John Bellamy Foster

Tag: Chinese

  • Surveillance Capitalism

    Surveillance Capitalism

    “Surveillance Capitalism: Monopoly-Finance Capital, the Military-Industrial Complex, and the Digital Age” [PDF] (coauthored with Robert W. McChesney, Foster listed first), Monthly Review vol. 66, no. 11 (July-August 2014), pp. 1-32. DOI: 10.14452/MR-066-03-2014-07_1

    The United States came out of the Second World War as the hegemonic power in the world economy. The war had lifted the U.S. economy out of the Great Depression by providing the needed effective demand in the form of endless orders for armaments and troops. Real output rose by 65 percent between 1940 and 1944, and industrial production jumped by 90 percent.

    1, At the immediate end of the war, due to the destruction of the European and Japanese economies, the United States accounted for over 60 percent of world manufacturing output.
    2, The very palpable fear at the top of society as the war came to a close was that of a reversion to the pre-war situation in which domestic demand would be insufficient to absorb the enormous and growing potential economic surplus generated by the production system, thereby leading to a renewed condition of economic stagnation and depression.

    Translations
    • Chinese-language translation in Social Science Abroad, 2015.
    • Spanish language translation by Miguel de Punoenrosto in Sin Permiso (July 2014) http://www.sinpermiso.info/textos/index.php?id=7154.
    • French Translation by Miguel de Puñoenrostro in Marx Nangara (February 2015).

     

  • Stagnation and Financialization

    Stagnation and Financialization

    “Stagnation and Financialization: The Nature of the Contradiction” [PDF] (coauthored with Fred Magdoff, Magdoff listed first) Monthly Review vol. 66, no. 1 (May 2014), pp. 1-24. DOI: 10.14452/MR-066-01-2014-05_1

    More than six years after the beginning of the Great Recession in the United States, and nearly five years since it was officially declared over in this country, the core economies of the capitalist world system remain crisis-ridden. The jobs lost in the downturn in the United States have not yet been fully recovered and the economy remains sluggish. In Europe the crisis has hardly abated at all and a number of the peripheral European Union countries are in what can only be called a depression—especially Greece, Spain, and Portugal. The last member of the triad of advanced capitalist centers, Japan, has gone through what have been called two “lost decades” of slow growth and deflation and is attempting once again to jump-start the economy through a combination of devaluation of the yen and deficit spending.

    Translations:
    • Chinese translation by Zhou Ying in Young China 6790 (June 2014).

     

  • The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxian Political Economy (New Edition)

    The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxian Political Economy (New Edition)

    The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism“The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxian Political Economy,” (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2014), 320 pp.

    In 1966, Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy published Monopoly Capital, a monumental work of economic theory and social criticism that sought to reveal the basic nature of the capitalism of their time. Their theory, and its continuing elaboration by Sweezy, Harry Magdoff, and others in Monthly Review magazine, influenced generations of radical and heterodox economists. They recognized that Marx’s work was unfinished and itself historically conditioned, and that any attempt to understand capitalism as an evolving phenomenon needed to take changing conditions into account. Having observed the rise of giant monopolistic (or oligopolistic) firms in the twentieth century, they put monopoly capital at the center of their analysis, arguing that the rising surplus such firms accumulated—as a result of their pricing power, massive sales efforts, and other factors—could not be profitably invested back into the economy. Absent any “epoch making innovations” like the automobile or vast new increases in military spending, the result was a general trend toward economic stagnation—a condition that persists, and is increasingly apparent, to this day. Their analysis was also extended to issues of imperialism, or “accumulation on a world scale,” overlapping with the path-breaking work of Samir Amin in particular.

    John Bellamy Foster is a leading exponent of this theoretical perspective today, continuing in the tradition of Baran and Sweezy’s Monopoly Capital. This new edition of his essential work, The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism, is a clear and accessible explication of this outlook, brought up to the present, and incorporating an analysis of recently discovered “lost” chapters from Monopoly Capital and correspondence between Baran and Sweezy. It also discusses Magdoff and Sweezy’s analysis of the financialization of the economy in the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, leading up to the Great Financial Crisis of the opening decade of this century. Foster presents and develops the main arguments of monopoly capital theory, examining its key exponents, and addressing its critics in a way that is thoughtful but rigorous, suspicious of dogma but adamant that the deep-seated problems of today’s monopoly-finance capitalism can only truly be solved in the process of overcoming the system itself.

    Foster’s book is brilliantly successful elaborating Marxian political economy and the tendency of monopoly-finance-imperialist capitalism toward stagnation. The book deserves a wide (re-)readership and a new generation of theorists to appreciate the explanatory power of Marxian political economy.

    —Hans G. Despain, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books

    A clear and powerful explanation of the Marxian political economy, this book is a welcome addition for those who are interested in, or have serious concerns about, monopoly capital as well as economic stagnation, financial instability, and the futures of both capitalism and socialism.

    —CHOICE

    Essential reading for those attracted by the monopoly capital school.

    —The Economic Journal

    A clear and forceful elaboration of basic Marxist concepts such as economic surplus, capital accumulation, imperialism, and value.

    —Labour/Le Travail

    A literate defense of the … Marxian analytical framework of Baran, Sweezy, Kalecki, and Steindl …. Foster develops an improved version of Baran and Sweezy’s … model of of accumulation by adding theoretical refinements.

    —Cooperative Economic News Service

    Editions:

    • Second edition (2013), includes new introduction to second edition by author, pp. 22
    • “Introduction to Second Edition” published in Monthly Review 65, no. 3 (July-August 2013), pp. 107-34.
    • Japanese language edition, (Tokyo: Uni Agency, 1988).
    Translations:
    • Chinese Translation of “Introduction to Second Edition” forthcoming in Foreign Theoretical Trends.
  • Marx, Kalecki, and Socialist Strategy

    Marx, Kalecki, and Socialist Strategy

    “Marx, Kalecki, and Socialist Strategy”, Monthly Review vol. 64, no. 11 (April 2013), pp. 1-14. DOI: 10.14452/MR-064-11-2013-04_1

    A historical perspective on the economic stagnation afflicting the United States and the other advanced capitalist economies requires that we go back to the severe downturn of 1974–1975, which marked the end of the post-Second World War prosperity. The dominant interpretation of the mid–1970s recession was that the full employment of the earlier Keynesian era had laid the basis for the crisis by strengthening labor in relation to capital. As a number of prominent left economists, whose outlook did not differ from the mainstream in this respect, put it, the problem was a capitalist class that was “too weak” and a working class that was “too strong.” Empirically, the slump was commonly attributed to a rise in the wage share of income, squeezing profits. This has come to be known as the “profit-squeeze” theory of crisis.

    Translations:
    • Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition (January 2014), pp. 59-77.
    • Chinese translation forthcoming in Foreign Theoretical Trends, vol. 3 (2014)
    • Spanish translation in Revista Sin Permiso, April 12, 2013, www.sinpermiso.info.

     

  • The Endless Crisis

    The Endless Crisis

    “The Endless Crisis”, (coauthored with Robert W. McChesney, Foster listed first), Monthly Review, vol. 64, no. 1 (May 2012), pp. 1-28. DOI: 10.14452/MR-064-01-2012-05_1

    The Great Financial Crisis and the Great Recession began in the United States in 2007 and quickly spread across the globe, marking what appears to be a turning point in world history. Although this was followed within two years by a recovery phase, the world economy five years after the onset of the crisis is still in the doldrums…. The one bright spot in the world economy, from a growth standpoint, has been the seemingly unstoppable expansion of a handful of emerging economies, particularly China. Yet, the continuing stability of China is now also in question. Hence, the general consensus among informed economic observers is that the world capitalist economy is facing the threat of long-run economic stagnation (complicated by the prospect of further financial deleveraging)…. It is this issue of the stagnation of the capitalist economy, even more than that of financial crisis or recession that has now emerged as the big question worldwide.

    Translations:
    • Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, no. 31 (Istanbul: Kalkedon, 2012), pp. 3-36.
    • German language translation in Info-Verteiler, infoverteiler.net, June 2012.
    • Chinese translation forthcoming in Journal of Gansu Administration Institute.

     

  • Monopoly and Competition in the 21st Century

    Monopoly and Competition in the 21st Century

    “Monopoly and Competition in the 21st Century“, (coauthored with Robert W. McChesney and R. Jamil Jonna, Foster listed first), Monthly Review vol. 62, no. 11 (April 2011), pp. 1-39. DOI: 10.14452/MR-062-11-2011-04_1

    A striking paradox animates political economy in our times. On the one hand, mainstream economics and much of left economics discuss our era as one of intense and increased competition among businesses, now on a global scale. It is a matter so self-evident as no longer to require empirical verification or scholarly examination. On the other hand, wherever one looks, it seems that nearly every industry is concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. Formerly competitive sectors like retail are now the province of enormous monopolistic chains, massive economic fortunes are being assembled into the hands of a few mega-billionaires sitting atop vast empires, and the new firms and industries spawned by the digital revolution have quickly gravitated to monopoly status. In short, monopoly power is ascendant as never before.

    Translations:
    • Chinese translation in Foreign Theoretical Trends (published in two parts), 2011).
    • Korean translation in The Breath of Life in the Landscape June 2014).]

     

  • Marx’s Ecology in the 21st Century

    “Marx’s Ecology in the 21st Century”(coauthored with Brett Clark, Clark listed first), World Review of Political Economy, vol. 1, no. 1 (March 2010), pp. 142-56. JSTOR: 41931871.

    The most pressing problem confronting humanity in the 21st century is the ecological crisis. The “problem of nature” is really a problem of capital, as natural cycles are turned into broken linear processes geared to private accumulation. Important advances in ecosocialist theory illuminate the continuing importance of marx’s materialist and metabolic approach for studying the dialectical interchange between humans and nature and the creation of ecological rifts within ecosystems. Additionally, Marx’s ecology serves as a foundation for understanding environmental degradation, given his critique of capital as a whole and his focus on the contradiction between use value and exchange value (which facilitates the expansion of private riches at the expense of public wealth, i.e., the Lauderdale Paradox). In stark contrast to the market mechanisms proposed to address the ecological crisis, which place profit above protecting nature, Marx’s ecology stresses the necessity of establishing a social order that sustains the conditions of life for future generations.

    Translations:
    • Chinese translation by Sun Yaoliang in Marxism and Reality, 2010.

  • 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.

     

  • 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.

     

  • 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.