In this reprise from September 2000, Harry Magdoff, John Bellamy Foster, and Robert W. McChesney look forward to the future of Monthly Review in the twenty-first century: “Despite mistakes, setbacks, and recognition that the road is long and arduous, we must not waver as we continue to study, educate, and be missionaries for the transcendence of the social system of capitalism and the development…of a society of equals.” | 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…
Matthew Sharpe discusses Aymeric Monville’s Misère du nietzschéisme de gauche (The Misery of Left Nietzscheanism), an exploration of how Nietzsche’s popularity on the left co-opts truly radical energy in favor of authoritarianism and elitism. “If Monville is right,” Sharpe concludes, “Nietzcheanism has acted as a kind of ideological ‘useful idiot.’” | 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…
Named one of “five of the best science picks” on Nature
“Cuba’s future must, by necessity, be a future of scientists,” Fidel Castro proclaimed in 1960. As Agustín Lage Dávila shows in this pathbreaking book, Cuba has in fact become a global leader in both the generation and application of scientific knowledge—as demonstrated by its ubiquitous production of socially useful products, from vaccines and medicines, to organic food. Speaking from his position as a noted Cuban immunologist, Dr. Lage shows how Cuba achieved such prominence, positing that the training of its scientists, their scientific practices, and their relationships with the Cuban people are
“It is surprising,” Marnie Holborow writes, “how often in Marxist accounts of women’s oppression Frederick Engels is overlooked.” In responding to this gap in analysis, Holborow examines his influential work, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, finding his observations on gender roles and social reproduction under capitalism—and their expressions based on class—are not only astute for Engels’s time, but very much for ours as well. | 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…
Drawing on writings, historical accounts, and personal letters, Kaan Kangal surveys the considerable extent of Marx and Engels’s interest in language and capabilities as polyglots. This interest, he argues, was part and parcel of their political commitment to building worldwide socialism. | more…
There is a paradox, Benjamin Selwyn and Charis Davis write, at the heart of corporate veganism in the Global North. While vegan products are sold to consumers as environmentally conscious alternatives to meat and dairy, the world’s largest producers of such products are rapacious, ecologically destructive, and exploitive of populations in the Global South. The authors argue that a turn toward socialist veganism can advance the goals of decommodifying and democratizing our food system. | more…
Mauricio Betancourt reviews Marcello Musto’s The Last Years of Karl Marx. In the book, Betancourt finds a detailed portrait of Marx’s rarely examined later years, revealing a man who, despite personal tragedy and failing health, remained a vigorous intellectual and scholar through the end of his life. | more…
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