Archive | Commentary

Letting the law of capitalist value govern society makes building socialism almost impossible because, even if the general guidelines of capitalist value seem to be acceptable, all it takes is for the market to plunge for you to lose your bearings entirely.

Capitalism as a system functions irrationally because social and ecological concerns cannot be taken into account when making business decisions. Profits before all else.

Agreement between the two NATO allies highlights wrongheaded analysts in corporate and alternative media in the West who have played up ‘U.S.-Turkey conflict’ over Syria and falsely argued that Russia is backing Turkey’s anti-Kurdish violations of Syrian sovereignty.

Mexico’s July 1 elections represent a moment of political restructuring in the midst of a profound crisis in Mexico’s current regime. In this context, the question of whether or not to vote is secondary to the need to organize the anti-capitalist left, either to seize the opening that a victory by Andrés Manuel López Obrador could provide to build a united workers’ movement to the left of his party, or to defend against the very real possibility of another fraudulent “victory” by representatives of the PRI-PAN alliance.

As we head into the 2018 elections feminists of all sorts must make sure that there is a revolutionary commitment to restructure the massive system of oppression maintained by sexual violence. Becoming a part of the existing structure is not enough—nor is simply being female.

Virtually unknown in the west, the great Russian geologist and geochemist pioneered scientific study of life’s impact on the Earth.

The May 20, 2018 elections in Venezuela were a victory for the popular sectors and a defeat for the U.S. backed opposition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD).

Organizers of the far-right AfD hoped to get 10,000 adherents for a march on Sunday in Berlin, but their ranks were far thinner, even with buddies from openly pro-fascist gangs. After distributing a thousand or more big German flags, they joined ranks and set off on their anti-foreigner, anti-Islam, anti-leftist Berlin crusade.

Massive Plantations: A Viable Means of Carbon Sequestration? A recent article in Wired offered a cogent critique of the foremost technofix put on the table as a solution for the climate crisis 1. The article, “The Dirty Secret of the World’s Plan to Avert Climate Disaster,” by Abby Rabinowitz and Amanda Simson, reveals that the […]

Why wasn’t Marx’s concept of metabolic rift recognized until recently? Changed circumstances, unpublished works, and bad translations all played a role.

Kim Jong Un’s meeting with Moon Jae-In and the coming summit with Donald Trump do not constitute a volte-face by the North Korean leader.

This a very professional movie made by a leftist director (Raul Peck), starring a number of rather good actors. It covers the time between 1842, when Marx was the chief editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, and early 1848, when the “Communist Manifesto” was finished.

A Donald-Bibi drama is being staged; each is playing his part on cue. Only days after Netanyahu’s press conference attack on Iran, Trump tore up the U.S. copy of the Iran nuclear agreement.

Trump’s anti-Iran move on Tuesday was deeply worrying for allies of the US. It is a blow for those countries, especially in Europe, that were hoping to build on the big expansion of trade with and investment in Iran after the July 2015 nuclear deal was signed.

The Venezuelan people will go to the polling stations across the country on Sunday, May 20th. This is the fifth presidential election since Hugo Chavez won the vote in 1998. It is the second since the death of Chavez in 2013.

Ecological resistance in the twenty-first century has more and more been informed by the development of Marxian ecology and ecosocialism more generally.

On every scale, from the smallest cells to the entire planet, the essential elements of life are constantly used and re-used. Biogeochemical cycles are the basis of the biosphere.

It’s not just that Marx’s ideas remain relevant — we’re also in the midst of a great new age of Marxian thought.

Two hundred years after Marx’s birth, the challenge is to reinterpret the world using his mode of thought and his method and in the process, critique the old interpretations which we have inherited.

Karl Marx was born, two centuries ago, on this day–May 5. In today’s world, it’s impossible to ignore Marx, the greatest proletarian revolutionary.