While the world media was focused on a boring battle between the Tories and their New Labour cousins in Britain, a historic struggle was underway in Nepal. Nine months after the victory of the Maoists in the 2008 constituent assembly (CA) elections, bourgeois forces, with support from the Indian government, succeeded in forcing them out […]
Geography Archives: Latin America
The European Union’s Dangerous Game
Perhaps the wild swings in financial and stock markets over the last week will make people give closer scrutiny to what is going on in Europe, which would be a good thing for the world. According to most news reporting, markets are worried about a potential default by Greece on its sovereign debt, and the […]
Practicing Dialectic: Chto Delat and Method
Mixing Different Things “Perestroika,” Graphic and Video Installation, 11th International Istanbul Biennial, 2009 The editorial and exhibition policy of Chto Delat is often accused of inconsistency, of lacking a clear “party line.” What is important for us today is to arrive at a method that would enable us to mix quite different things — […]
Venezuela Is Not Greece
With Venezuela’s economy having contracted last year (as did the vast majority of economies in the Western Hemisphere), the economy suffering from electricity shortages, and the value of domestic currency having recently fallen sharply in the parallel market, stories of Venezuela’s economic ruin are again making headlines. The Washington Post, in a news article that […]
The Mural Speaks
The Rachel Corrie Foundation andBreak the Silence Mural Project co‐presentThe Mural Speaks Come celebrate the completion of this dynamic, interactive mural at a free event at 6:00 p.m., Saturday, May 8 at the Labor Temple building, corner of State and Capitol, downtown Olympia. The Mural Speaks event is more than a mural commemoration; it’s a […]
Lula and Erdoğan Go to Tehran: Alternative Perspectives on Their Diplomatic Prospects
Brazil’s President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, will travel to Iran this weekend, ostensibly to attend the G-15 summit meeting that opens in Tehran on Monday. But Lula’s trip is attracting enormous international attention because the Brazilian leader will use his visit to try, in collaboration with Turkey’s Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to broker […]
Greece: Who Needs “Success Estonian Style”?
As I have noted previously, Latvia has experienced the worst two-year economic downturn on record, losing more than 25 percent of GDP. It is projected to shrink further during the first half of this year, before beginning a slow recovery, in which the International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects that it will not reach even its […]
The Ecology of Socialism
Solidair/Solidaire, the weekly journal of the Workers Party of Belgium (PVDA-PTB), interviewed John Bellamy Foster, editor of Monthly Review, 26 April 2010 Solidair/Solidaire: Many green thinkers reject a Marxist analysis because they think that the Marxist approach to the economy is a very productivist one, focused on growth and seeing nature as “a free […]
Cochabamba Eyewitness: A Great Boost for Ecosocialism
I attended the alternative Climate Conference in the Bolivian city of Cochabamba as part of an eight-person Quebec activist delegation. I came back convinced that we witnessed a turning point in the global Climate Justice movement. Up to now it has been very difficult to link environmental demands to social justice issues. The mainstream ecological […]
No Indian Miracle
Jayati Ghosh and Paul Jay
Paul Jay: So there’s a lot of talk about the growth and expansion in India and China, and especially India these days. We’re hearing again about the Indian miracle. Whose miracle is it, anyway? And is it such? Jayati Ghosh: No, it’s not actually a miracle. First of all, let me clarify. India and […]
Message to the Mother Earth Summit: The Rights of Human Beings and the Rights of Nature Are Two Names of the Same Dignity
Unfortunately, I shall not be able to be with you. Something has come up that prevents me from traveling. But I’d like to be, in some way, part of this meeting of yours, this meeting of mine, since I have no choice but to do the little that I can rather than the much that […]
Venezuela Needs an Economic Development Strategy
Throughout Venezuela’s record-breaking economic expansion, the government’s opponents — which includes most of the international media as well as Washington — were “crying, waiting, hoping,” as the rock and roll legend Buddy Holly once sang. The “oil bust” had to be just around the corner, they prayed and wrote. But for five and a half […]
China Will Do Whatever It Wants to Do . . . about Its Currency and Iran
The United States and China seem to have reached an agreement with regard to the exchange rate between their two currencies. The agreement is that the U.S. government will stop yelling about it, and China will do whatever it wants to do, which will probably include some modest rise in the renminbi some time in […]
U.S. Covering Up Reality in Honduras
Jesse Freeston, Producer, The Real News Network: Since the inauguration of Pepe Lobo as the president of Honduras on January 27, the US State Department has been the new government’s most vocal supporter, urging the region to follow the US lead in restoring relations with the Honduran government, relations that were largely cut after the […]
U.S. Fighting Losing Battles Against National Self-Determination
Of all the misunderstandings that guide U.S. foreign policy — including foreign commercial policy — perhaps the most important and long-lasting is the failure to recognize or understand what national self-determination means to most people in the world. Or why it might be important to them. Our leaders seem to have learned very little since […]
Greater Equity through Redistribution: What Can the Targeting of Subsidies Do in Iran?
The Fifth Five-Year Plan of the Islamic Republic of Iran (1389-93, 2010-14), still under review by the parliament, has a clear goal for reducing inequality in five years — a Gini index of 0.35 for income. This is a substantial reduction from the high level of inequality that has plagued Iran in recent years. The […]
The Ecological Revolution!
John Bellamy Foster. The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2009. 288pp. $17.95 (pb). ISBN 9781583671795. This book is a major achievement. It combines enormous breadth of scholarship with consummate theoretical integration to produce a powerful political argument. It should be required reading for anyone who cares about […]
The Marxism of Samir Amin
An interview with Egyptian economist Samir Amin: his latest book reiterates his search for alternatives to surpass capitalism, which he describes as “a historical parenthesis”; meanwhile, processes of migration are building a planet of slums. “Memoirs of an Independent Marxist”: that is the subtitle of A Life Looking Forward (Zed Books, 2006), the latest […]
A Difficult Love Affair? On the Relation between Marxism and Theology
Abstract: From the moment Marx and Engels became involved with the League of the Just, Marxism has always had a long and often difficult relation with theology and the Bible. Some of the leading figures of the twentieth century were no exception — Althusser, Adorno, Gramsci, Lefebvre, Eagleton are just a few. And in our […]
“We Must Take Public Criticism into Account. Criticism Is Good and Should Help the Process”
What is the characteristic of the Latin American Left today? 20 years ago, when the Berlin Wall fell, there was no revolution foreseeable on the horizon. However, it didn’t take long before a process began to emerge in Latin America with Hugo Chávez. We have gone on to form governments with anti-neoliberal programs, though […]
