John Bellamy Foster

Category: Exchanges

Exchanges

  • Toward a Global Dialogue on Ecology and Marxism

    “Toward a Global Dialogue on Ecology and Marxism: A Brief Response to Chinese Scholars,” [PDF] (John Bellamy Foster) Monthly Review, vol. 64, no. 9 (February 2013), pp. 54-61.

    I would like to thank Zhihe Wang, Meijun Fan, Hui Dong, Dezhong Sun, and Lichun Li for doing so much to promote a global dialogue on ecological Marxism by summarizing some of the insights and concerns of Chinese scholars in this area, focusing in this case on my work in particular. The various questions, challenges, and critiques raised in relation to my work and that of related scholars are all, I believe, of great importance to the development of theory and practice in this area. I am therefore providing a brief set of responses to the problems raised, which I hope will be helpful in the further promotion of this global dialogue on ecology and Marxism.

  • Marx and Engels and ‘Small Is Beautiful’

    “Marx and Engels and ‘Small Is Beautiful’ & A Response,” [PDF] (Samar Bagchi, John Bellamy Foster and Fred Magdoff) Monthly Review, vol. 63, no. 9 (February 2012), pp. 52-55.

    I am a regular reader of Monthly Review. I read with interest the recent articles on ecology and Marxism…. It is true that Marx and Engels conceived that capitalism engenders a “metabolic rift” in nature and society. But both of them emphasized that the industrial growth that socialism would produce is beyond imagination under capitalism…. In the middle of the nineteenth century, it was impossible for Marx and Engels to envisage the ecological catastrophe that a constantly expanding industrial society can ensue.

  • Rediscovering the History of Imperialism

    “Rediscovering the History of Imperialism: A Reply” [PDF], Monthly Review vol. 59, no. 7 (December 2007), pp.51-53.

    The Research Unit for Political Economy’s (RUPE’s) brief historical account here of the origins of the Marxist theory of imperialism constitutes a crucial corrective to common errors regarding that history. In my article, “The Imperialist World System: Paul Baran’s Political Economy of Growth After Fifty Years” (Monthly Review, May 2007), I began by pointing out that Baran’s book was an outgrowth of classical Marxist thought—the ideas of Marx, Lenin, and Luxemburg. At the same time it represented a sharp departure from the rigid orthodoxy of linear development that had come to characterize so much of socialist (as well as bourgeois) thought—often presented in terms of Horace’s phrase, quoted by Marx, “the tale is told of you.” Baran’s treatment of the imperialist world system was a startling contribution at the time that his book appeared, challenging the conventional assumptions of both the right and an increasingly calcified left.

  • 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.

  • For a Zapatista Style Postmodernist Perspective

    “For a Zapatista Style Postmodernist Perspective; Marxism and Postmodernism: A Reply to Roger Burbach; On Hobsbawm’s Pessimism: A Reply to Justin Rosenberg,” (Roger Burbach, Ellen Meiksins Wood, John Bellamy Foster and David Englestein) Monthly Review, vol. 47, no. 10 (March 1996), pp. 34-48.

    The left is on the brink of collapse. It has very little influence in the arena of mass politics while fewer and fewer people are interested in Marxist journals, books, and intellectual discourses. In 1982 Michael Ryan, in a book written to find common ground between Marxism and postmodernism, noted that “millions have been killed because they were Marxists; no one will be obliged to die because s/he is a deconstructionist.”

  • Colón and Colonialism

    “Colón and Colonialism,” (John Bellamy Foster) Monthly Review, vol. 44, no. 6 (November 1992), pp. 46-48.

    A number of readers have pointed out that an egregious error was made in my introduction to the July-August issue on the Quincentennial, where it says (on page 2) that, “The nature of the encounter was a colonial one (a word derived from Colon or Columbus) …. ” This was a mistake since the Latin word “colonia” dates back to Roman times.

  • Anti-Semitism and the Legacy of Columbus

    “Anti-Semitism and the Legacy of Columbus; A Reply to Prago,” (John Bellamy Foster and Albert Prago) Monthly Review, vol. 44, no. 5 (October 1992), pp. 44-49.

    The July/August issue of MR is a superb addition to the articles (and books) which are aimed at the multi-faceted myths surrounding Columbus and his trans-Atlantic voyages. Understandably, major emphasis in the myth-destroying quincentennial literature is on Amerindians and African-Americans. Lamentably few deal with the impact of Columbus’ exploits on Jews; and none of the articles in MR remotely touched on this matter.

  • Fascism in Iraq

    “Fascism in Iraq; Imperialism and the Tyranny of Saddam Hussein,” (John Bellamy Foster and Thomas F. Mayer) Monthly Review, vol. 43, no. 6 (November 1991), pp. 33-42.

    In his article, “Imperialism and the Gulf War” (MR, April 1991), Tom Mayer makes the following statement: In order to make Saddam Hussein a suitable target for unlimited violence, all positive achievements of his government are ignored. We hear almost nothing about the growth of literacy in Iraq, the increased availability of housing, women’s rights, religious freedom, improved transportation facilities, lack of government corruption, or the fact that Iraq invests far more of its oil revenues internally than other Arab states of the Persian Gulf. We hear very little about several reasonable-sounding Iraqi proposals seeking to avoid war. And the U.S. left, repelled by the tyranny of the Hussein regime and burdened with a guilty conscience from its blindness to the infamies of “actually existing socialism,” remains largely silent on these issues.