John Bellamy Foster

Category: Dictionary and Encyclopedia Articles

Dictionary and Encyclopedia Articles

  • Podolinsky Myth

    “Podolinsky Myth,” in Brent Haddad and Barry D. Solomon, ed., Dictionary of Ecological Economics (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, forthcoming 2022), 341 words.

     

  • Nature

    “Nature,” in Kelly Fritsch, Clare O’Connor, and A.K. Thompson, ed., Keywords for Radicals, (Oakland: AK Press, 2016), pp. 279-86.

    “Nature,” wrote Raymond Williams in Keywords, “is perhaps the most complex word in the language.” It is derived from the Latin natura, as exemplified by Lucretius’s great didactic poem De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) from the first century BCE. The word “nature” has three primary, interrelated meanings: (1) the intrinsic properties or essence of things or processes; (2) an inherent force that directs or determines the world; and (3) the material world or universe, the object of our sense perceptions—both in its entirety and variously understood as including or excluding God, spirit, mind, human beings, society, history, culture, etc.

    Additional Publication(s)

  • Mathusianism

    “Mathusianism” in Historisch-Kritisches Wörterbuch Des Marximus, 7/II ((Berlin: Argument-Verlag, forthcoming 2015). 3500 words.

  • Concentration and Centralization of Capital

    “Konzentration and Zentralisation des Kapitals” (Concentration and Centralization of Capital,” in Historisch-Kritisches Wörterbuch Des Marximus , 7/II ((Berlin: Argument-Verlag, 2010).

  • West Coast Longshore Strikes, 1923 and 1935

    “West Coast Longshore Strikes, 1923 and 1935,” The Canadian Encyclopedia (Edmonton: Hurtig, 1988), 200 words.

    West Coast Longshore Strikes, 1923 and 1935 On 8 Oct 1923 the 1400 members of the International Longshoremen’s Assn (ILA) in Vancouver struck for higher wages. The Shipping Federation imported strikebreakers, housed in the CPR ship Empress of Japan, while an armed launch and 350 armed men guarded the waterfront. The longshoremen gave up on Dec 10. Refusing further dealings with the ILA, the Shipping Federation took over the dispatch of the work force, formerly controlled by the union, and set up a company union, the Vancouver and District Waterfront Workers Assn. This evolved into a genuine union, and on 4 June 1935 became involved in the strike-lockout of 1935, resulting from union struggles to regain control of dispatch and to unite with other longshoremen in the region. The conflict led to the “Battle of the Ballentyne Pier” on June 18, when mounted police charged 1000 longshoremen. Following the imprisonment of union leaders, the strike ended on Dec 9.

  • Harry Magdoff 1913—

    “Harry Magdoff 1913—“ in Biographical Dictionary of Dissenting Economists, edited by Philip Arestis and Malcolm Sawyer (Brookfield, Vermont: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2000), pp. 385-94.

    Harry Magdoff was born on 21 August 1913 in the Bronx in New York. His parents were Russian Jewish immigrants; his father was a housepainter. As a youth he was swept up by the left political culture of his time. By the time he entered the City College of New York, where he commenced studies of physics and mathematics, he had already read a great deal of Marx.

  • Ecology

    “Ecology,” 1999 in Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, edited by Kelly Boyd (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1999), 1000 words.

  • Erde (Earth)

    ”Erde (Earth),” in Historisch-Kritisches Wörterbuch Des Marximus, Band 3 (Ebene-Extremisis) (Berlin: Argument-Verlag, 1997), pp. 669-710. [HTML]

    Reprints

  • Paul Marlor Sweezy 1910-

    “Paul Marlor Sweezy 1910–” in Biographical Dictionary of Dissenting Economists, edited by Philip Arestis and Malcolm Sawyer (Brookfield, Vermont: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1992, pp. 562-70. [PDF]

    Editions

    • Revised and expanded for 2000 edition.

  • Paul Alexander Baran 1910-1964

    “Paul Alexander Baran 1910-1964,” [PDF] in Biographical Dictionary of Dissenting Economists, edited by Philip Arestis and Malcolm Sawyer (Brookfield, Vermont: Edward Elgar Publishing, 1992), pp. 22-29.

    Paul Baran, the internationally acclaimed Marxist economist, was born on 8 December 1910 into a Jewish family in Nikolaev, Russia, on the Black Sea. His father was a medical doctor with ties to the Menshevik branch of the Russian Social Democratic party. The chaos rustling from the First World War and the Russian Revolution made it impossible to find a suitable school for Baran to attend and his education up to age 11 was entirely under his father’s tutelage. Dismayed by the continuing social disruption following the October Revolution, Baran’s family left the USSR in 1921, stopping briefly at his father’s ancestral home in Vilna, formerly part of Tsarist Russia and by that time part of Poland. Her his parents assumed Polish citizenship; as a minor entered on his mother’s passport, Baran received automatic Polish nationality which he was to retain until naturalized as an American citizen during the Second World War. The family then proceeded to Germany where Baran’s formal education began.