John Bellamy Foster

Author: John Bellamy Foster

  • What Recovery?

    What Recovery?

    “What Recovery?,” (coauthored with Harry Magdoff and Robert W. McChesney, listed as “by the editors” Monthly Review vol. 54, no. 11 (April 2003), pp. 1-16. DOI: 10.14452/MR-054-11-2003-04_1

    Only a few years ago it was widely suggested that the capitalist economy had entered a new economic era. The rapid economic growth experienced during the brief period of the late 1990s, we were told, would become virtually endless, spurred on by rising productivity led by high technology and the New Economy. The circumstances that now confront us following the bursting of the speculative bubble could not be more different. The country is once again mired in economic stagnation. In the present “recovery”—if indeed we can call it that—new jobs remain few and far between. Of the four sources of demand that create economic activity—personal consumption, business investment, government spending, and net exports—it is mainly consumption, backed by increasing debt, that is currently keeping the economy from slipping deeper into stagnation. Indeed, many business leaders and economists fear the return of recession—referred to as the likelihood of a “double dip.” Behind this fear lies excess capacity in almost every industry, the absence of new growth stimuli, slow growth or recession in most of the rest of the world, and the aftereffects of the bursting of the speculative stock market bubble. All of this suggests that there is more at stake than the traditional business cycle. At the very least, there is reason to expect the continuation of the tendency of stagnation.

     

  • The Commercial Tidal Wave

    The Commercial Tidal Wave

    “The Commercial Tidal Wave,” (coauthored with Robert W. McChesney, McChesney listed as first author), Monthly Review vol. 54, no. 10 (March 2003), pp. 1-16. DOI: 10.14452/MR-054-10-2003-03_1

    For a long time now it has been widely understood within economics that under the capitalism of giant firms, corporations no longer compete primarily through price competition. They engage instead in what economists call “monopolistic competition.” This consists chiefly of attempts to create monopoly positions for a particular brand, making it possible for corporations to charge more for the branded product while also expanding their market share. Competition is most intense in what Thorstein Veblen called the “production of salable appearances,” involving advertising, frequent model changes, branding of products, and the like. Once this logic takes over in twentieth and now twenty-first century capitalism it is seemingly unstoppable. All human needs, relationships and fears, the deepest recesses of the human psyche, become mere means for the expansion of the commodity universe under the force of modem marketing. With the rise to prominence of modem marketing, commercialism—the translation of human relations into commodity relations—although a phenomenon intrinsic to capitalism, has expanded exponentially.

    Reprints:
    • Republished in expanded and revised form in Robert W. McChesney, The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the 21st Century. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004, pp. 138-74.

     

  • A Planetary Defeat

    A Planetary Defeat

    “A Planetary Defeat: The Failure of Global Environmental Reform,” Monthly Review, vol. 54, no. 8 (January 2003), pp.1-9. DOI: 10.14452/MR-054-08-2003-01_1

    The first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 generated hopes that the world would at long last address its global ecological problems and introduce a process of sustainable development. Now, with a second summit being held ten years later in Johannesburg, that dream has to a large extent faded. Even the principal supporters of this process have made it clear that they do not expect much to be achieved as a result of the Johannesburg summit, which is likely to go down in history as an absolute failure. We need to ask ourselves why.

    Translations:
    • Persian translation in Paul M. Sweezy, et. al., Capitalism and the Environment (Tehran: Digar Publishing House, 2008).

     

  • Crises: One After Another for the Life of the System

    “Crises: One After Another for the Life of the System,” Monthly Review, vol. 54, no. 6 (November 2002), pp. 47-59.

    Our disagreement with our friends, Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch, is over three interrelated issues: (1) how and why to analyze a crisis-prone capitalism, (2) the capacity of the state to manage or “contain” crises, and (3) the near-term prospects for capital accumulation. In addition there are significant divergences in empirical assessment between us related to these issues.

  • The Rediscovery of Imperialism

    The Rediscovery of Imperialism

    “The Rediscovery of Imperialism: Introduction” to Harry Madoff, Essays on Imperialism and Globalization,” Monthly Review vol. 54, no. 6 (November 2002), pp. 1-16. DOI: 10.14452/MR-054-06-2002-10_1

    The concept of “imperialism” was considered outside the acceptable range of political discourse within the ruling circles of the capitalist world for most of the twentieth century. Reference to “imperialism” during the Vietnam War, no matter how realistic, was almost always a sign that the writer was on the left side of the political spectrum. In a 1971 foreword to the U.S. edition of Pierre Jalée’s Imperialism in the Seventies Harry Magdoff noted, “As a rule, polite academic scholars prefer not to use the term ‘imperialism.’ They find it distasteful and unscientific.”

    Translations:
    • Turkish translation in Cosmo Politik, no. 6 (Winter 2002), pp. 16-25.
    • Spanish translation at Correntroig, July 6, 2008. Translation by Fernando Lizárraga.

     

  • Marx’s Ecology in Historical Perspective

    “Marx’s Ecology in Historical Perspective,” [PDF] International Socialism, no. 97 (Autumn 2002), pp. 71-86.

    ‘For the early Marx the only nature relevant to the understanding of history is human nature … Marx wisely left nature (other than human nature) alone.’ These words are from George Lichtheim’s influential book Marxism: An Historical and Critical Study, first published in 1961. [1]

    Though he was not a Marxist, Lichtheim’s view here did not differ from the general outlook of Western Marxism at the time he was writing. Yet this same outlook would be regarded by most socialists today as laughable. After decades of explorations of Marx’s contributions to ecological discussions and publication of his scientific-technical notebooks, it is no longer a question of whether Marx addressed nature, and did so throughout his life, but whether he can be said to have developed an understanding of the nature-society dialectic that constitutes a crucial starting point for understanding the ecological crisis of capitalist society.

    Reprints:
    • Reprint in Bertell Ollman and Kevin B. Anderson, ed., Karl Marx (Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Group, 2012), 609-21.
    • Part of the International Library of Essays in Classical Sociology series, edited by David Chalcraft.
    Translations:
    • Greek translation in Marxist Thought, December 2001
    • Chinese translation by Guo Jianren in Marxist Philosophical Research (China), Wuhan University, 2002
    • Malay translation by Muhammed Salleh in Suara Sosialisme (October 2002) http://arts.anu.edu.au/suara/foster1.rtf. Malay translation (2002) in Malayan edition of International Socialism.

  • It’s Not a Postcapitalist World, Nor is it a Post-Marxist One

    “It’s Not a Postcapitalist World, Nor is it a Post-Marxist One—An Interview with John Bellamy Foster” [PDF] (John Bellamy Foster and Evrensel Kultur) Monthly Review, vol. 54, no. 5 (October 2002), pp. 42-47.

    Evrensel Kultur: Postmodernism’s advice to u s was to have doubts towards all kinds of information acquired. The “security syndrome” following September 11 has spread these doubts to daily life. In other words, the twenty-first century has begun as an age of doubts/suspicions. How does the suspiciousness of the new century differ from that of past centuries? If we take “suspicion” as a metaphor, what kind of real relations/connections can be described or hidden with this metaphor?

  • Helen Keller and the Touch of Nature: An Introduction to Keller’s The World I live In

    “Helen Keller and the Touch of Nature: An Introduction to Keller’s The World I live In (Selections),” [PDF], (coauthored with Brett Clark, Clark listed first), Organization and Environment, vol. 15, no. 3 (September 2002), pp. 278-84.

    I found that of the senses, the eye is the most superficial, the ear the most arrogant, smell the most voluptuous, taste the most superstitious and fickle, touch the most pro-found and the most philosophical.

    —Diderot (as cited in Herrmann, 1998, p. vii)

    Mark Twain asserted that Helen Keller (1880-1968) was immortal—fellow to Caesar, Homer, and Shakespeare—and would “be as famous a thousand years from now as she is to-day” (Twain, 1924, Vol. 2, p. 297). Elementary school teachers have told the story of Keller’s childhood for more than a hundred years, whereas her activist and intellectual developments as an adult remain in the shadows. The environmental movement has yet to discover the importance of Keller’s contribution to an ecological understanding of the world. Nonetheless, her work provides a foundation for constructing a dynamic view of the relationship between nature and ourselves. By exploring the world, through Keller’s words, insights can be gained in regard to how humans experience nature. Perhaps, through this engagement, a more complete picture of Keller’s life and position in history can be formed.

  • Why Movements Matter

    “Why Movements Matter,” [PDF], American Journal of Sociology, vol. 108, no. 2 (September 2002), pp. 509-10. (Review of Steve Breyman, Why Movements Matter: The West German Peace Movement and U.S. Arms Control Policy.)

    In the early 1980s a trans-Atlantic antinuclear movement consisting of millions of protestors emerged seemingly out of nowhere to threaten the prerogatives of power. In Europe this took the form of massive protests against the deployment of Euromissiles—intermediate-range nuclear missiles placed on European soil. In the United States there arose the nuclear freeze movement, aimed at stopping the escalation of U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons. It is often claimed that both wings of this trans-Atlantic antinuclear movement failed. The European antimissile movement was unable to prevent the deployment of Pershing 2 and cruise missiles in Europe. Likewise the nuclear freeze movement in the United States did not stop the Reagan administration (its main political target) from escalating its nuclear arms race with the “evil empire.”

  • Capitalism and Ecology

    Capitalism and Ecology

    “Capitalism and Ecology: The Nature of the Contradiction,” Monthly Review vol. 54, no. 4 (September 2002), pp. 6-16. DOI: 10.14452/MR-054-04-2002-08_2

    The social relation of capital, as we all know, is a contradictory one. These contradictions, though stemming from capitalism’s internal laws of motion, extend out to phenomena that are usually conceived as external to the system, threatening the integrity of the entire biosphere and everything within it as a result of capital’s relentless expansion. How to understand capitalism’s ecological contradictions has therefore become a subject of heated debate among socialists. Two crucial issues in this debate are: (1) must ecological crisis lead to economic crisis under capitalism?, and (2) to what extent is there an ecological contradiction at the heart of capitalist society?