“Foreword” to Cheng Enfu, China’s Economic Dialectics (New York: International Publishers, 2021), vii-xiii. For Western Marxists, what is likely to be most astonishing is the many-sided approach to Marxism displayed throughout this work. This reflects a strong emphasis on cultivating an open Marxism, drawing on different views and debates, and various movement vernaculars, in the […]
“Introduction” to István Mézáros, “Beyond Leviathan: Critique of the State”
“Introduction” to István Mézáros, Beyond Leviathan: Critique of the State (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2022), 20 pp. István Mészáros was one of the greatest political theorists of the twentieth century. Left unfinished at the time of his death, Beyond Leviathan is written on the magisterial scale of his previous book, Beyond Capital, and meant […]
Capitalism in the Anthropocene: Ecological Ruin or Ecological Revolution
Capitalism in the Anthropocene: Ecological Ruin or Ecological Revolution (New York: Monthly Review Press, forthcoming 2022), 693 pp. Over the last 11,700 years, during which human civilization developed, the earth has existed within what geologists refer to as the Holocene Epoch. Now science is telling us that the Holocene Epoch in the geological time scale […]
Henri Lefebvre’s Conception of Nature-Society in the Revoltuonary Project of Autogeston
“Henri Lefebvre’s Conception of Nature-Society in the Revoltuonary Project of Autogeston” (coauthered with Brian M. Napoletano, Pedro Urquijo, and Brett Clark—Foster listed fourth), Dialogues in Human Geography (prepublished online March 29, 2022), 20 pp. Henri Lefebvre’s intricate material-dialectical approach to the nature-society problematic, taken together with his advocacy of a praxis oriented to total transformation […]
Beyond Leviathan: Critique of the State
Not only does it provide, for the first time, an-all-embracing Marxian theory of the state, it gives new political meaning to the notion of “the withering away of the state.” In his definitive, final work, Mészáros seeks to illuminate the political preconditions for a society of substantive equality and substantive democracy.
Lukács and the Tragedy of Revolution
“Lukács and the Tragedy of Revolution,” Monthly Review 73, no. 9 (February 2022), pp. 1-12. In his 20s and early 30s, Georg Lukács emerged as one of Europe’s towering intellectuals, the author of the two-volume A History of the Development of Modern Drama (1908, 1911), Soul and Form (1910), Aesthetic Culture (1913), The Theory of the […]
Against Doomsday Scenarios: What Is to Be Done Now?
“Against Doomsday Scenarios: What Is to Be Done Now?” (John Bellamy Foster interviewed by John Molyneux and Owen McCormick), Monthly Review 73, no. 7 (December 2021), pp. 1-16. [Published in Irish Marxist Review, November 2021.] John Molyneux and Owen McCormack: Given the extreme summer weather and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, […]
“The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology,” online Deutscher Prize Panel
Summary of Deutscher Lecture and Panel Presentation, online Deutscher Prize Panel on The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology, London, November 21, 2021.
The Planetary Rift
“The Planetary Rift” (Interview of Foster by Haris Golemis), transform! Yearbook 2021: Capitalism’s Deadly Threat (London: Merlin Press, 2021), pp. 57-72. [Reprinted in Monthly Review (November 2021), pp. 1-14. HG: With your pathbreaking article “Marx’s Theory of Metabolic Rift” (American Journal of Sociology, 1999), you challenged the then prevalent view, even among non-dogmatic Marxists, that […]
Chinese Contract Labor, the Corporeal Rift, and Ecological Imperialism in Peru’s Nineteenth-Century Guano Boom
“Chinese Contract Labor, the Corporeal Rift, and Ecological Imperialism in Peru’s Nineteenth-Century Guano Boom“, (coauthored with Lola Loustaunau, Mauricio Betancourt, and John Bellamy Foster, Foster listed third), Journal of Peasant Studies (published online November 2021), 25 pp. Building on the theory of ecological imperialism in the context of the Peruvian guano boom, this analysis explores the […]