Notes from the Editors
April 1, 2025
This month, MR editors take on the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, a pale imitation of the five authentic Nobel Prizes that is aimed at reinforcing the ideology of neoclassical economics and awarded to mainstream liberal economists who defend the institutions of capitalism. In line with this tradition, the editors note, the most recent winners are keen apologists for settler colonialism and Zionism.
January 1, 2025
Monthly Review editors take on the results of the 2024 election, exploring how the lackluster reformist policies of the Biden administration and unfocused nature of the Harris campaign served to drive away much of the working class, as reflected in part by the expansion of the Party of Nonvoters. As neoliberal positions occlude the possibility of a Popular Front against Trump’s fascism, any substantive victory must come from a revolutionary restructuring of society.
December 1, 2024
As the atrocities visited by Israel upon the Palestinian people continue to multiply, this month’s “Notes from the Editors is a forceful condemnation of not only the Zionist entity, but the entire U.S.-led neoliberal world order. Israel’s relentless pursuit of genocide in Palestine “has destroyed any pretense of a commitment to universal human rights on the part of the West,” undeniably revealing “imperialism and settler colonialism in their most brutal forms” as the entire world watches.
November 1, 2024
Monthly Review editors elucidate Samir Amin’s concept of “delinking” in the context of the rise of global multipolarity. Delinking, they write, does not aim to isolate individual nations and populations economically, “but rather finding a way to sever connections with the main mechanisms of imperial dominance.”
October 1, 2024
It is undeniable that the rapidly worsening ecological crisis is threatening not only future generations, but the youth of today. Why, then, is the U.S. educational system failing to teach students the reality of this human-caused catastrophe? “Even science itself,” MR editors write, “is to be sacrificed on the altar of capital.”
September 1, 2024
This month’s “Notes from the Editors” recounts the history of U.S. preparations for “prolonged and limited” nuclear war and Washington’s repeated refusal to abide by international agreements regarding nuclear weaponry. With the recent announcement that the United States will be stationing nuclear-capable Tomahawk missiles on German soil—within minutes’ striking distance of Moscow—this history is now, troublingly, more relevant than ever.
July 1, 2024
While Israel’s horrific assaults on the people of Gaza continue, the voices against the U.S. support for the Zionist state grow ever-louder. This spring, the fight spilled onto college campuses. In this month’s “Notes,” MR editors take the long view, starting with the Free Speech Movement over half a century ago.
June 1, 2024
In this month’s “Notes from the Editors,” MR editors confront the Tower of Babel that has emerged over Marx’s early “Prometheanism” and later “degrowth communism.” This ahistorical interpretation has engendered further critique of ecosocialism and degrowth on the part of self-identified productivist writers, who attempt incorrectly to paint degrowth as a Malthusian project, rather than a realistic effort to live within Earth’s planetary capacities.
May 1, 2024
The MR editors revisit the words of Monthly Review editors Harry Magdoff and Paul M. Sweezy, writing in the twenty-fifth-year anniversary issue. Writing on the innate contradictions plaguing the capitalist system, the editors in 1974 noted that the ecological limitations of capital accumulation was “unsolvable” under capitalism, thus setting the stage for the magazine’s continued exploration of ecosocialism as humanity’s future.
April 1, 2024
In a December 2023 interview with the Wall Street Journal, Richard Haass, former special assistant to H. W. Bush, declared that the world has descended into a “new world disorder,” lamenting the long-lost dream of unending U.S. hegemony. This month’s “Notes from the Editors” reflects on not only Haass’s recent statements, but his longstanding advocacy of an “Imperial America” designed to ensure U.S. domination on the world stage.
