Archive | Commentary

  • A statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square in April 2003

    The Odious Iraqi Debt

    This article, originally written towards the end of 2003, is now published on our website for the first time in English. The odious Iraqi debt is still under-documented today, though it is highly relevant in our research and our proposals against all illegitimate, illegal, odious and unsustainable debts. It is a rare case where a […]

  • Maraget Thatcher

    The crisis in neoliberalism and its ramifications

    The neoliberal model that has dominated mainstream politics and economics for decades is in crisis.… Mass dissatisfaction has joined with the growing realisation by the managers of the capitalist system that neoliberal policies are incapable of dragging the world economy out of the rut in which it now finds itself 10 years after the onset of the global financial crisis.

  • Israel and the Occupied Territories

    Naming Capitals

    For the republican Arab world, the past twelve years have been defined by foreign invasion, civil and proxy wars, revolution and counter-revolution. It has been devastating. However, it should be remembered that, within the republican Arab world, the twenty-first century began with the American backed crushing of the second Palestinian uprising (intifada).

  • Berlin Bulletin by Victor Grossman

    Crisis in Germany?

    The impasse in forming a government in Germany has dragged on since election day, September 24th—often like a traffic gridlock, hardly moving forward. But Germany is Europe’s main central power—and with no proper government!

  • Capitalism by Sergej Bag

    Capitalism unhinged: crisis of legitimacy in the United States

    This is expanded and updated from an article first published in German in Das Argument: Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Sozialwissenschaften, no. 323 (2017/3); republished with the kind permission of its editors; originally presented in a panel “The Crisis of the Political,” Institut für kritische Theorie, Berlin, June 9, 2017. For their comments and suggestions, I […]

  • Karl Marx Allee

    150 Years of Capital—with No End in Sight

    For Capital’s explosive force to truly unfold, not only was education in general necessary, but also knowledge of the relevant economic and philosophical theories, in order to perceive not just the explicit, but also the implicit critiques.

  • Ta-Nehisi Coates

    The meritocratic myopia of Ta-Nehisi Coates

    A question that might sound ludicrous to some: what do Trump and liberals have in common? Answer: a penchant for discussing anything other than class and capitalism—seriously.

  • Das Kapital at 150

    Discovering Das Kapital

    This talk by Issac Deutscher was originally published in Monthly Review on December 1967 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Karl Marx’s Capital. We are making it available here on the occasions of the 150th anniversary of Capital. In the original editors’ note to this article, 50 years ago Leo Huberman and Paul M. Sweezy wrote: “This is the text of a talk given last summer on the BBC’s Third Programme. It is reproduced here by permission. Isaac Deutscher is the author of distinguished biographies of Stalin and Trotsky, and at the time of his death at the age of 60 last August he was working on a biography of Lenin.” —The Editors

  • Berlin Bulletin by Victor Grossman

    From gender to Jamaica

    It didn’t affect many people directly, but even small victories are welcome these days. Germany’s Constitutional Court just ruled that no-one should be forced to declare themselves officially male or female. It thus created a third open category anyone can opt for (or be opted by parents when still a child). I think everyone can […]

  • “Medicine heals doubts as well as diseases.” —Karl Marx

    Offline: Medicine and Marx

    When President Xi Jinping addressed the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China last month, he spoke of “the scientific truth of Marxism-Leninism”. Marxism (with Chinese characteristics), as President Xi went on to set out, is to be the foundation for a Healthy China.

  • From Soviets to Oligarchs- Inequality and Property in Russia, 1905-2016

    They dared: the legacy of the October Revolution

    A hundred years later, the question of the historical legacy of the October Revolution is not an easy one for socialists, given that Stalinism took root within less than a decade after that revolution and the restoration of capitalism seventy years later met little popular resistance.

  • Berlin Bulletin by Victor Grossman

    A film from yesterday and an audience from today

    With its theme a little-known event of over a century ago, the film was ancient in cinema terms, its rather unsuccessful premiere was way back in 1926 and the performance Monday evening marked an event even earlier than that, one which is rarely discussed and even less celebrated. Yet the theatre was sold out and […]

  • "Create popular power, transition to the Communal State."

    The implications of Marxist state theory and how they play out in Venezuela

    The implications of Marxist state theories developed by Nicos Poulantzas and Ralph Miliband are useful for framing issues related to leftist strategy in twenty-first century Venezuela. A relationship exists between each of the theories and three issues facing the Chavista movement: whether the bourgeoisie (or sectors of it) displays a sense of ‘class consciousness’; the viability of tactical and strategic alliances between the left and groups linked to the capitalist structure; and whether socialism is to be achieved through stages, abrupt revolutionary changes, or ongoing state radicalization over a period of time. During Poulantzas’ lifetime, his concept of the state as a ‘strategic battlefield’ lent itself to the left’s promotion of ‘strategic alliances’ with parties to its right. The same concept is compatible with the ‘process of change’ in Venezuela, in which autonomous movements play a fundamental role in transforming the old state and the construction of new state structures.

  • Capturing the wisdom and the beauty of Donald J. Trump in just one statement escaping from his charming mouth.

    The Anti-Empire Report #152

    If newness doesn’t win everyone’s heart, then BEAUTIFUL will definitely do it. Who likes UGLY military equipment? Even the people we slaughter all over the world insist upon good-looking guns and bombs.

  • Port in the city of Maracaibo, Venezuela

    Economic warfare in Venezuela

    Given the thick haze of disinformation surrounding the economic situation in Venezuela, we thought it would be useful to publish the first chapter of The Visible Hand of the Market: Economic Warfare in Venezuela.

  • Burning bolivar

    The campaign against the economic war and corruption in Venezuela

    The resounding Chavista victory in the October 15 gubernatorial elections provides a golden opportunity to take bold measures to overcome shortcomings even while risking clashes with powerful individuals or groups.

  • October Revolution

    The Bolshevik Revolution and the legacy of anti-imperialism

    For those of us dedicated to revolutionary politics, taking control of this history is a crucial step towards building of international solidarity in the fightback against capitalist globalization and emergent neofascism, which is rearing its ugly head across the globe.

  • Marx in today's world (NewsClicks)

    Why read “Capital”, 150 years later?

    Out of all his works, the reputation of Karl Marx as theorist of the socialist tradition is undoubtedly based primarily on his magnum opus, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy.

  • Ecology Plant

    Foreword to Creating an Ecological Society

    As Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams point out in their new book, Creating an Ecological Society, the word “ecology” (originally œcology) was first coined in 1866 by Ernst Haeckel, Darwin’s leading German follower, based on the Greek word oikos, or household. Ironically, the word “economy,” to which ecology is often nowadays counterposed, was derived much […]

  • Chairman Mao Tse-tung and his family

    Mao reconsidered

    “The simple facts of Mao’s career seem incredible.… Indeed Mao’s achievement is almost beyond our comprehension.” – John King Fairbank, The United States and China.