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  • 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.
  • 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.

  • Noncompete Agreement

    Playing the capitalist game: heads they win, tails you lose

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on August 19, 2021 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    According to an Economic Policy Institute report, between 28 and 47 percent of U.S. private sector workers are subject to noncompete agreements.

  • Price tag

    Creating a democratically run economy: lessons from World War II price control struggles*

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on July 21, 2021 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    Many activists in the United States are working to build a movement for a Green New Deal transformation of the economy. Not surprisingly, a growing number look to the World War II conversion of the U.S. economy from civilian to military production for inspiration and policy ideas. 

  • After WWII, parents organized demonstrations, like this one in New York on Sept. 21, 1947, calling for the continuing funding of the centers. The city’s welfare commissioner dismissed the protests as “hysterical.” Credit: The New York Times

    Learning from history: community-run child-care centers during World War II

    Originally published: Reports from the Economic Front on June 9, 2021 (more by Reports from the Economic Front)

    We face many big challenges. And we will need strong, bold policies to meaningfully address them. Solving our child-care crisis is one of those challenges, and a study of World War II government efforts to ensure accessible and affordable high-quality child care points the way to the kind of bold action we need. 

  • Wage trends

    The latest argument against federal relief: business claims that workers won’t work

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

    In reality there is little support for the argument that expanded unemployment benefits have created an overly worker-friendly labor market, leaving companies unable to hire and, by extension, meet growing demand.

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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

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    In “The Dialectics of Dependency,” Ruy Mauro Marini developed a theory of dependency and unequal exchange that is still invaluable today.

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