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Monthly Review Volume 76, Number 7 (December 2024)

December 2024 (Volume 76, Number 7)

As the atrocities visited by Israel upon the Palestinian people continue to multiply, this month’s “Notes from the Editors is a forceful condemnation of not only the Zionist entity, but the entire U.S.-led neoliberal world order. Israel’s relentless pursuit of genocide in Palestine “has destroyed any pretense of a commitment to universal human rights on the part of the West,” undeniably revealing “imperialism and settler colonialism in their most brutal forms” as the entire world watches. | 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…

Plastic Pollution covering beach in Accra, Ghana

Monopoly Capital and the Rise of the Synthetic Age

Following Harry Braverman’s assertion that we must examine “by way of concrete historical specific analysis of technology…on one side and social relations on the other” in order to understand the impact of the Scientific-Technical Revolution on our daily lives, John Hedlund and Stefano B. Longo describe the explosion of the Synthetic Age of plastics, revealing the commodification of science in service of capital. | more…

New this week!
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…

The Dreadful History and Judgement of God on Thomas Müntzer: The Life and Times of an Early German Revolutionary, Andrew Drummond

Ancient Marxist History

This article will be released in full online December 30, 2023.

In this review of Andrew Drummond’s The Dreadful History and Judgement of God on Thomas Müntzer (Verso Books, 2024), Paul Buhle explores how the influence of this Christian priest reverberated throughout the centuries, inspiring generations of future revolutionaries—including Karl Marx himself. | more…

The title page of the first edition of V. I. Lenin’s work

The New Denial of Imperialism on the Left

John Bellamy Foster returns to the touchstones of anti-imperialist Marxist thought, found in the works of V. I. Lenin, Samir Amin, and others, in order to confront the rising denial of imperialism on the left. This worldview and its consequences, he writes, has troubling implications not only for the superexploited workers of the periphery, but for all of the workers of the world, and for the internationalist character of contemporary Marxism. | more…

Seminar on Text and Data Mining and Artificial Intelligence, 1/18/2024

The Social Dialectics of AI

In this deep dive into the world of artificial intelligence, Pietro Daniel Omodeo employs the frameworks laid out in Matteo Pasquinelli’s The Eye of the Master to weave a sociological history of AI that begins with the class struggles of the Industrial Revolution and continues into the context of early twentieth-century computing, which eventually gave rise our current Information Age. “AI,” he concludes, “sheds light onto the intellectual component of labor in all ages.” | more…

Stayed on Freedom: The Long History of Black Power through One Family’s Journey by Dan Berger

A History of Black Power We Need and Deserve

Say Burgin reviews Stayed on Freedom: The Long History of Black Power through One Family’s Journey, an account of the fight for Black Power as told through the Simmons family, and particularly, Michael and Zoharah Simmons, from their first meeting during SNCC’s Atlanta Project to their later painful struggles as a family. The story that shines through, Burgin writes, is a story of Black Power that is deeply personal, often messy, and, above all, a refreshing challenge to popular narratives that serve to demonize the history of Black Power and the radicals who devoted their lives to the struggle. | more…

Statue of Richard III in Leicester, England

Richard III, the Tudor Myth, and the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism

Shakespeare’s Richard III famously immortalized the eponymous king as a scoundrel and tyrant, thirsty for power and blood. Using economic data spanning centuries, Thomas Lambert questions the truth of this spurious reputation: Was Richard III indeed a murderous despot bent on absolute rule? Or a myth propagated by Tudor allies aiming to ingratiate themselves to the new dynasty? | more…

Billboard reading "Clear waters and green mountains"

Marxist Ecology in China: From Marx’s Ecology to Socialist Eco-Civilization Theory

Since the 1980s, Chinese writers and thinkers have been engaging with Marxist ecology, constructing a theoretical system that starts with interpretation of Marx and Engels themselves. Chen Yiwen takes stock of how this framework progressed toward an overarching theory of ecological civilization, generating new questions to be answered at every stage of development. | more…

Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will

Applying/Misapplying Gramsci’s Passive Revolution to Latin America

Steve Ellner deconstructs the argument that Pink Tide governments elected since 2018 are in a state of “passive revolution,” having betrayed their progressive roots through concessions to conservative elements and capital. This analysis, Ellner finds, fails to capture the material impacts of Pink Tide governments, their strategic importance, or their potential to pull societies toward a more radical leftist future. | more…

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