James Hansen, a leading US climatologist and director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, warns that global climate change today constitutes a ‘planetary emergency’. Existing trends threaten to set in mo- tion irreversible climate transformations, proceeding ‘mostly under their own momentum’, thereby fundamentally transforming the conditions of life on earth (Hansen, 2008b: 7–8).
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Monopoly-Finance Capital and the Paradox of Accumulation
By John Bellamy Foster on October 1, 2009 in Articles, Other Major Scholarly Journal Articles, Translated
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 […]
Darwin’s Worms and the Skin of the Earth: An Introduction to Charles Darwin’s The Formation of Vegetable Mould, Through the Action of Worms, With Observations on their Habits
By John Bellamy Foster on September 1, 2009 in Comments-Short Articles-Introductions to Archival Reprints
Charles Darwin’s discovery of the theory of evolution by natural selection is unquestionably one of the most profound scientific achievements in history. Darwin was heavily influenced by the great geologist Charles Lyell, who developed uniformitarianism, the methodological and substantive doctrine that sought to explain all geological formations as the result of the accumulation of small […]
The Penal State in an Age of Crisis
By John Bellamy Foster on June 1, 2009 in Articles, Other Major Scholarly Journal Articles, Translated
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 […]
Capitalism in Wonderland
By John Bellamy Foster on May 1, 2009 in Articles, Other Major Scholarly Journal Articles, Translated
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 […]
The Sales Effort and Monopoly Capital
By John Bellamy Foster on April 1, 2009 in Articles, Other Major Scholarly Journal Articles, Translated
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 […]
The Ecological Revolution
Since the atomic bomb made its first appearance on the world stage in 1945, it has been clear that we possess the power to destroy our own planet. What nuclear weapons made possible, global environmental crisis, marked especially by global warming, has now made inevitable—if business as usual continues.
A New New Deal under Obama?
By John Bellamy Foster on February 1, 2009 in Articles, Other Major Scholarly Journal Articles, Translated
With U.S. capitalism mired in an economic crisis of a severity that increasingly brings to mind the Great Depression of the 1930s, it should come as no surprise that there are widespread calls for “a new New Deal.” Already the new Obama administration has been pointing to a vast economic stimulus program of up to […]
The Great Financial Crisis
The bursting of the housing bubble and the ensuing financial debacle have left most people, including many economists and financial experts asking: Why did this happen? If they had been reading Monthly Review, and were familiar with such articles as “The Household Debt Bubble,” “The Explosion of Debt and Speculation,” and “The Financialization of Capitalism,” […]
Ecological Imperialism and the Global Metabolic Rift
The concept of ecological imperialism is seemingly unavoidable in our time. Obvious cases are all around us. One is the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which is at least partly over oil. Instances of ecological imperialism do not, how- ever, stop with Iraq. Whether it is the renewed scramble for Africa, the flooding of the […]
