January 1, 2025
Craig Medlen draws on decades of data to reveal how the creeping stagnation of the past half-century has led to the increasing consolidation of corporate monopoly power and concentration of firms by way of mergers and, importantly, the free cash that funds them. This stunning rise in free cash, fueled in part by government deficits, starkly reveals how the ruling class continues to enrich themselves and strengthen their position on the top of the economic heap.
December 1, 2024
December’s Monthly Review begins the fiftieth-anniversary celebration of Harry Braverman’s seminal work, Labor and Monopoly Capital (Monthly Review Press, 1974), with this Review of the Month by John Bellamy Foster, which explores the connections between Marx’s “collective worker,” Braverman’s “collective scientist,” and the struggle against the degradation of work in the digital age.
December 1, 2024
What was the impact of Labor and Monopoly Capital in its day, and what is its resonance in ours? Kuang Xiaolu, Li Zhi, and Xie Fusheng take stock of Harry Braverman’s influential scholarship over the last half-century. In sum, they write, “with the global expansion of the capitalist mode of production, the significance of Labor and Monopoly Capital has long surpassed narrow national boundaries and the era in which Braverman lived.”
December 1, 2024
Following Harry Braverman’s assertion that we must examine “by way of concrete historical specific analysis of technology…on one side and social relations on the other” in order to understand the impact of the Scientific-Technical Revolution on our daily lives, John Hedlund and Stefano B. Longo describe the explosion of the Synthetic Age of plastics, revealing the commodification of science in service of capital.
November 1, 2024
In this review of Bit Tyrants by Rob Larson, Mateo Crossa finds and expands on how the powerful actors of Silicon Valley have fashioned themselves into the new, unapologetic robber barons, operating in the shadows of political lobbying to maintain their monopolistic practices in the Global North while shamelessly engaging in the naked exploitation of the workers in the Global South. Crossa echoes Larson’s call for liberation from these tyrants, bringing attention to the necessity of socialism—both on- and offline—to agitate for democratic control over the technology and Internet platforms that increasingly penetrate our daily lives.
November 1, 2023
Rahul Varman is on the faculty of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India, where he teaches and writes about corporations and the neoliberal order. The author is grateful to… READ MORE
November 1, 2023
Kyung-Pil Kim is a lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Korea University, Seoul. His research foci include neoliberalization, platform economy, and civil-military relations. He has recently published a work… READ MORE
March 1, 2023
Benjamin Selwyn is a professor of international relations and international development at the University of Sussex. He is the author of The Struggle for Development (2017), The Global Development Crisis… READ MORE
December 1, 2022
Arianto Sangadji is a researcher at Celebes Institute in Palu and a research advisor at Aksi Ekologi dan Emansipasi Rakyat in Jakarta, Indonesia. Historically, considerable amounts of mineral deposits have… READ MORE
March 1, 2022
When the trumpets had sounded and allwas in readiness on the face of the earth,Jehovah divided his universe:Anaconda, Ford Motors,Coca-Cola Inc., and similar entities:the most succulent item of all,The United… READ MORE
