• Monthly Review
  • Monthly Review Press
  • Climate & Capitalism
  • Money on the Left
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • Mastadon
MR Online
  • Home
  • About
  • Contact/Submission
  • Browse
    • Recent Articles Archive
    • by Subject
      • Ecology
      • Education
      • Imperialism
      • Inequality
      • Labor
      • Literature
      • Marxism
      • Movements
      • Philosophy
      • Political Economy
    • by Region
      • Africa
      • Americas
      • Asia
      • Australasia
      • Europe
      • Global
      • Middle East
    • by Category
      • Art
      • Commentary
      • Interview
      • Letter
      • News
      • Newswire
  • Monthly Review Essays

About Martin Hart-Landsberg

Martin Hart-Landsberg is Professor Emeritus of Economics at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon; and Adjunct Researcher at the Institute for Social Sciences, Gyeongsang National University, South Korea. His areas of teaching and research include political economy, economic development, international economics, and the political economy of East Asia. He is also a member of the Workers' Rights Board (Portland, Oregon) and maintains a blog Reports from the Economic Front where this article first appeared.
  • Artificiell intelligens Gratis Stock Bild

    Exposing the big con: The false promise of Artificial Intelligence

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on February 21, 2025 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    The leading big tech companies are working hard to sell Artificial Intelligence (AI) as the gateway to a future of plenty for all.

  • Heat waves: Increasingly common, ever more deadly journalistsresource.org

    Feeling the heat: capitalism and global warming

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on July 18, 2024 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    Global carbon dioxide emissions (the main cause of global warming) continue to rise, hitting a new high in 2023.

  • Image generated by DALL-E 2. (Photo: 80000hours.org)

    AI chatbots: Hype meets reality

    Originally published: Reports for the Economic Front on April 15, 2024 (more by Reports for the Economic Front)

    The chatbot revolution began in 2022 with OpenAI’s introduction of ChatGPT.

  • Climate Change- The Complete WIRED Guide | WIRED Wired

    The climate crisis: Corporations are gambling with our lives

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on February 7, 2024 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    The World Meteorological Organization has declared 2023 “the warmest year on record, by a huge margin.”

  • Houses Passes $717 Billion Military Spending Bill - Citizen Truth

    U.S. foreign policy: A bipartisan embrace of militarism

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on May 17, 2023 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    In December 2022, President Joe Biden signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act, approving “national defense” spending of $858 billion for fiscal year 2023

  • Child labor laws. (Photo: rtr)

    The rollback of child labor protections is well underway

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on May 2, 2023 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    The hunt for profits is driving ever more despicable labor laws and practices.

  • Image source: Reddit

    In the U.S. you can be fired for any or no reason—it doesn’t have to be this way

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on January 5, 2023 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    The United States is an employment “at-will” country. That means, absent a union contract, a boss can fire a worker for almost any, or even no reason, and without advance notice. Well—with the exception of Montana.

  • Inflation

    Recession alert: we need a new unemployment insurance system

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on November 27, 2022 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    With the Federal Reserve pushing up interest rates, we appear headed for a new recession.

  • NATO’s expansion (as US proxy) to the east and the current Western sanctions against Russia have revealed the power structure of the contemporary world. (Graphic: Rob Dobi JHU)

    System change, class war, and the WW2 economic conversion experience

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on October 10, 2022 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    The climate crisis has driven our planet into uncharted territory. We are close to breaching critical environmental thresholds, setting in motion destabilizing changes to our global climate system that could well make the earth unlivable for humans and countless other species.

  • The Supreme Court released a ruling blocking President Joe Biden’s latest coronavirus pandemic-related eviction moratorium in a 6-3 decision on Aug. 26, 2021. Photo: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

    The Supreme Court: working hard to make a business-friendly America

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on August 14, 2022 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    President Calvin Coolidge, in a January 1925 speech to newspaper editors, asserted that “the chief business of the American people is business.”  The claim, although far from true, did capture the short-lived success of business leaders in structuring the country’s social institutions for the benefit of the wealthy.

  • Slip slidin’ away—the disappearing practice of overtime pay

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on June 12, 2022 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    Slip slidin’ away—that is what tends to happen to pro-worker reforms in our economic system. Things are structured so that without constant vigilance and struggle on our part, gains are gradually undone. A case in point: overtime pay.

  • Trump's new Medicaid rule prohibits automatic payment of union dues.

    Labor law failings, workplace organizing challenges, and possibilities for union renewal

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on May 9, 2022 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    If you follow the news it must seem like joining a union is a step outside the norms of U.S. law.

  • $15 federal minimum wage

    It’s past time for a $15 federal minimum wage

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on April 22, 2022 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    President Biden’s 2022 State of the Union Address included a call for a $15 federal minimum wage. According to an Economic Policy Institute study, a phased increase to a $15 federal minimum wage by 2025 would raise the earnings of 32 million workers—21% of the workforce, no small thing. 

  • Plant in lightbulb

    Don’t believe the hype, big finance continues to threaten our survival

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on February 21, 2022 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    According to defenders of the status quo, the best response to our most serious problems is to let markets work their magic; government regulation of private business activity only makes things worse.

  • Job shortfall

    Once again austerity proponents tell it like it isn’t

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on January 17, 2022 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    There appears to be growing consensus among economists and policy makers that inflation is now the main threat to the U.S. economy and the Federal Reserve Board needs to start ratcheting up interest rates to slow down economic activity.

  • The following infographic includes the actual number of lives that could have been saved.

    The U.S. experience: racism and COVID-19 mortality

    Originally published: Reports for the Economic Front on December 15, 2021 (more by Reports for the Economic Front)

    Not only did all the racial and ethnic populations, with the exception of Asians, experience far higher COVID-19 mortality rates than did whites, their respective rates were at least twice that of whites.

  • Income distribution

    The dollar costs of inequality: they are greater than you think

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on November 29, 2021 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    Pretty much everyone accepts that inequality is a big problem in the U.S. But it is doubtful that most people truly grasp how successfully U.S. elites have captured the benefits of economic growth and, as a result, how much the resulting inequality has cost them.

  • Movement in average real weekly earnings of private sector production and nonsupervisory workers–about 84 percent of the private sector labor force.

    U.S. workers in motion: an assessment of labor’s gains

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on November 15, 2021 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    The reality is that the labor movement has a long struggle ahead and it should not be distracted by unwarranted fears of inflation.

  • For Sale signs

    Economic inequality means retirement insecurity for most U.S. households

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on October 31, 2021 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    This is far from a “hot take”: financial wealth in the United States is highly concentrated, with most households, especially Black and Hispanic households, owning few financial assets

  • Personal Income Dynamics

    Pandemic economic woes continue, but so do deep structural problems, especially the long-term growth in the share of low wage jobs

    Martin Hart-Landsberg

    Many are understandably alarmed about what the September 4th termination of several special federal pandemic unemployment insurance programs will mean for millions of workers.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
Next →

Also By Martin Hart-Landsberg in Monthly Review Magazine

  • Planning an Ecologically Sustainable and Democratic Economy: Challenges and Tasks July 01, 2023
  • U.S. Economic Planning in the Second World War and the Planetary Crisis February 01, 2023
  • Lessons from Iceland October 01, 2013
  • ALBA and the Promise of Cooperative Development December 01, 2010
  • The U.S. Economy and China: Capitalism, Class, and Crisis February 01, 2010
  • Learning from ALBA and the Bank of the South: Challenges and Possibilities September 01, 2009
  • The Promise and Perils of Korean Reunification April 01, 2009
  • China, Capitalist Accumulation, and Labor May 01, 2007
  • Neoliberalism: Myths and Reality April 01, 2006

Books By Martin Hart-Landsberg

  • Capitalist Globalization: Consequences, Resistance, and Alternatives May 31, 2009

Monthly Review Essays

  • US Imperialism in Crisis: Opportunities and Challenges to a Global Community with a Shared Future
    Sam-Kee Cheng A late 1940s Soviet poster showing a US military service member lounging on top of a German factory, smoking a cigar. The text beneath reads DER DOLLARIMPERIALISMUS [dollar imperialism].

    1. Introduction The predominance of US economic, political and military power in the world was established at the end of the Second World War.1 With just 6.3 percent of global population, the United States held about 50 percent of the world wealth in 1948. As the only power which had used nuclear weapons on civilian […]

Lost & Found

  • Journalism, democracy, … and class struggle
    Robert W. McChesney Bob McChesney on Saving Journalism

    Our job is to make media reform part of our broader struggle for democracy, social justice, and, dare we say it, socialism.

Trending

  • Wood gavel and open handcuffs symbolizing freeing judge decisions
    High Court opens door to police accountability
  • Karl Marx
    150 years since the Critique of the Gotha Programme
  • Cristin Milioti in Black Mirror Season 7
    Black Mirror still absorbs
  • Law concept: habeas corpus. Under United States law, a writ of habeas corpus is a command from a court to the custodian of a particular individual (usually the state or federal prison system) to release that individual. A petition for a writ of habeas corpus is a common mechanism by which a criminal case can be reviewed even after the appellate process has run its course.
    Trump administration moves to eliminate Habeas Corpus
  • Patriot | Missile Threat
    The real Trump revealed
  • President Maduro was unscathed from the attack (Hugoshi)
    ‘Neoliberal and authoritarian’? A simplistic analysis of the Maduro government that leaves much unsaid
  • South African President Cyril Ramaphosa / French President Emmanuel Macron
    The Colonial past haunts French Military operations in Africa
  • Floyd
    People get ready: Protest on the anniversary of George Floyd’s murder
  • Aerial view of Santa Rita strip copper mine near Silver City, NM
    Donald Trump’s feverish lust for green energy resources
  • White South Africans rallying in support of President Trump outside the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa, last month. Photo; Joao Silva/The New York Times
    Fleeing imaginary persecution at home, South African ‘refugees’ may find the grass is not greener in America

Popular (last 30 days)

  • Langley/Burkina Faso
    The U.S./EU/NATO’s Regime change playbook for Burkina Faso and Captain Ibrahim Traoré
  • Cpt. Ibrahim Traoré
    The rising star of Cpt. Ibrahim Traore – Burkina Faso’s spirit of Sankara
  • Tump and Putin
    Russia rejects Trump’s freeze of the war in Ukraine
  • Trump's Tariffs: Economic Warfare or Winning Strategy?
    The Trump Tariffs and the U.S. Labor Movement
  • Why does the US support Israel?
    Why does the U.S. support Israel? A geopolitical analysis with economist Michael Hudson
  • BAP demonstration in Washington DC gathered outside the Embassy of Burkina Faso, in defense of the Alliance for Sahel States, October 2024.
    Now is the time for all anti-imperialists and all justice loving people to stand unequivocally in defense of Burkina Faso
  • Wood gavel and open handcuffs symbolizing freeing judge decisions
    High Court opens door to police accountability
  • Illustration by MintPress News
    Wiz acquisition puts Israeli Intelligence in charge of your Google data
  • A Political Life by Hugo Ott
    Heidegger’s feeble excuses
  • Karl Marx
    Marx’s ontology: A clarification

RSS MR Press News

  • EXCERPT: Colonial dreams, racist nightmares, liberated futures (from the introduction to A Land With A People) May 19, 2025
  • LISTEN: Erald Kolasi on the podcast ‘Real Progressives’ (The Physics of Capitalism) May 19, 2025
  • On the brilliant Bob McChesney April 21, 2025
  • Andy Merrifield, author of Roses for Gramsci, at The Marxist Education Project April 20, 2025
  • NEW! ROSES FOR GRAMSCI by Andy Merrifield (EXCERPT) April 7, 2025

RSS Climate & Capitalism

  • Ecosocialist Bookshelf, May 2025 May 19, 2025
  • Humans have observed less than 0.001% of the deep seafloor May 8, 2025
  • Ecosocialist Bookshelf, April 2025 April 10, 2025
  • Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World April 2, 2025
  • Will Mpox be the next global threat to human health? April 2, 2025

 

RSS Monthly Review

  • May 2025 (Volume 77, Number 1) May 1, 2025 The Editors
  • The MAGA Ideology and the Trump Regime May 1, 2025 John Bellamy Foster
  • Neoliberalism and Neofascism May 1, 2025 Robert W. McChesney
  • Decolonization and Its Discontents May 1, 2025 Pranay Somayajula
  • China’s “Triple Revolution Theory” and Marxist Analysis May 1, 2025 Cheng Enfu

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Creative Commons License

Monthly Review Foundation
134 W 29TH ST STE 706
New York NY 10001-5304

Tel: 212-691-2555