John Bellamy Foster

Category: Other Major Scholarly Journal Articles

Journal Articles (Other Major Scholarly)

  • István Mészáros, Pathfinder of Socialism

    István Mészáros, Pathfinder of Socialism

    “István Mészáros, Pathfinder of Socialism“, Monthly Review, vol. 61, no. 9 (February 2010), pp. 49-51. DOI: 10.14452/MR-061-09-2010-02_4

    If I were asked to sum up the significance of István Mészáros for our time, I would have to follow President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela in referring to him as the “Pathfinder of Socialism.” His work…provides a strategic vision of the building of socialism, the absence of which, for many decades, constituted one of the principal weaknesses of the anti-capitalist movement, worldwide.

     

  • The Age of Monopoly-Finance Capital

    The Age of Monopoly-Finance Capital

    “The Age of Monopoly-Finance Capital“, Monthly Review, vol. 61, no. 9 (February 2010), pp.1-13. DOI: 10.14452/MR-061-09-2010-02_1

    Three years ago, in December 2006, I wrote an article for Monthly Review entitled “Monopoly-Finance Capital.” The occasion was the anniversary of Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy’s Monopoly Capital, published four decades earlier in 1966.…The article…[discussed] “the dual reality” of stagnant growth (or stagnation) and financialization, characterizing the advanced economies in this phase of capitalism. I concluded that this pointed to two possibilities: (1) a major financial and economic crisis in the form of “global debt meltdown and debt-deflation,” and (2) a prolongation of the symbiotic stagnation-financialization relationship of monopoly-finance capital. In fact, what we have experienced in the last two years, I would argue, is each of these sequentially: the worst financial-economic crisis since the 1930s, and then the system endeavoring to right itself by returning to financialization as its normal means of countering stagnation. It is thus doubly clear today that we are in a new phase of capitalism. In what follows, I shall attempt to outline the logic of this argument, as it evolved out of the work of Baran, Sweezy, and Harry Magdoff in particular, and how it relates to our present economic and social predicament.

    Reprints:

    • Reprinted in John Barkdull, ed., Public Policy and Global Change (Cogneta, 2012)

    Translations:

     

  • Why Ecological Revolution?

    “Why Ecological Revolution?“, Monthly Review vol. 61, no. 8 (January 2010), pp. 1-19. DOI: 10.14452/MR-061-08-2010-01_1

    It is now universally recognized within science that humanity is confronting the prospect—if we do not soon change course—of a planetary ecological collapse. Not only is the global ecological crisis becoming more and more severe, with the time in which to address it fast running out, but the dominant environmental strategies are also forms of denial, demonstrably doomed to fail, judging by their own limited objectives. This tragic failure, I will argue, can be attributed to the refusal of the powers that be to address the roots of the ecological problem in capitalist production and the resulting necessity of ecological and social revolution.

    Reprints:

    Reprinted in Leslie King and Deborah McCarthy Auriffeille, ed., Environmental Sociology: From Analysis to Action, Third Edition (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2014), pp. 37-52.

    Translations:
    • German translation in Sozialistische Zeitung, March 2010.
    • French translation by Jean Pestieua in Études Marxistes, no. 86, 2009, 63-76.
    • Latvian translation by Ieva Zalite, Green Liberty, http://zb-zeme.lv, 2010.
    • Chinese translations in Foreign Theoretical Trends, no. 3, 2010 and at www.leftlibrary.com/foster.htm, 2010.
    • Spanish translation in Brumaria 22 (Madrid, 2010), pp. 257-70.

     

  • The Vulnerable Planet Fifteen Years Later

    “The Vulnerable Planet Fifteen Years Later“, Monthly Review vol. 61, no. 7 (December 2009), pp. 17-19. DOI: 10.14452/MR-061-07-2009-11_2

    The original intent of The Vulnerable Planet, when it was first published fifteen years ago, was to provide a brief historical materialist analysis of the development of the global ecological crisis, beginning with the early civilizations and leading up to the monopoly capitalist society of the late twentieth century. Looking back now at the book as it was originally written—and at the second edition published five years later, incorporating a few minor changes plus an afterword—I see no major point on which the analysis has proven to be substantially wrong or where it needs significant revision. Nevertheless, the last decade and a half has witnessed an acceleration of history with respect to the human relation to the environment, adding force to the concerns that the book expressed.

     

  • The Paradox of Wealth

    The Paradox of Wealth

    “The Paradox of Wealth: Capitalism and Ecological Destruction“, (coauthored with Brett Clark, Foster listed first), Monthly Review vol. 61, no. 6 (November 2009), pp. 1-18. DOI: 10.14452/MR-061-06-2009-10_1

    Today orthodox economics is reputedly being harnessed to an entirely new end: saving the planet from the ecological destruction wrought by capitalist expansion. It promises to accomplish this through the further expansion of capitalism itself, cleared of its excesses and excrescences. A growing army of self-styled “sustainable developers” argues that there is no contradiction between the unlimited accumulation of capital—the credo of economic liberalism from Adam Smith to the present—and the preservation of the earth. The system can continue to expand by creating a new “sustainable capitalism,” bringing the efficiency of the market to bear on nature and its reproduction. In reality, these visions amount to little more than a renewed strategy for profiting on planetary destruction.

    Translations:
    • Latvian translation by Ieva Zalite, Green Liberty, http://.zb-zeme.lv 2010.
    • Galician translation by Xosé Díaz Díaz in Terra e Tempo no. 4 (2010), http://www.terraetempo.net.
    • Hungarian translation in Ezmélet (Consciousness) no. 86 (Summer 2010), http://www.eszmelet.hu/.
    • Translated in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, issue 23 (Istanbul: Kalkedon Publications, June 2010).

     

  • Monopoly-Finance Capital and the Paradox of Accumulation

    Monopoly-Finance Capital and the Paradox of Accumulation

    “Monopoly-Finance Capital and the Paradox of Accumulation“, (coauthored with Robert W. McChesney, Foster listed first), Monthly Review vol. 61, no. 5 (October 2009), pp. 1-20.  DOI: 10.14452/MR-061-05-2009-09_1

    This month marks the eightieth anniversary of the 1929 Stock Market Crash that precipitated the Great Depression of the 1930s. Ironically, this comes at the very moment that the capitalist system is celebrating having narrowly escaped falling into a similar abyss. The financial crash and the decline in output a year ago, following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, was as steep as at the beginning of the Great Depression. “For a while,” Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times in August, “key economic indicators — world trade, world industrial production, even stock prices—were falling as fast or faster than they did in 1929-30. But in the 1930s the trend lines kept heading down. This time, the plunge appears to be ending after just one terrible year.” Big government, through the federal bailout and stimulus, as well as the shock-absorber effects of the continued payouts of unemployment and Social Security benefits, Medicare, etc., slowed the descent and helped the economy to level off, albeit at a point well below previous output.

    Reprints:
    • Reprinted in John F. Sitton, ed., Marx Today: Selected Works and Recent Debates (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2010), 185-200.
    Translations:
    • Galician translation by Xosé Díaz Díaz in Terra e Tempo (no. 2, 2010), http://www.terraetempo.net.
    • Arabic translation by Thamer Al-Saffar, Civilized Dialogue, May 24, 2010, http://www.ahewar.org.
    • Chinese transltion in Foreign Theoretical Trends,2010.
    • Turkish translations appears in Kapitalizmin Finansal Krizi, edited by Prof. Dr. Abdullah Ersoy (Ankara, Turkey: Imaj Publishing, 2011), 330pp; and in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, 26 (Istanbul: Kalkedon Publications, March 2011).
    • Bangla translation in Bangla Monthly Review, vol. 2. no. 2 (March 2010). Translation by Farooque Chowdhury.

     

  • The Penal State in an Age of Crisis

    The Penal State in an Age of Crisis

    “The Penal State in an Age of Crisis“, (coauthored with Hannah Holleman, Robert W. McChesney, and R. Jamil Jonna, Foster listed third), Monthly Review vol. 61, no. 2 (June 2009), pp. 1-17. DOI: 10.14452/MR-061-02-2009-06_1

    As a rule, crime and social protest rise in periods of economic crisis in capitalist society. During times of economic and social instability, the well-to-do become increasingly fearful of the general population, more disposed to adopt harsh measures to safeguard their positions at the apex of the social pyramid. The slowdown in the economic growth rate of U.S. capitalism beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s—converging with the emergence of radical social protest around the same period—was accompanied by a rapid rise in public safety spending as a share of civilian government expenditures. So significant was this shift that we can speak of a crowding out of welfare state spending (health, education, social services) by penal state spending (law enforcement, courts, and prisons) in the United States during the last third of a century.

    Reprints:
    Translations:
    • Spanish translation in El Aromo, no. 50/Razón y Revolucion (Argentina, 2009), http://www.razonyrevolucion.org.
    • Bangla translation in Bangla Monthly Review, vol. 2, no. 1 (December 2009). Translated by Farooque Chowdhury.
    • Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition no. 22 (Istanbul: Kalkedon), pp. 29-48.

     

  • Capitalism in Wonderland

    Capitalism in Wonderland

    “Capitalism in Wonderland” [PDF], (coauthored with Richard York and Brett Clark, Foster listed third), Monthly Review vol. 61, no. 1 (May 2009), pp. 1-18. DOI: 10.14452/MR-061-01-2009-05_1

    In a recent essay, “Economics Needs a Scientific Revolution,” in one of the leading scientific journals, Nature, physicist Jean-Philippe Bouchaud, a researcher for an investment management company, asked rhetorically, “What is the flagship achievement of economics?” Bouchaud’s answer: “Only its recurrent inability to predict and avert crises.” Although his discussion is focused on the current worldwide financial crisis, his comment applies equally well to mainstream economic approaches to the environment—where, for example, ancient forests are seen as non-performing assets to be liquidated, and clean air and water are luxury goods for the affluent to purchase at their discretion. The field of economics in the United States has long been dominated by thinkers who unquestioningly accept the capitalist status quo and, accordingly, value the natural world only in terms of how much short-term profit can be generated by its exploitation. As a result, the inability of received economics to cope with or even perceive the global ecological crisis is alarming in its scope and implications.

    Translations:
    • Spanish translation in Herramienta 3 (Argentina, November 2010), http://www.herramienta.com.ar.
    • Chinese translation by Xia Yong, Marxism and Reality (China), no. 5, 2009.
    • Russian translation in Vpered, July 6, 2009, vpered.org.ru.
    • Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, no. 21 (Istanbul: Kalkedon, 2009), pp. 7-25.

     

  • The Sales Effort and Monopoly Capital

    The Sales Effort and Monopoly Capital

    “The Sales Effort and Monopoly Capital“, (coauthored with Robert W. McChesney, Inger L. Stole, and Hannah Holleman, Foster listed second), Monthly Review vol. 60, no. 11 (April 2009), pp. 1-23. DOI: 10.14452/MR-060-11-2009-04_1

    On the eightieth anniversary of the 1929 Stock Market Crash that led to the Great Depression, the United States is once again caught in a Great Financial Crisis and deep downturn of an order of magnitude comparable to the 1930s. At the center of this crisis is plunging consumer spending, caused by the destruction of household finance as a result of decades of wage stagnation and the piling up of debt. Consumer spending in today’s economy, dominated by giant firms, is significantly dependent on the sales effort, i.e., marketing as a whole, with advertising as its most conspicuous form. But the sales effort is also ebbing in the crisis, contributing to the general decline. So integral is the sales effort to the regime of monopoly capital that one cannot be understood without the other.

    Translations:
    • Portuguese translation in Monthly Review, Portuguese-Language Edition, April 2009.
    • Translated in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, no. 26 (Istanbul: Kalkedon, March 2011).

     

  • A Failed System

    A Failed System

    “A Failed System: The World Crisis of Capitalist Globalization and its Impact on China“, Monthly Review vol. 60, no. 10 (March 2009), pp. 1-23. DOI: 10.14452/MR-060-10-2009-03_1

    In referring in my title here to “A Failed System” I do not of course mean that capitalism as a system is in any sense at an end. Rather I mean by “failed system” a global economic and social order that increasingly exhibits a fatal contradiction between reality and reason—to the point, in our time, where it threatens not only human welfare but also the continuation of most sentient forms of life on the planet. Three critical contradictions make up the contemporary world crisis emanating from capitalist development: (1) the current Great Financial Crisis and stagnation/depression; (2) the growing threat of planetary ecological collapse; and (3) the emergence of global imperial instability associated with shifting world hegemony and the struggle for resources. Such structural weaknesses of the system, as Joseph Schumpeter might have said, are the product of capitalism’s past successes, but they raise catastrophic problems and failures in the present nonetheless. How we choose to act today in response to this failed system is therefore the most critical question that humanity has ever faced.

    Translations:
    • Chinese translation by Dong Hui, Philosophical Trends (China), no. 5, 2009; separate Chinese translation by Wu Wei and Liu Shuai, Marxism and Reality (China), no. 3, 2009.
    • Portuguese translation in Monthly Review, Portuguese-Language Edition (Brazil), no. 11, 2009;
    • Spanish translations in Monthly Review, Selecciones en Castellano, no. 10 (2009), and Blog De Um Sem-Mídia, Domingo, March 29, 2009.
    • Bangla translation in Bangla Monthly Review, vol. 1, no. 4 (September 2009). Translated by Nilanjan Dutt.