William Morris’s celebrated utopian romance News from Nowhere or An Epoch of Rest (1890) constituted his most singular attempt to present a revolutionary ideal aimed at inspiring a ‘movement towards Socialism’ in his day. Centering on the overcoming of human alienation in relation to the three primary forms of the division of labour—social production, town […]
Trump in the White House: Tragedy and Farce
Remember that metaphor about the frog that slowly cooks to death in the pot of increasingly warm water? Leftists have used it for years to describe how people can accept dwindling health care, fading job opportunities, eroding racial and gender equality—as long as the loss occurs gradually. Now, with Donald Trump having slouched off to […]
The Long Ecological Revolution
“The Long Ecological Revolution,” Monthly Review vol. 69, no. 6 (November 2017), pp. 1-19. DOI: 10.14452/MR-069-06-2017-10_1 [HTML] From an ecological perspective, the Anthropocene marks the need for a more creative, constructive, and coevolutionary relation to the earth. In ecosocialist theory, this demands the reconstitution of society at large—over decades and centuries. However, given the threat […]
The Meaning of Work in a Sustainable Society
“The Meaning of Work in a Sustainable Society,” Monthly Review vol. 69, no. 4 (September 2017), pp. 1-14. DOI: 10.14452/MR-069-04-2017-08_1 [HTML] The idea of total liberation from work, in its one-sidedness and incompleteness, is ultimately incompatible with a genuinely sustainable society. The real promise of a system of labor beyond capitalism rests not so much […]
Revolution and Counterrevolution, 1917-2017
“Revolution and Counterrevolution, 1917-2017,” Monthly Review vol. 69, no. 3 (July-August 2017), pp. 1-13. DOI: 10.14452/MR-069-03-2017-07_1 [HTML] If counterrevolution ultimately triumphed over the revolutionary waves of the twentieth century, how are we to understand this, and what does it mean for the future of world revolution? The answer requires a survey of the whole history […]
The Earth-System Emergency and Ecological Civilization: A Marxian View
The Holocene epoch in geological history of the last 10,000–12,000 years has given way to a new geological epoch which natural scientists are calling the Anthropocene, marked by humanity’s emergence as the main driver of change in the Earth system as a whole, threatening the future of civilization, a majority of ecosystems on the planet, […]
The Age of Monopoly Capital: Selected Correspondence of Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy
Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy were two of the leading Marxist economists of the twentieth century. Their seminal work, Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order, published in 1966, two years after Baran’s death, was in many respects the culmination of fifteen years of correspondence between the two, from […]
This Is Not Populism
“This Is Not Populism,” Monthly Review vol. 69, no. 2 (June 2017), pp. 1-24. DOI: 10.14452/MR-069-02-2017-06_1 [HTML] Since Trump’s election, mainstream commentary has generally avoided the question of fascism or neofascism, preferring instead to apply the vaguer, safer notion of “populism.” In today’s political context, however, it is crucial to understand not only how the […]
“Foreword,” to Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams,” Creating an Ecological Society: Toward a Revolutionary Transofmration
“Foreword,” to Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams,” Creating an Ecological Society: Toward a Revolutionary Transofmration (forthcoming, Monthly Review Press, 2017), 10 pp.
Neofascism in the White House
“Neofascism in the White House,” Monthly Review vol. 68, no. 11 (April 2017), pp. 1-30. DOI: 10.14452/MR-068-11-2017-04_1 [HTML] Not only a new administration, but a new ideology has now taken up residence at the White House: neofascism. It resembles in certain ways the classical fascism of Italy and Germany in the 1920s and ’30s, but […]
