John Bellamy Foster

Tag: Monthly Review (Turkish)

  • Marx and the Rift in the Universal Metabolism of Nature

    Marx and the Rift in the Universal Metabolism of Nature

    “Marx and the Rift in the Universal Metabolism of Nature,” [PDF], Monthly Review, vol. 65, no. 7 (December 2013), pp. 1-19. DOI: 10.14452/MR-065-07-2013-11_1

    The rediscovery over the last decade and a half of Marx’s theory of metabolic rift has come to be seen by many on the left as offering a powerful critique of the relation between nature and contemporary capitalist society. The result has been the development of a more unified ecological world view transcending the divisions between natural and social science, and allowing us to perceive the concrete ways in which the contradictions of capital accumulation are generating ecological crises and catastrophes.… Yet, this recovery of Marx’s ecological argument has given rise to further questions and criticisms.

    Translations:

     

  • The Fossil Fuels War

    The Fossil Fuels War

    “The Fossil Fuels War”, Monthly Review vol. 65, no. 4 (September 2013), pp. 1-14. DOI: 10.14452/MR-065-04-2013-08_1

    Only a few years ago governments, corporations, and energy analysts were fixated on the problem of “the end of cheap oil” or “peak oil,” pointing to growing shortages of conventional crude oil due to the depletion of known reserves. The International Energy Agency’s 2010 report devoted a whole section to peak oil. Some climate scientists saw the peaking of conventional crude oil as a silver-lining opportunity to stabilize the climate—provided that countries did not turn to dirtier forms of energy such as coal and “unconventional fossil fuels.”… Today all of this has changed radically with the advent of what some are calling a new energy revolution based on the production of unconventional fossil fuels. The emergence in North America—but increasingly elsewhere as well—of what is now termed the “Unconventionals Era” has meant that suddenly the world is awash in new and prospective fossil-fuel supplies.

    Translations:
    • Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition (January 2014), pp. 133-51.
    • Swedish language edition in Röda rummet (the Red room), 2013.

     

  • 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.

     

  • A Missing Chapter of Monopoly Capital

    A Missing Chapter of Monopoly Capital

    “A Missing Chapter of Monopoly Capital: An Introduction to Baran and Sweezy’s ‘Some Theoretical Implications‘,” Monthly Review, vol. 64, no. 3 (July-August 2012), pp. 3-23.
    DOI: 10.14452/MR-064-03-2012-07_2

    Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order by Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, published in 1966, is one of the foundational works in the development of Marxian political economy in the United States and indeed the world, and is today recognized as a classic, having generated more than four-and-a-half decades of research and debate. The completion of the book, however, was deeply affected by Baran’s death, on March 26, 1964, two years before the final manuscript was prepared. Although all of the chapters were drafted in at least rough form and had been discussed a number of times the authors had not mutually worked out to their complete satisfaction certain crucial problems. Consequently, two chapters were left out of the final work.… What happened to these two missing chapters—“Some Implications for Economic Theory” and presumably “On the Quality of Monopoly Capitalist Society—II”—remained for many years a mystery.

    Translations:
    • Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, no. 32 (Istanbul: Kalkedon, 2013, pp. 123-46.

     

  • The Global Reserve Army of Labor and the New Imperialism

    “The Global Reserve Army of Labor and the New Imperialism”, (coauthored with Robert W. McChesney and R. Jamil Jonna, Foster listed first), Monthly Review, vol. 63, no. 6 (November 2011), pp. 1-31. DOI: 10.14452/MR-063-06-2011-10_1

    In the last few decades there has been an enormous shift in the capitalist economy in the direction of the globalization of production. Much of the increase in manufacturing and even services production that would have formerly taken place in the global North—as well as a portion of the North’s preexisting production—is now being offshored to the global South, where it is feeding the rapid industrialization of a handful of emerging economies. It is customary to see this shift as arising from the economic crisis of 1974–75 and the rise of neoliberalism—or as erupting in the 1980s and after, with the huge increase in the global capitalist labor force resulting from the integration of Eastern Europe and China into the world economy. Yet, the foundations of production on a global scale, we will argue, were laid in the 1950s and 1960s, and were already depicted in the work of Stephen Hymer, the foremost theorist of the multinational corporation, who died in 1974.

    Translations:
    • Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, no. 30 (Istanbul: Kalkedon, 2012), pp. 75-110.

     

  • The Internationalization of Monopoly Capital

    The Internationalization of Monopoly Capital

    “The Internationalization of Monopoly Capital“, (coauthored with Robert W. McChesney and R. Jamil Jonna, Foster listed first), Monthly Review, vol. 63, no. 2 (June 2011), pp 1-23. DOI: 10.14452/MR-063-02-2011-06_1

    In a 1997 article entitled “More (or Less) on Globalization,” Paul Sweezy referred to “the three most important underlying trends in the recent history of capitalism, the period beginning with the recession of 1974-75: (1) the slowing down of the overall rate of growth; (2) the worldwide proliferation of monopolistic (or oligopolistic) multinational corporations; and (3) what may be called the financialization of the capital accumulation process.”… The first and third of these three trends—economic stagnation in the rich economies and the financialization of accumulation—have been the subjects of widespread discussion since the onset of severe financial crisis in 2007-09. Yet the second underlying trend, which might be called the “internationalization of monopoly capital,” has received much less attention.… the dominant, neoliberal discourse—one that has also penetrated the left—assumes that the tendency toward monopoly has been vanquished… [In contrast,] we suggest that renewed international competition evident since the 1970s was much more limited in range than often supposed… In short, we are confronted by a system of international oligopoly.

    Translations:
    • Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, no. 28 (Istanbul: Kalkedon, 2011), pp. 91-118.

     

  • The Internet’s Unholy Marriage to Capitalism

    The Internet’s Unholy Marriage to Capitalism

    “The Internet’s Unholy Marriage to Capitalism“, (coauthored with Robert W. McChesney, Foster listed first), Monthly Review vol. 62, no. 10 (March 2011), pp. 1-30. DOI: 10.14452/MR-062-10-2011-03_1

    The United States and the world are now a good two decades into the Internet revolution, or what was once called the information age. The past generation has seen a blizzard of mind-boggling developments in communication, ranging from the World Wide Web and broadband, to ubiquitous cell phones that are quickly becoming high-powered wireless computers in their own right.… The full impact of the Internet revolution will only become apparent in the future, as more technological change is on the horizon that can barely be imagined and hardly anticipated. But enough time has transpired, and institutions and practices have been developed, that an assessment of the digital era is possible, as well as a sense of its likely trajectory into the future.

    Translations:
    • Bangla language edition in Bangla Monthly Review, September 2012.
    • Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, no. 28 (Istanbul: Kalkedon), pp. 57-89.

     

  • The Financialization of Accumulation

    The Financialization of Accumulation

    “The Financialization of Accumulation“, Monthly Review vol. 62, no. 5 (October 2010), pp. 1-17. DOI: 10.14452/MR-062-05-2010-09_1

    In 1997, in his last published article, Paul Sweezy referred to “the financialization of the capital accumulation process” as one of the three main economic tendencies at the turn of the century (the other two were the growth of monopoly power and stagnation). Those familiar with economic theory will realize that the phrase was meant to be paradoxical. All traditions of economics, to varying degrees, have sought to separate out analytically the role of finance from the “real economy.” Accumulation is conceived as real capital formation, which increases overall economic output, as opposed to the appreciation of financial assets, which increases wealth claims but not output. In highlighting the financialization of accumulation, Sweezy was therefore pointing to what can be regarded as “the enigma of capital” in our time

    Translations:
    • Translated in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, issue 25 (Istanbul, Turkey: Kalkedon Publications, January 2011).
    • French translation at Changement de société(blog), http://socio13.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/la-financiarisation-de-l’accumulation-par-john-bellamy-foster-version-complete/.

     

  • The Financial Power Elite

    The Financial Power Elite

    “The Financial Power Elite“, (coauthored with Hannah Holleman, Foster listed first), Monthly Review vol. 62, no. 1 (May 2010), pp. 1-19. DOI: 10.14452/MR-062-01-2010-05_1

    Has the power of financial interests in U.S. society increased? Has Wall Street’s growing clout affected the U.S. state itself? How is this connected to the present crisis? We will argue that the financialization of U.S. capitalism over the last four decades has been accompanied by a dramatic and probably long-lasting shift in the location of the capitalist class, a growing proportion of which now derives its wealth from finance as opposed to production. This growing dominance of finance can be seen today in the inner corridors of state power.

    Translations:

     

  • The Paradox of Wealth

    The Paradox of Wealth

    “The Paradox of Wealth: Capitalism and Ecological Destruction“, (coauthored with Brett Clark, Foster listed first), Monthly Review vol. 61, no. 6 (November 2009), pp. 1-18. DOI: 10.14452/MR-061-06-2009-10_1

    Today orthodox economics is reputedly being harnessed to an entirely new end: saving the planet from the ecological destruction wrought by capitalist expansion. It promises to accomplish this through the further expansion of capitalism itself, cleared of its excesses and excrescences. A growing army of self-styled “sustainable developers” argues that there is no contradiction between the unlimited accumulation of capital—the credo of economic liberalism from Adam Smith to the present—and the preservation of the earth. The system can continue to expand by creating a new “sustainable capitalism,” bringing the efficiency of the market to bear on nature and its reproduction. In reality, these visions amount to little more than a renewed strategy for profiting on planetary destruction.

    Translations:
    • Latvian translation by Ieva Zalite, Green Liberty, http://.zb-zeme.lv 2010.
    • Galician translation by Xosé Díaz Díaz in Terra e Tempo no. 4 (2010), http://www.terraetempo.net.
    • Hungarian translation in Ezmélet (Consciousness) no. 86 (Summer 2010), http://www.eszmelet.hu/.
    • Translated in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, issue 23 (Istanbul: Kalkedon Publications, June 2010).