Subjects Archives: Marxism

The U.S. and Canada are not supporting “the return of democracy” in Venezuela as they claim. Instead, they are following in their shameful histories of colonialism, imperialism, exploitation, illegal wars of aggression, and overthrowing governments.

When I was ten years old, I read and re-read a stack of decades-old Modern Mechanix magazines that I found in my grandfather’s basement. Throughout the Great Depression, MM regaled its readers with breathless accounts of technological marvels that were going to change the world, very soon.

Starting in the late 1960s, ‘radical geography’ became a crucial avenue of intellectual innovation in contemporary Marxism. For a generation, its basic orientation was two-fold: (1) politicise ‘space’ by challenging the stranglehold of specialists (architects, urban planners, designers, military planners, regional and development officials) in the spatial disciplines, and (2) insist, simultaneously, on the importance of spatial questions within the various currents of the left.

Quick question: Does the U.S. ever break, breach or violate its international agreements?

The international left has lost one of its most lucid intellectual, pedagogical educators and determined activists with the passing of Marta Harnecker on June 14, aged 82.

Brazil’s former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has now been in prison since April 2018. More than four hundred Brazilian lawyers have signed a statement that expresses alarm at what they see as procedural irregularities in the case against him.

Alan MacLeod interviewed Noam Chomsky via Skype on March 13, 2018, for MacLeod’s new book Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent. They discussed the origins of the classic work of media criticism (co-authored with Edward Herman) Manufacturing Consent, the role of that book’s “propaganda model” today, Google and Facebook, Donald Trump and Russia, fake news and Syria. This is a lightly edited transcript.

In 21st century capitalism, Marxist theory remains a crucial means to interpret the socioeconomic present and potentials for political change. But Marxism as a method is also important culturally, in understanding the ideas, attitudes and beliefs that exist today, and how they have developed historically through various social forces.

The capitalist extracts surplus labour from his workpeople, for which he does not pay.

An organizer and intellectual from Caracas’ La Vega barrio talks about the dialectical relationship between Hugo Chavez and the popular movement.

An interview with Marxist philosopher Joshua Moufawad-Paul about the science of revolution at a time when socialism is supposedly becoming mainstream.

We mourn the passing of our dear comrade, Marta Harnecker.

What is noteworthy is that the deceleration in import volume growth has been particularly marked in the emerging economies of Asia and Latin America, pointing to a loss of momentum in the countries that were expected to be new growth poles in the immediate aftermath of the 2007 crisis.

Our worlds richest have a great deal of money. They also have the power to decide whether our civilization sinks or swims. So what can we do?

“For humanity, comrades,” writes Frantz Fanon at the close of his monumental The Wretched of the Earth, “we must turn over a new leaf, we must work out new concepts, and try to set afoot a new man’. Terrible inequalities in our world keep humanity divided.

The internal neocolonialism thesis is not “race-centric” but anti-colonial, and explains Black elite behavior.

The latest episode of Tatuy TV’s “Chavez the Radical” focuses on the question of land ownership in Venezuela, an issue that remains at the heart of the struggle in the countryside.

After a phenomenal and social campaign, the Belgian Workers’ Party (PTB-PVDA) has confirmed its progress throughout the country, with results ranging from 6.6% in Flanders to over 12% in Brussels and 13.5% in Wallonia. The genuine left thus sends 12 members to the federal parliament, 1 member to the European Parliament, 11 members to the Brussels Parliament, 4 members to the Flemish Parliament and 10 members to the Walloon Parliament.

Yesterday the U.S. Treasury Department added to sanctions announced April 17, and the activation of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, the prohibition of “people to people” cultural and educational trips, plus others related to travel and transportation services, remittances, banking, commerce, and telecommunications

Benjamin Carter Hett on what we can learn from Hitler’s rise to power