Archive | Review

In her recent volume Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons (PM Press, 2019), Silvia Federici fruitfully brings together feminist reflections with discussions of the commons as a possible way of overcoming capitalism.

It is one of the great personal accounts of the anguished decline of our uncivilization, both a riveting eye-witness account of many of the horrors and perfidies, and a primer for students of history and all those struggling to not only dismantle the beast, but to prepare us for what follows it.

As well as being significant in terms of Shakespeare’ s own aesthetic output, The Tempest provides a vivid window into the tumultuous historical currents and contradictions of the epoch in which the great playwright lived, syphoning them into its ethereal and haunting poetry. Helen C. Scott’s excellent and timely study of the play is a book of two parts

The Torture Machine, Racism and Police Violence in Chicago, by People’s Law Office and longtime National Lawyers Guild attorney Flint Taylor, is a meticulously detailed and authentic, truly appalling story of shame and disgrace to the city of Chicago, its political and police administration establishments, and numerous judges of the Cook County criminal courts; an account of dozens of cases in which black men from the South Side were sent to state prison—and a number to Death Row—on the basis of confessions extracted from them by police torture.

In what follows, I will first briefly summarize the core arguments of the book, which promises to provoke important discussions on the matter of limits and subjects. Then I will reflect on the fuzziness of the primarily cultural conceptualization of capitalism, and argue that neither self-limitation nor degrowth qualifies as a mode of production, such that they could constitute an alternative to capitalism.

According to McCarthy, Marx rejects the view of justice in liberalism, which is limited to individual rights and fair distribution and provides a new one based on Aristotle’s definition of social justice grounded in ethics and politics.

The Coming Revolution is an impressive guide for Marxists looking for a way to approach contemporary capitalism, argues Josh Newman

This is the tenth edition of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report. It provides the latest assessment of scientific studies on current and estimated future greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and compares these with the emission levels permissible for the world to progress on a least-cost pathway to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.

It’s bad enough to imagine blame and scenarios of dread, as if from science fiction, but add in the presently feeble response to dire threats and we’re in a funk. If tools were available, we’d get a lift. Marc Brodine’s book Green Strategy, reviewed here, is about tools.

This short, readable and stimulating book begins with the author overturning perceived knowledge about the 18th century economist Robert Malthus.

Mike Gonzales gives a fascinating outline of the subject of his forthcoming book ‘In the red corner: the Marxism of Jose Carlos Mariátegui’, detailing the life and politics of an important Marxist who shaped the early working class movement in Peru.

It is very common for leftist commentators to use the term ‘neoliberalism’ in their analysis of a political situation or social struggle. The term is frequently used in socialist political economy, cultural studies, and even mainstream liberal newspapers.

A Review of Ancient Irrigation Systems of the Aral Sea Area: The History, Origin, and Development of Irrigated Agriculture by Boris V. Andrianov, and Soviet Archaeology: Schools, Trends, and History by Leo S. Klejn

Corinna Lotz’ Finding Ilyenkov can be read in a few hours, but for those readers taken with its ideas and appeal to the relevance of Ilyenkov’s life and theory, this book provides a salient and fecund starting point for any variety of in-depth engagements relating to Ilyenkov, dialectical materialism and creative Soviet Marxism.

The long history of anti-fascist mobilisation, outlined in Bray’s Antifa, underlines the importance of broad alliances for mass mobilisations, argues Thomas Gibbs.

Today, as the global economy flounders from crisis to crisis, Marx’s analysis of capitalism is the essential basis for a correct understanding of what is going on. Moseley’s book reaffirms key elements of this analysis.

HENRY A. GIROUX’s book The Terror of the Unforeseen analyzes the conditions that have enabled and led to Donald Trump’s rule and the consequences of that rule, that have ushered in an authoritarian version of capitalism. Giroux provides a realistic analysis that holds out the hope that, through collective efforts, change is possible and democracy can be saved.

Was Marx an ecologist and does Marx’s theory offer a coherent theoretical and practical approach for ecologists in the 21st century? The publication of Marx’s excerpts and notes on ecology from the mid-1860s may help to answer that question.

Marxists are primarily known for their concern with the development of human society and political struggle. As materialists, however, Marxists necessarily look to developments in science and new ways of understanding the material world.

Behind much opposition violence stood U.S. regime-change NGOs.