Organized labor has always privileged collective struggle at the point of production, judging it to be capital’s most vulnerable point. Denying employers the labor power needed for the production of surplus value strikes at the reproduction and expansion of capital, the accumulation process which is the core of the system | more…
We’ve received three letters from readers complaining about our articles on Kosovo. While this isn’t a groundswell of opinion, we assume that there are other readers out there who share the concerns of these critics, and since this is an important issue, we think it’s worth returning to it. We won’t go over the same ground again, but we want to take up at least one larger question raised by the critics | more…
The route to any coherent understanding of our time runs through the issues addressed in this collection of essays: the political meaning of Islam, the relation of the West to the Islamic world, the new form of imperialism signaled by the Soviet and U.S. occupations of Afghanistan, the intractable conflict over Palestine. In confronting these inescapable issues global power is being reshaped and the ends for which it will be used are being decided. | more…
Since September 11, 2001, there have been many accounts of the ways in which the alignment of global power is changing or will be changed by the U.S. war on terrorism. Most of them take as their starting point the options facing the wealthy and powerful nations of the world seeking to control an ever larger share of the world’s resources. Behind the Invasion of Iraq is written from a different perspective, and one that makes possible a far more comprehensive point of view. | more…
In his article on the U.S. economy in this issue, Doug Henwood quotes from a piece by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times Magazine on March 28, and points to the connection between Friedman’s view of globalization and his support for the bombing of Yugoslavia. Well, we read that article and were very much struck by it too. Anyone who thinks we’re over the top when we say things like Ellen did in June’s Review of the Month about the “new imperialism” should just read Friedman’s “Manifesto for the Fast World.” | more…
Note: We have no way of knowing what the status of the war in Yugoslavia will be when the following reaches you. Since its completion, there have been more NATO “mistakes”: the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and of many Kosovar Albanian civilians in Korisa.We can only hope that such events will bring the U.S. government and its NATO allies to their senses. But whatever happens in Yugoslavia, the global dangers posed by the United States and its long-term objectives will persist so long as this country’s imperial project remains intact | more…
NATO decided to celebrate its fiftieth birthday with a bang in keeping with the changing character of the “defensive alliance.” It assumed that a short, sharp war in the Balkans would rapidly bring Milosevic to his knees, and Kosovo would become the second NATO protectorate in the region. As I write, this ugly war is over a month old. It is a war that has little, if anything, to do with the people of the old Yugoslavia. This has been a war for U.S. hegemony in Europe and the world, the act of a triumphant imperialism designed to rub the face of its old enemy in mud enriched with depleted uranium | more…
In the decades after 1945, as colonial possessions became independent states, it was widely-believed that imperialism as a historical phenomenon was coming to an end. The six essays collected in this volume demonstrate that a new form of imperialism was, in fact, taking shape—an imperialism defined not by colonial rule but by the global capitalist market. From the outset, the dominant power in this imperialism without colonies was the United States. | more…
Back in December, while the January issue was going to press, the U.S. and Britain were bombing Iraq, and Congress was impeaching Bill Clinton. Our publication schedule spares us the temptation to say the first thing that comes into our heads when a major news story breaks. But sober reflection hasn’t changed our first reaction: if Clinton were being impeached for bombing Iraq, it wouldn’t be hard to support his removal from office—though if all U.S. presidents were fired for their imperialist adventures, impeachment would now be as normal and regular a political event as election | more…
I will address some aspects of globalization in our time and what they mean for working people. I will start with some general definitions and suggest that the most significant features of what is called globalization have always been part of capitalist development, even if the forms are different in different periods (including our own). I will then discuss the arrogance of capital as it tries to remake our world in its preferred image. In this regard, I will contrast U.S. initiatives in the area of labor standards with worker demands for labor rights. I will then consider the institutions of an internationalized capitalist regime, which seeks to impose itself using vehicles such as the International Monetary Fund and the proposed Multilateral Agreement on Investment. Finally, I will talk about resistance | more…
Military interventions on supposedly humanitarian grounds have become an established feature of the post–Cold War global order. Since September 11, this form of militarism has taken on new and unpredictable proportions. Diana Johnstone’s well-documented study demonstrates that a crucial moment in establishing in the public mind — and above all, within the political context of liberalism and the left — the legitimacy of such interventions was the “humanitarian” bombing of the former Yugoslavia in 1999. | more…
The attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 and the U.S. government response, especially after the bombing of Afghanistan, transformed U.S. and global politics. The New Crusade examines the myths that have arisen around the war on terrorism and the ways they are used to benefit a small elite. Mahajan demonstrates how accepted accounts of the causes of the U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan, the conduct of the war, and its consequences have been systematically distorted. He shows how global power is being redefined in the process and explores the new directions the war is likely to take. | more…