John Bellamy Foster

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  • Samir Amin at 80

    Samir Amin at 80

    “Samir Amin at 80: An Introduction and Tribute,” Monthly Review, vol. 63, no. 5 (October 2011), 1-7. DOI: 10.14452/MR-063-05-2011-09_1

    Samir Amin was born in Cairo in 1931, and studied within the French educational system in Egypt.… He is currently president of the World Forum for Alternatives.… Amin’s wide-ranging work can be most succinctly described in terms of the dual designation of The Law of Value and Historical Materialism—the title of one of his books, now in a new edition as The Law of Worldwide Value. Marx’s intellectual corpus, he notes, appears to be divided into writings on economics and writings on politics.… For Amin, this basic division of Marxist theory is not to be denied. Nevertheless, he insists that the economic laws of capitalism, summed up by the law of value, “are subordinate to the laws of historical materialism.” Economic science, while indispensable, cannot explain at the highest level of abstraction, as in mathematical equations, the full reality of capitalism and imperialism—since it cannot account either for the historical origins of the system itself, or for the nature of the class struggle.

     

  • The Ecology of Marxian Political Economy

    The Ecology of Marxian Political Economy

    “The Ecology of Marxian Political Economy“, Monthly Review, vol. 63, no. 4 (September 2011), pp. 1-16. DOI: 10.14452/MR-063-04-2011-08_1

    Discussant Project XXI Conference, Venezuelan Cultural Ministry, Caracas, March 28-31, 2011.

    It is no secret today that we are facing a planetary environmental emergency, endangering most species on the planet, including our own, and that this impending catastrophe has its roots in the capitalist economic system. Nevertheless, the extreme dangers that capitalism inherently poses to the environment are often inadequately understood, giving rise to the belief that it is possible to create a new “natural capitalism” or “climate capitalism” in which the system is turned from being the enemy of the environment into its savior. The chief problem with all such views is that they underestimate the cumulative threat to humanity and the earth arising from the existing relations of production. Indeed, the full enormity of the planetary ecological crisis, I shall contend, can only be understood from a standpoint informed by the Marxian critique of capitalism.

    Translations:
    • Portuguese language translation in Lutas Sociais, www.pucsp.b/neils, 2012;
    • Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, no. 29 (Istanbul: Kalkedon, 2012), pp. 49-87

     

  • Education and the Structural Crisis of Capital

    Education and the Structural Crisis of Capital

    “Education and the Structural Crisis of Capital: The U.S. Case“, Monthly Review vol. 63, no. 3 (July 2011), pp.6-37. DOI: 10.14452/MR-063-03-2011-07_3

    Today’s conservative movement for the reform of public education in the United States, and in much of the world, is based on the prevailing view that public education is in a state of emergency and in need of restructuring due to its own internal failures. In contrast, I shall argue that the decay of public education is mainly a product of externally imposed contradictions that are inherent to schooling in capitalist society, heightened in our time by conditions of economic stagnation in the mature capitalist economies, and by the effects of the conservative reform movement itself. The corporate-driven onslaught on students, teachers, and public schools—symbolized in the United States by George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation—is to be explained not so much by the failure of the schools themselves, but by the growing failures of the capitalist system, which now sees the privatization of public education as central to addressing its larger malaise.

    Translations:
    • Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, no. 29 (Istanbul: Kalkedon, 2012), pp. 49-87.

     

  • 2. Lessons from the New Corporate Schooling

    2. Lessons from the New Corporate Schooling

    “2. Lessons from the New Corporate Schooling“, Monthly Review, vol. 63, no. 3 (July 2011), pp. 64-66. DOI: 10.14452/MR-063-03-2011-07_6

    -As the articles in this section indicate, the new corporate schooling in the United States combines many of the worst aspects of capitalist schooling in a period of economic stagnation, financialization, and militarization/securitization together with a strategy of privatization of the schools. Public education is being degraded, regimented, and increasingly racially segregated—while the resulting worsening conditions in the schools are used to justify the restructuring of the entire education system.

     

  • 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.

     

  • On the Laws of Capitalism

    “On the Laws of Capitalism: Insights from the Sweezy-Schumpeter Debate“, Monthly Review vol. 63, no. 1 (May 2011), pp. 1-11. DOI: 10.14452/MR-063-01-2011-05_1

    In February 2011, while I was drafting what was to become “Monopoly and Competition in Twenty-First Century Capitalism,” written with Robert W. McChesney and R. Jamil Jonna (Monthly Review, April 2011), I decided to take a look at Paul Sweezy’s copy of the original 1942 edition of Joseph Schumpeter’s Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, which I had in my possession. In doing so, I came across a folded, two-page document, “The Laws of Capitalism,” tucked into the pages. It was written in ink in Sweezy’s very compact handwriting. In the upper-right-hand corner, Sweezy had jotted (clearly much later) in pencil: “(A debate with J.A.S. before the Harvard Graduate Students’ Economics Club, Littauer Center, probably 1946 or 1947.)” The document consisted of a detailed outline, in full sentences, of a contribution to a debate. I immediately realized that this was Sweezy’s opening talk in the now legendary Sweezy-Schumpeter debate. Until that moment, I, along with everybody else, assumed that no detailed records of the actual talks had survived.

     

  • 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).]

     

  • 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.

     

  • Advertising and the Genius of Commercial Propaganda

    “Advertising and the Genius of Commercial Propaganda” (coauthored with Robert W. McChesney, Inger L. Stole, and Hannah Holleman, Foster listed third), in Gerald Sussman, ed., The Propaganda Society: Promotional Culture and Politics in Global Context (New York: Peter Lang, 2011), 27-44.

  • Capitalism and Degrowth

    Capitalism and Degrowth

    “Capitalism and Degrowth: An Impossibility Theorem“, Monthly Review, vol. 62, no. 8 (January 2011), pp.26-33. DOI: 10.14452/MR-062-08-2011-01_2

    Almost four decades after the Club of Rome raised the issue of “the limits to growth,” the economic growth idol of modern society is once again facing a formidable challenge. What is known as “degrowth economics,” associated with the work of Serge Latouche in particular, emerged as a major European intellectual movement in 2008 with the historic conference in Paris on “Economic De-Growth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity,” and has since inspired a revival of radical Green thought, as epitomized by the 2010 “Degrowth Declaration” in Barcelona.… Ironically, the meteoric rise of degrowth (décroissance in French) as a concept has coincided over the last three years with the reappearance of economic crisis and stagnation on a scale not seen since the 1930s. The degrowth concept therefore forces us to confront the questions: Is degrowth feasible in a capitalist grow-or-die society—and if not, what does this say about the transition to a new society?

    Reprints:
    • An earlier, slightly different version of this article was published in the December/January 2011 issue of Red Pepper (UK).
    • The MR version was reprinted in Synthesis/Regeneration 55 (Spring 2010), pp. 35-39.
    Translations:
    • Italian translation by Andrea Grillo at Senza Soste.it, December 27, 2010.
    • German translation in Luxemburg 1 (2011), pp. 12-17.
    • Catalan translation, Kit de Supervivéncia Ambiental, March 16, 2011.
    • Greek translation in the Forum of ARENA, February 2, 2011.
    • Portuguese translation by Paula Sequeiros for Esquerda.net, December 4, 2010.