Category: Monthly Review Press Blog

“The Logic of Human Survival”: Against the Current reviews A Redder Shade of Green

February 20, 2024

‘Anthropocene’ refers to a new geological period, where the activities of human beings have become the dominant factor shaping the planet’s changing geology, biology and climate, including effects on humanity. Angus, and increasingly geologists, are focusing on the period beginning around 1950, when humanity’s impact, which had been developing gradually, underwent a ‘great acceleration’ — a dialectical transformation of quantity into quality….

U.S. Must Take Responsibility for Asylum Seekers & the History That Drives Them: David L. Wilson, via Truthout

February 20, 2024

A large segment of the US public was horrified in May and June when they saw the Trump administration snatching toddlers away from Central American mothers who arrived at the US border seeking asylum. Many would still be appalled if they knew that the White House is seeking to continue the practice in a different form. Most undoubtedly feel genuine sympathy for young people trying to escape violent gangs or abusive partners. Still, a lot of these same sympathetic Americans don’t actually want the asylum seekers to come here….

Could the people who voted for Trump or Clinton overthrow capitalism? Climate & Capitalism reviews Michael Yates’s new book

February 20, 2024

The title of Michael Yates’ new book asks a question that every socialist has heard many times. We hear it from liberals who think changes can only be made by working inside the system. We hear it from radicals who simply can’t imagine working people moving against the system. ¶ Is it really possible that people who voted for Trump or Clinton — two faces of global reaction — might one day overthrow capitalism?….

New! Michael Tigar’s Mythologies of State and Monopoly Power

February 20, 2024

Mythologies,” writes veteran human rights lawyer Michael Tigar, “are structures of words and images that portray people, institutions, and events in ways that mask an underlying reality.” For instance, the “Justice Department” appears, by its very nature and practice, to appropriate “justice” as the exclusive property of the federal government. In his brilliantly acerbic collection of essays, Tigar reveals, deconstructs, and eviscerates mythologies surrounding the U.S. criminal justice system, racism, free expression, workers’ rights, and international human rights.

November 26, Rockford, IL: Howard Waitzkin on “Health Care Under the Knife”

February 20, 2024

Howard Waitzkin, author — along with the Working Group on Health Beyond Capitalism — of “Health Care Under the Knife: Moving Beyond Capitalism for Our Health,” will speak on the U.S. health-care system, and how it could rescued and made an integral part of a new and radically different society.

The Working Class and Batista’s Overthrow: New West Indian Guide on A Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution

February 20, 2024

Stephen Cushion’s A Hidden History of the Cuban Revolution, the result of extensive archival and oral history research, is one of the most important books (in any language) on the history of the Batista regime and its opponents during the 1950s to appear in the last three or more decades. It is also an openly revisionist account that challenges much research and writing produced by both Cuban and foreign scholars….”

“Clever Corporate Criticism of U.S. Schools” — Gerald Coles in New Politics

February 20, 2024

U.S. capitalism has a hate-love relationship with the nation’s schools. On the ‘hate’ side is a stream of complaints from business leaders and organizations about the many students, particularly in city schools, who fail grade-level achievement tests, are high school dropouts or, if they complete high school, do not have the academic qualifications for college and advanced-skills education….

“So many reasons to fight”: ISR on Kohei Saito’s Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism

February 20, 2024

“Ecosocialism needs Marx,” Kohei Saito once wrote. In Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism, Saito shows why…. This work and Saito’s familiarity with a range of international debates regarding Marxist theory and practice make possible his beautiful analysis of Marx’s ecosocialism, an analysis that should inform our struggle for revolutionary socioecological change….

Yellow Journalism and the New Cold War: Jeremy Kuzmarov via Counterpunch

February 20, 2024

Like Saddam Hussein a decade and a half ago, Russia and its President Vladimir Putin have been repeatedly vilified in the Western media over the last five years, helping to mobilize popular support for the reemergence of a new Cold War…

New! From Commune to Capitalism: How China’s Peasants Lost Collective Farming and Gained Urban Poverty

February 20, 2024

In the early 1980s, China dismantled its socialist rural collectives and divided the land among millions of small peasant families. Mainstream history argues that this “decollectivization campaign” greatly improved agricultural productivity and the lives of the peasants. A closer examination suggests a much different and more nuanced story….