One of the greatest insights of Karl Marx was his perception of the capitalist system as a self-acting, self-driven and “spontaneous” order. Far from being a malleable system, where intervention by the State could be used for bringing about basic changes in the mode of its functioning, in which case of course the need to […]
Subjects Archives: Ecology
Marxist Ecology, Environmental Science and Ecological Crisis
Zimbabwe Ten Years On: Results and Prospects
Sam Moyo and Paris Yeros
After a decade of political polarization and international standoff, the debate on Zimbabwe has finally been opened up to a wider reading public, thanks to Mahmood Mamdani’s “Lessons of Zimbabwe,” appearing in the London Review of Books (04/12/2008). Renowned scholars, within and without Africa, have broken their silence and have taken public positions. The […]
A Voice of Peace in Sderot: Interview with Nomika Zion
Sderot is a small city about 1km away from the Gaza border, well known because it has suffered many hits from the Qassam rockets that the Gaza resistance has been launching on and off for about 8 years. When we think of residents living under the threat of missiles, hiding in bunkers, it’s quite […]
The Crisis of Global Capitalism and the Environment: Interview with John Bellamy Foster, Editor of Monthly Review and Professor of Sociology, University of Oregon, for Eleftherotypia (Greece)
CP: After twenty-five years of sporadic growth and extreme polarization of income and life conditions around the world, actually existing neoliberalism seems to be on the verge of collapse. Where do you situate the current crisis in the history of the development of global capitalism? JBF: Neoliberalism has clearly collapsed. But as Fred Magdoff […]
France: LCR Dissolves Itself to Form NPA
The Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) will soon be no more. On Thursday, 5 February, its activists will vote for its self-dissolution to create the New Anti-Capitalist Party (NPA). Some seven hundred delegates are expected at a four-day conference, 5-8 February, in la Plaine-Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), to launch the new party of Olivier Besancenot. The death certificate […]
Israel Is Preventing Repair of the Electrical, Water, and Sewage Systems in Gaza
Despite Promises to Facilitate Humanitarian Aid, Policy of Deliberate Obstruction Continues Even after the Ceasefire: The amount of industrial diesel Israel has permitted to enter Gaza is just 64% of the total needed to operate the power station. Since the fighting ended, Israel has totally obstructed the transfer of vital spare parts needed to […]
Iceland Gets New Government
The Geir Haarde government of Iceland became the first in the world to fall in the wake of the financial meltdown. Now, Iceland has a provisional coalition government, headed by the world’s first lesbian prime minister, Johanna Sigurdardottit of the Social Democratic Alliance. Left-Green Movement Chairman Steingrimur J. Sigfusson is reportedly now appointed Minister of […]
MST: 25 Years of Stubbornness
In January 1984, mass movements began to rise again in Brazil. The working class was reorganizing, accumulating organic forces. Underground parties, such as the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB), the Communist Party of Brazil (PCdoB), etc., were already in the streets. We had won only a partial amnesty, but a majority of exiles had returned. […]
My Six-year-old Son Should Get a Job: What Is Wrong with the Present Global Economic Order?
I have a six-year-old son. His name is Jin-Gyu. He lives off me, yet he is quite capable of making a living. I pay for his lodging, food, education, and health care. But millions of children of his age already have jobs. Daniel Defoe figured out in the 18th century that children are able to […]
Canadian Supreme Court to Rule If Farmworkers Are Human Beings . . . or “Disposable Tools”
Human rights, including the right of workers to form trade unions, to strike, and to bargain collectively with employers, are universal and indivisible rights which inhere in all human beings by virtue of their humanity. The Liberal Party government of the Canadian province of Ontario, however, is challenging this notion by calling on the Supreme […]
Thailand: Drop Lèse Majesté Charges against Giles Ji Ungpakorn
Academics, Intellectuals and Members of Parliament from around the World Call for Charges against Giles Ji Ungpakorn to be Dropped Academics from U.K, Canada, France, South Africa, Ireland, Australia, South Korea, Greece and the U.S.A., including those from Oxford University and SOAS London University, have signed an open letter calling for charges of lèse majesté, […]
Capitalism’s Burning House: Interview with John Bellamy Foster
WIN: According to a quotation by Jim Reid that you and Fred Magdoff included in your article entitled “Financial Implosion and Stagnation” (Monthly Review, December 2008), the U.S. financial sector has made around 1.2 Trillion ($1,200) of “excess” profits in the last decade relative to nominal GDP. How has the structure of the capital […]
A Structural Crisis of the System: Interview with István Mészáros
István Mészáros won the 1971 Deutscher Prize for his book Marx’s Theory of Alienation and has written on Marxism ever since. He talks to Judith Orr and Patrick Ward about the current economic crisis. The ruling class are always surprised by new economic crises and talk about them as aberrations. Why do you believe they […]
Obama Visit Suggests No Big Changes in Relations to Mexico; Promise to “Upgrade” NAFTA’s Labor, Environmental Clauses
With only a few days left until his inauguration, President-elect Barack Obama met with President Felipe Calderón in the second week of January, the first meeting with a foreign leader since his election last November, indicating the importance of the U.S. relationship with its southern neighbor. Calderón’s National Action Party (PAN), Mexico’s most conservative major […]
Ex-Communicated: Enclosure Landscapes in Palestine
“When I began hill walking in Palestine a quarter of a century ago I was not aware that I was traveling in a vanishing landscape.” — Raja Shehadeh, Author, Palestinian Walks (2008) For centuries, the landscape in historic Palestine was dominated by agriculture, in an organic relationship between agrarian villages such as Husan and […]
Reclaiming the Land: Land Reform and Agricultural Development in Zimbabwe: An Interview with Sam Moyo
Amid the economic crisis in Zimbabwe, the agricultural sector continues to struggle. Although the plunge in agricultural output over the last few years has often been commented on in the Western media, little or no attention is paid to the complex factors contributing to that decline. Instead, matters are reduced to a simple generalization. It […]
Camp Hope Holds Obama to “Change” Pledge
“Our community is expanding: MRZine viewers have increased in number, as have the readers of our editions published outside the United States and in languages other than English. We sense a sharp increase in interest in our perspective and its history. Many in our community have made use of the MR archive we put […]
It Is the Hour of Change
“Our community is expanding: MRZine viewers have increased in number, as have the readers of our editions published outside the United States and in languages other than English. We sense a sharp increase in interest in our perspective and its history. Many in our community have made use of the MR archive we put […]
End of Neoliberalism? Sorry, Not Yet.
“Our community is expanding: MRZine viewers have increased in number, as have the readers of our editions published outside the United States and in languages other than English. We sense a sharp increase in interest in our perspective and its history. Many in our community have made use of the MR archive we put […]
The Global Capitalist Crisis and India: Time to Start the Discussion
“Our community is expanding: MRZine viewers have increased in number, as have the readers of our editions published outside the United States and in languages other than English. We sense a sharp increase in interest in our perspective and its history. Many in our community have made use of the MR archive we […]
