Occupy Eugene rally, 15 October 2011 We are here as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement, which in a few short weeks has become a global movement in hundreds of cities around the world. We are part of the 99 percent not only in this country but the world. I have been reading the […]
Subjects Archives: Ecology
Marxist Ecology, Environmental Science and Ecological Crisis
John Bellamy Foster at Occupy Eugene
At the rally for Occupy Eugene, 15 October 2011 Photo by Rob Sydor Photo by Mickey Stellavato John Bellamy Foster is the editor of Monthly Review. He is the author of What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism(with Fred Magdoff), The Ecological Rift, The Ecological Revolution, The Great Financial Crisis, Marx’s Ecology, Ecology […]
How to Make an Ecosocialist Revolution
Meetings such as this play a vital role in building a movement that can stop the hell-bound train of capitalism, before it takes itself and all of humanity over the precipice. Building such a movement is the most important thing anyone can do today — so I’m honored to have been invited to take part […]
Understanding the Capitalist Economic Crisis
John Bellamy Foster: Economic crises are functional to the system in that a crisis helps capital readjust its imbalances, disproportions, as Marxian theories often say, and it sets the basis for a renewed period of expansion. So, regular business-cycle crises . . . help the system. . . . But, in addition to cycles . […]
Figuring ‘It’ Out, Putting ‘It’ to Use
As I have understood the task at hand, the editors of Aneek expect me to respond to the question: Is ‘Maoism’ in India an authentic application of ‘Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought’? Frankly, I am not comfortable with such a positing of the question for it seems to suggest one “correct” interpretation of ‘Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought’ […]
Libya: NATO Provides the Bombs; The French “Left” Provides the Ideology
Last April, former Le Monde diplomatique director Ignacio Ramonet published (in Mémoire des Luttes) a text entitled “Libya, the Just and the Unjust.” The war had been started a few weeks earlier, inaugurated by French aircraft which had the honor of dropping the first bombs on Tripoli. On March 19, “a wave of pride […]
Germany’s Euro Trilemma: Interview with Yanis Varoufakis
Yanis Varoufakis is a prestigious economist who heads the Department of Economic Policy at the University of Athens. From 2004 to 2007 Varoufakis served as economic adviser to George Papandreou. Author of several books on Game Theory, Varoufakis is also a recognized speaker and often appears as guest analyst for news media such as the […]
Brazil: GDP Growth Slows amid Surging Imports and Flat Manufacturing
Brazil’s GDP grew at a 2.5 percent annualized rate in the second quarter, down from 5.4 percent in the first quarter, and somewhat lower than its year-over-year growth of 3.2 percent. GDP is now 7.8 percent above its pre-recession peak. By Sector Brazil continued its trend toward services and away from industry. While services contributed […]
There Must Be Coherence between What We Do and What We Say
President and Brother Evo Morales, Since 2006, Bolivia has shown leadership to the world on how to tackle the most profound challenges of our time. We have achieved the approval of the Human Right to Water and Sanitation in the United Nations and promoted a vision for society based on Vivir Bien (Living Well) […]
Bolivia: Against “Green Imperialism”
Statements, articles, letters, and petitions have been circulating on the Internet for the past month calling for an end to the “destruction of the Amazon.” The target of these initiatives has not been transnational corporations or the powerful governments that back them, but the government of Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales. At the centre […]
The New Scramble for Africa
Is current U.S. foreign policy in Africa following a blueprint drawn up almost eight years ago by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, one of the most conservative think tanks in the world? Although it seems odd that a Democratic administration would have anything in common with the extremists at Heritage, the convergence in policy and […]
Help Boulder Create Public Power for Greener Future
On November 1st, the citizens of Boulder, Colorado will vote on whether to create a city-owned electric utility to pilot leadership in renewables and the elimination of greenhouse gases in Colorado and the U.S. as a whole. Preliminary polling indicates Boulder voters have done their homework and generally favor this 2-part ballot initiative by […]
Lessons from the Indian Experience
India’s economic experience since the beginning of economic liberalisation constitutes a resounding refutation of “mainstream” (bourgeois) development theory. On the basis of official data during this period there has been a remarkable acceleration of the growth rate of GDP, together with a striking increase in the incidence of absolutepoverty, a combination which no strand of […]
Two Decades of Neo-Liberal Reforms in India: The Worsening Employment Situation
Two decades after neo-liberal economic reforms started in India as part of the agenda of imperialist globalisation, the condition of the masses of the labouring poor is worse in every part of the country except where some positive intervention has taken place to stabilise livelihoods. The richest minority at the top of the income pyramid […]
Fred Magdoff on What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism
What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism is a short, accessible introduction to the ecological crisis that is intended for a wide audience — why did you decide to write a book like this, and why now? In the fall of 2008 I attended a conference where discussion of the environment was prominent, although […]
Alaeddin Boroujerdi and Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh on What Iran Wants from Russia
Russia Should Pressure U.S. to Lift Anti-Iran Sanctions: MP Russia should pressure the United States to lift the sanctions imposed on Iran, Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee Chairman Alaeddin Boroujerdi said on Friday. “The Islamic Republic of Iran has so far taken important steps in order to create transparency concerning its peaceful […]
Separating Fact from Fantasy in Bolivia: A Review of Jeffery R. Webber’s From Rebellion to Reform in Bolivia
The election of Bolivia’s first indigenous president, on the back of a mass rebellion that overthrew successive governments, has stirred great interest in this small Andean nation. Given that the Evo Morales government recently celebrated its 2000th day in power — a feat in its own right for a country that has had around 180 […]
Looking Back for Insights into a New Paradigm
It is becoming widely acknowledged that the leading ideas of some of the most prestigious late-20th-century economists (such as Alan Greenspan and Lawrence Summers in the American government) are outmoded and that a new paradigm of economics is needed. Part I of this essay will focus on two issues which we think it has to […]
Cautionary Tales for Would-Be Weather Engineers
James Rodger Fleming. Fixing the Sky: The Checkered History of Weather and Climate Control. Columbia Studies in International and Global History Series. New York: Columbia University Press, 2010. Illustrations. xiv + 325 pp. $27.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-14412-4. In Fixing the Sky, James Rodger Fleming traces human efforts to control weather and climate from ancient […]
Energy Information Administration Report Undercounts Subsidies to Coal, Oil, Natural Gas, and Nuclear Energy: Renewables and Energy Efficiency Shortchanged by Flawed EIA Methodology
The Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest report on federal energy subsidies, released on August 1, underreported direct and indirect federal subsidies to the nuclear and fossil fuel industries, creating an inflated view of the subsidies that benefit renewable energy and efficiency programs, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Although the agency concedes that […]
