
In this month’s “Notes from the Editors,” MR editors confront the Tower of Babel that has emerged over Marx’s early “Prometheanism” and later “degrowth communism.” This ahistorical interpretation has engendered further critique of ecosocialism and degrowth on the part of self-identified productivist writers, who attempt incorrectly to paint degrowth as a Malthusian project, rather than a realistic effort to live within Earth’s planetary capacities. | more…
Originally published in the German journal Widerspruch, Arman Spéth interviews John Bellamy Foster about the growing interest in degrowth thought and the importance of incorporating democratic planning aimed at true equality into all levels of society. And what of the ecosocialist revolution? “Opportunities,” Foster says, “are everywhere. Obstacles, largely a product of the present system, are also everywhere.… Nothing can or will remain the same. That is the very definition of a revolutionary situation.” | more…
Brian M. Napoletano considers the implications of recent work by Kohei Saito, in which Saito argues that Marx’s thought progressed from early productivism to middle-stage ecosocialism, and finally to degrowth communism. Napoletano concludes, that in arguing for an artificially contrived “epistemological break” between Marx’s supposed early growth-oriented perspective and his later purported “degrowth communism,” Saito fails to recognize Marx’s actual consistent emphasis throughout his work on a dialectically conceived process of sustainable human development, requiring a true social and ecological revolution. | more…
In a vividly drawn account of El Maizal Commune, Chris Gilbert provides readers with a window into the inner workings of a community being refounded with an eye toward building a new “alternative communal economy.” The task, Gilbert finds, is one that is not only revolutionary, but liberating and creative, having the potential to collectively reimagine the social relations of a community. | more…
The MR editors revisit the words of Monthly Review editors Harry Magdoff and Paul M. Sweezy, writing in the twenty-fifth-year anniversary issue. Writing on the innate contradictions plaguing the capitalist system, the editors in 1974 noted that the ecological limitations of capital accumulation was “unsolvable” under capitalism, thus setting the stage for the magazine’s continued exploration of ecosocialism as humanity’s future. | more…
This month’s Review of the Month by John Bellamy Foster illuminates the idea of extractivism, a key concept in understanding our current planetary crisis. The accelerated extraction of Earth’s resources since the mid-twentieth century, Foster notes, threatens not only the natural world, but the means of life for the entire planet. | more…
In a world of convergent crises, leading voices have called for radical changes to food, financial, and energy systems. However, these fail to account for a deeper systemic crisis: unfettered and accelerating of capital accumulation. In this article, M. Graziano Ceddia and Jacopo Nicola Bergamo provide a more comprehensive narrative, one which emphasizes capital as a social relation—and the potential of the environmental proletariat to dismantle its dominance. | more…
In this remarkable reprise reprinted from Monthly Review‘s October 1992 issue, Harry Magdoff and Paul Sweezy look ahead to the ecological crisis that has continued to unfold into the twenty-first century. Presaging the critical juncture at which we find ourselves today, they write that “only a change in the in the nature of power structures on a global scale could bring a realistic hope for the long-term continuation of human civilization…. If you think that is true, what do you think are the implications?” | more…
Today the fate of the earth as a home for humanity is in question—and yet, contends John Bellamy Foster, the reunification of humanity and the earth remains possible if we are prepared to make revolutionary changes. As with his prior books, The Dialectics of Ecology is grounded in the contention that we are now faced with a concrete choice between ecological socialism and capitalist exterminism, and rooted in insights drawn from the classical historical materialist tradition. In this latest work, Foster explores the complex theoretical debates that have arisen historically with respect to the dialectics of nature and society. He then goes on to examine
Paul Burkett’s death on January 7, 2024, at age 67, means that the world is suddenly bereft of the figure who played the leading role over the last three decades in developing a Marxist ecological economics in the face of the growing planetary crisis. His loss leaves ecological Marxism without its foremost exponent of the ecological critique of capitalist value relations. It also means the loss of a warm and compassionate human being, and a beloved jazz musician. | more…
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? | more…
