MR Online
A Monthly Review project providing daily news and analysis of capitalism, imperialism and inequality rooted in Marxian political economy
How is it that we could be facing a crisis of empire, of imperialism, of war, of conflict internationally, we could be facing an environmental crisis on a scale that threatens the whole planet as we know it, and we could be facing at the same time being in the midst of the greatest economic […]
Labor productivity soared in the United States in 2009. According to the Transport Times of December 3, 2009, productivity increased by 6.4% in the second quarter and leaped by 8.1% in the third quarter. Labor costs fell at a 2.5% rate in the third quarter of 2009, capping the biggest 12-month drop in seven years. […]
N.B. The statement in the article below simply attributed to FETRAELEC President Angel Navas is actually one first published by Marea Socialista. — Ed. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ordered the suspension of programmed power outages in the capital city on Wednesday, and asked for the resignation of his minister for electricity, citing errors in the […]
Well before the financial crisis broke out so violently in the US and caused ripple effects all over the world, most people in developing countries were already reeling under the effects of dramatic volatility in global food and fuel markets. In 2007 and 2008 prices of most primary commodities first increased very rapidly, to a […]
The signs of recession are more noticeable to those who live here — restaurants and coffee shops have lost most of their customers, and construction has practically ground to a halt. Emigration has soared. Latvia has set a world-historical record by losing more than 24 percent of its economy in just two years. The International […]
It should be noted that the words of the four trade unionists quoted in the last section of this article — Vilma Vivas, Stalin Pérez Borges, Ismael Hernández, and José Meléndez — are all part of the statement of Marea Socialista (mentioned but once in the article), so they should not be regarded simply as […]
For at least a month now in Ecuador there has been a battle over regulation of the media. It has been in the front pages of the newspapers most of the time, and a leading daily, El Comercio, referred to the fight as one for “defense of human rights and the free practice of journalism.” […]
I’m not at all somebody who wants to enshrine Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order as the new centerpiece in the old “what Marx said” religion. But, really, I do stand by my conclusion that Baran and Sweezy’s 1966 book was the #1 social science book of the century, Marxist […]
Mark Fisher is the author of Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? out recently from Zer0 Books. As a blogger he writes K-Punk. Capitalist Realism is one of the most acute diagnoses of contemporary politics as it is played out in one small island off the coast of Europe. After skewering the marketisation of […]
The United Nations conference to address climate change in Copenhagen over the last week has illustrated several crucial features of contemporary politics, as Obama completes a year in power, the NATO plots a military surge into the war spanning from Palestine to Afghanistan, and an economic recovery staggers along. Three Features of Political Climate First, […]
The following table shows Iranian defence expenditure in each year since 1989 in local currency and constant US$ as well as the military burden, defined as spending as a proportion of GDP. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in 2007 Iran’s defence expenditure was one of the lowest in the Middle […]
Every gathering with a foretold script. The security barriers mark a neutered zone for dissent. Finally though, there is this one day in Brooklyn. The air is traversed (by bridge) and the marchers walk from one bank to another. It isn’t a miracle but it is beautiful. x number of women and men for […]
The historical geography of capitalist development is at a key inflexion point in which the geographical configurations of power are rapidly shifting at the very moment when the temporal dynamic is facing very serious constraints. Three-percent compound annual growth (generally considered the minimum satisfactory growth rate for a healthy capitalist economy) is becoming less and […]
Paul Jay, Senior Editor, The Real News Network: So let’s talk about Copenhagen. If in fact most of the scientific community is quite persuaded in the climate change science, and certainly they are, and all the world governments say they are, what’s preventing us from getting a serious agreement, and particularly with China and […]
In Part 1 of this article we argued that Slavoj Žižek and Alain Badiou’s account of the foundation of Communist universalism in the event of Christianity signals a number of inconsistencies immanent to their respective ontologies (Coombs 2009). For Žižek it appears difficult to reconcile his touted open interpretation of Hegel with the ontological significance […]
Human societies have created the bases of our survival, sustenance and advancement through the use of our natural resources in production with rudimentary tools and rising levels of science and technology. Yet in no time in history has environmental destruction been systematically brought about in most parts of the world. The people of the […]
Boston, MA, December 4, 2009 — “More tax breaks for the super wealthy is one of the last things our economy needs right now,” says Lee Farris, Estate Tax Policy Coordinator for United for a Fair Economy (UFE). “Back in 2001, the Bush Administration enacted a massive tax cut for multi-millionaires by gradually reducing the […]
December 3, 2009 To Whom It May Concern: A modest set of financial transaction taxes could raise a substantial amount of needed revenue while having little impact on trades that have a positive economic impact. The cost of trading financial assets has plummeted over the last three decades as a result of computerization. This has […]
Jean Paul Sartre in the fifties made the somber remark that things were so bad at the Sorbonne in the 1920s that the University did not even have a Chair in Marxism. In asserting the fact at that time, he was of course assuming that things at mid-century had changed dramatically and that Marxism […]
John Bellamy Foster is the editor of the socialist magazine Monthly Review and teaches sociology at the University of Oregon. He has written on numerous subjects, from political economy to Marxist theory. This year Foster published The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace With the Planet. Max van Lingen is a student of political philosophy and […]
MR Press News Climate & Capitalism Monthly Review