January 2022 (Volume 73, Number 8)
Cuba’s world leadership in sustainable human development is of world-historic importance. | more…
The Blockade as a Double-Edged Sword
Notwithstanding an ongoing commitment to redouble its efforts, Cuban socialism has not taken full advantage of its own human and material resources to develop its productive forces. It is necessary to distinguish between our right and duty to struggle against the blockade and our expectations regarding what one can and cannot hope for if it is lifted. | more…
Socialism Cannot Postpone Its Promise of Democracy
Young Cuban Voices on the July 11 Events
On Sunday, July 11, 2021, demonstrations occurred in various parts of Cuba. Many of the demonstrators went onto the streets to protest the frequent prolonged power outages in various locations, shortages of food and medicine, and the general precariousness of daily life. A variety of different perspectives are putting their own spin on these events. | more…
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…
Disney, Salò, and Pasolini’s Inconsumable Art
The increasing consolidation of the modern entertainment industry by a small clique of multinational streaming giants is the next step in the “standardization of style” in mass-consumed art. The work of Pier Paolo Pasolini can help remind us of what we’re missing. | more…
The great indifference
A new poem by Marge Piercy. | more…
October 2021 (Volume 73, Number 5)
What was most significant about the published Part I of the report was that it revealed that even in the most optimistic projection of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways—in which carbon emissions globally peak in the next four years, a 1.5°C increase in global average temperature over preindustrial levels would be avoided until 2040, and the goal of net zero carbon emissions would be reached by 2050—the consequences for global humanity would nonetheless be catastrophic by the measure of all historical precedents. | 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…
The legacy
A new poem by Marge Piercy. | more…
September 2021 (Volume 73, Number 4)
In 2004, Washington launched a whole new strategy of financial war, based on the role of the U.S. dollar as the hegemonic foreign-exchange currency, to cut off the economic circulation of targeted states. The United States has created, as part of its “rules-based international order,” a coercive global framework extending U.S. financial jurisdiction to every country, economic entity, and person engaged at any point in U.S. dollar transactions anywhere in the world. | more…
The Capitalinian: The First Geological Age of the Anthropocene
Assuming that the Anthropocene will soon be officially designated as the earth’s current epoch, there remains the question of the geological age with which the Anthropocene begins. Adopting the standard nomenclature for the naming of geological ages, the term Capitalinian is proposed as the most appropriate name for the new geological age, conforming to the historical period that environmental historians see as commencing around 1950, in the wake of the Second World War, the rise of multinational corporations, and the unleashing of the process of decolonization and global development. | more…