World Development under Monopoly Capitalism
As the internationalization of monopoly capital grows, particularly through the domination of global value chains, the worldwide rate of exploitation and degree of monopoly increase as well. | more…
The Present in History, 2021
The job of socialists is to engage with public policy from a class perspective, informed by a Marxist understanding of contemporary capitalism—not to reform it, but to abolish it. | more…
Bhima Koregaon and the “Powers of the Other Shore”
In India, today, we are witness to the quiet rise of the figure of Mahar Sidnak, iconized and lionized as a warrior of the oppressed from the early nineteenth century. This is electrifying the anticaste struggle and energizing the militant youth, a source of inspiration as historical as it is mythical. Are material issues, or “real struggle,” really so opposed to the question of the “mythical past”? | more…
Vouchers for Murder
In order to commit murder or mayhem under this program, vouchers must be submitted within one week prior to the actions contemplated or within a month afterward. Persons who commit violent acts without valid vouchers will be asked to enter into Voluntary Consent Agreements to desist from unauthorized murder or mayhem, and up to one tenth of any ill-gotten gains will be donated voluntarily to the charity of their choice, without any implication of admission of guilt. | more…
How to Read Marx’s ‘Capital’: Commentary and Explanations on the Beginning Chapters
With the recent revival of Karl Marx’s theory, a general interest in reading Capital has also increased. But Capital—Marx’s foundational nineteenth-century work on political economy—is by no means considered an easily understood text. Central concepts, such as abstract labor, the value-form, or the fetishism of commodities, can seem opaque to us as first-time readers, and the prospect of comprehending Marx’s thought can be truly daunting. Until, that is, we pick up Michael Heinrich’s How to Read Marx’s Capital. | more…
Extraordinary Threat: The U.S. Empire, the Media, and Twenty Years of Coup Attempts in Venezuela
Forthcoming in June 2021
In March 2015, President Obama initiated sanctions against Venezuela, declaring a “national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by the situation in Venezuela.” Each year, the U.S. administration has repeated this claim. But, as Joe Emersberger and Justin Podur ague in their timely book, Extraordinary Threat, the opposite is true: It is the U.S. policy of regime change in Venezuela that constitutes an “extraordinary threat” to Venezuelans. Tens of thousands of Venezuelans continue to die because of these ever-tightening U.S. sanctions, denying people daily food, medicine, and fuel. On top of this, Venezuela has, since 2002, been subjected to repeated coup attempts by U.S.-backed forces. In Extraordinary Threat, Emersberger and Podur tell the story of six coup attempts against Venezuela. | more…
In Line of Fire: The Korean Peninsula in U.S.-China Strategy
The war against fascism was transformed into the Cold War. U.S. imperialism, subdued somewhat by post-First World War isolationism, came into full flower. Washington implemented this sea change in many ways, including the division of the Korean Peninsula. | more…
The Political Economy of the U.S.-China Technology War
One of the key components of U.S.-China strategic competition is the technology war, the essence and implications of which can be further understood in the broader context of the international division of labor and the two countries’ internal contradictions. From this front, we can decipher the antagonism between different classes/groups within and across the two countries. | more…
What Is Happening in the United States?
How Social Class Influences Political Life
In order to understand what is happening in the United States, in the aftermath of the presidential election, one needs to comprehend the distribution of power in the country. | more…
The Guaidó Era
A Sixth, Very Long Coup Attempt
U.S. sanctions killed tens of thousands of Venezuelans before the recognition of Juan Guaidó as interim president in 2019 led to even more murderous sanctions. The message is that tremendous economic pain will be inflicted on the country until Nicolás Maduro is gone. | more…
Five Characteristics of Neoimperialism
Building on Lenin's Theory of Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century
Neoimperialism, the specific contemporary phase of historical development, can be summed up on the basis of five key features: the new monopoly of production and circulation; the new monopoly of finance capital; the monopoly of the U.S. dollar and intellectual property; the new monopoly of the international oligarchic alliance; and the economic essence and general trend. | more…
The Paris Commune: Marx, Mao, Tomorrow
Today the political visibility of the Paris Commune is not at all evident. At least, that is, if what we mean by “today” is the moment when we have to take up the challenge of thinking politics outside its subjection to the state and outside the framework of parties or party.… And yet the Commune was a political sequence that, precisely, did not situate itself in such a subjection or in such a framework. [To tackle] the political facts and determinations of the Commune…[it is necessary to utilize] a completely different method…[than that of the classical interpretation]. | more…