On 26 April 2010, the management of Middlesex University in London, England announced that it was cutting all its philosophy programs and shutting down the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy, the top-rated research department at Middlesex. The statement below offers solidarity from Zagreb, Croatia to the campaigners to Save Middlesex Philosophy. — […]
Subjects Archives: Political Economy
Marxism Is the Mother Lode for all Critiques of Capitalism: An Interview with Alexander Saxton
A longtime reader of Monthly Review, and a Marxist for all his adult life, Alexander Saxton might be one of the oldest, continuously active radicals in the United States. Born in Manhattan in 1919, he met the novelist, John Dos Passos, and the poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay, when he was a young man, and […]
GM Crops: The Societal Context of Technologies
The Bt brinjal debate has featured technological worries relating to genetically modified crops which appear relatively minor in comparison to the critical issue of who controls Indian agriculture and therefore food security in India. While there cannot be a mere technological fix to the problems of Indian agriculture, technology — and therefore GM — will […]
Tricks of the Theatre
The following statement by Wallace Shawn and Deborah Eisenberg was delivered outside the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City on May 3, 2010 where supporters of Fahad Hashmi have been gathering since last October to bear witness to the inhumane conditions of Fahad’s detention and to call for an end to the US […]
Managing Liberalization and Globalization in Rural China: Trends in Rural Labour Allocation, Income and Inequality
Abstract: China’s integration into the global economy, while rapid, has been managed as part of a wider liberalization process. The structural changes in the rural economy arising from these twin processes have led to widening intra-rural inequalities. To address these, the central leadership has, in Polanyian manner, moved to counter some of the adverse […]
Capitalism
“Finally, light at the end of the tunnel!” Eneko Las Heras, born in Caracas in 1963, is a cartoonist. This cartoon was published on his blog . . . Y sin embargo se mueve on 24 March 2010. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi (@yoshiefuruhashi | yoshie.furuhashi [at] gmail.com). | | Print
Greece, Again: Demystifying “National Debt”
Yet again, business leaders, politicians, academics, and media are blowing smoke around Greece’s efforts to cope with “national debt” problems. Something far more important for the world than this small country’s financial travails is at stake. Indeed, what is at stake affects us all. What is happening in Greece parallels developments everywhere; only details and […]
Glimpses of Alternatives to Neoliberalism
Social Justice and Neoliberalism: Global Perspectives. Adrian Smith, Alison Stenning, and Katie Willis, eds. Macmillan/Zed Books, 2008. 253 pages. Following the tradition of critical geographers, this book explores the expansion of neoliberalism into different spheres and spaces of everyday life. It consists of a collection of essays by writers from the global South, the […]
The Spectre of Public Debt
Pegging their arguments on the still ongoing drama relating to sovereign debt in Greece, conservative opinion is making a case for a reduction of the size of public debt in developed and developing countries across the world. The latest signatory to the appeal is IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn who reportedly told an audience at the […]
Should Greece Follow Estonia’s Example?
As the representatives from the European Union, the IMF, and the Greek government are trying to flesh out how Greece can use the EU’s and the IMF’s funding to remedy its fiscal position, the main question hovering above their negotiations is whether Greece can and should follow Estonia’s example in massively cutting public spending. […]
What “Populist Uprising?”Part 1: Facts and Reflections on Race, Class, and the Tea Party “Movement”
The right-wing Tea Party “movement” has recently grabbed attention in the dominant media again. On Tax Day last April, it garnered headlines by rolling out its standard high-decibel complaints against “big government,” deficits, taxes, and the supposed “radical” agenda of “Obama, Pelosi, and Reid” and the rest of the Democratic Party. As usual, the Tea […]
Thailand: Economic Background to Political Crisis
The ongoing political crisis in Thailand has been capturing headlines for some time now, and now even appears to be heading towards some kind of climax. This political instability reflects more than the resistance of the existing establishment to the increasingly vociferous demands of those who have been marginalised from most of the benefits. It […]
Letter to a Friend on Israel’s Independence Day
Tonight you celebrate the independence day of the state of Israel. I do not. You probably believe that the Jews deserve a state, that the Holocaust survivors and their children had a right to a safe home of their own, and that the Land of Israel is the natural and legitimate place to fulfill the […]
The Social Cost of Carbon: A Report for the Economics for Equity and the Environment Network
Executive Summary: In its first attempts to regulate carbon emissions, the U.S. government is undermining its own efforts by relying on deeply flawed economic models that lead to gross miscalculations of the impact of carbon on the climate and on the nation’s economic future. Agencies seeking to incorporate climate change considerations in rules and regulations […]
The Left and Marxism in Eastern Europe
You now describe yourself as a Marxist, with plans for a Marxist theory group in Hungary in addition to your ongoing work as a writer and political commentator from the Left. Why Marx now? In Central and Eastern Europe after 1989, Marxist ideas and theories were hard-pressed to survive their connection to state socialism […]
UC Berkeley Divestment Vote: It’s Clear What the Future Looks Like
Being a part of the tremendous coalition effort to pass a divestment bill at Berkeley was quite simply an ecstatic experience. As my colleague Sydney Levy said, “The movement grew by an enormous leap today.” First, the vote itself: after the UC Berkeley Student Senate originally voted on March 18, by a margin of 16-4, […]
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 […]
Agriculture and the India-U.S. ‘Strategic Alliance’: The Deadly Danger of Monsanto, Archer Daniels Midland and Wal-Mart
Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review. Its April 2010 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. There are points when long-term trends emerge openly in the present, and a process normally visible only from a distance becomes an unmistakable part of daily life. The […]
Confront Dow Chemical at the Dow/Live Earth Run for Water
CALL TO ACTION Organize Events in Your City! Confront Dow Chemical at the Dow/Live Earth Run for Water Tell Dow: You Can’t Run from Your Responsibilities! APRIL 18 2010, 8:00 am Dow Chemical was among the chief producers and profiteers of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. In addition to wartime exposure resulting in […]
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 […]
