John Bellamy Foster

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  • Financial Implosion and Stagnation

    Financial Implosion and Stagnation

    “Financial Implosion and Stagnation; Back to the Real Economy“, (coauthored with Fred Magdoff, Foster listed first), Monthly Review vol. 60, no. 7 (December 2008), pp. 1-29. DOI: 10.14452/MR-060-07-2008-11_1

    “The first rule of central banking,” economist James K. Galbraith wrote recently, is that “when the ship starts to sink, central bankers must bail like hell.” In response to a financial crisis of a magnitude not seen since the Great Depression, the Federal Reserve and other central banks, backed by their treasury departments, have been “bailing like hell” for more than a year. Beginning in July 2007 when the collapse of two Bear Stearns hedge funds that had speculated heavily in mortgage-backed securities signaled the onset of a major credit crunch, the Federal Reserve Board and the U.S. Treasury Department have pulled out all the stops as finance has imploded. They have flooded the financial sector with hundreds of billions of dollars and have promised to pour in trillions more if necessary—operating on a scale and with an array of tools that is unprecedented.

    Reprints:
    • Reprinted in Michael Chossudovsky and Andrew Gavin Marshall, ed., The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century (Montreal: Global Research, 2010), pp. 72-101.
    Translations:
    • German translation published as a Supplement der Zeitschrift Sozialismus, no. 2, 2009 (separate pamphlet).
    • Spanish translation in Monthly Review, Selecciones en Castellano, no. 10 (2009), 37-70.
    • Italian translation by Elisabett Horvat, in Quale Stato (Anthologia Della Crisi Globale), no. 1-2 (January-June 2009), http://www.fpcgil.it.
    • Portuguese translation in Monthly Review, Portuguese-Language Edition, no. 8, 2008.
    • Turkish translation appears in Kapitalizmin Finansal Krizi, edited by Prof. Dr. Abdullah Ersoy (Ankara, Turkey: Imaj Publishing, 2011), 330 pp.

     

  • Ecology and the Transition from Capitalism to Socialism

    Ecology and the Transition from Capitalism to Socialism

    “Ecology and the Transition from Capitalism to Socialism“, Monthly Review vol. 60, no. 6 (November 2008), pp.1-12. DOI: 10.14452/MR-060-06-2008-10_1

    The transition from capitalism to socialism is the most difficult problem of socialist theory and practice. To add to this the question of ecology might therefore be seen as unnecessarily complicating an already intractable issue. I shall argue here, however, that the human relation to nature lies at the heart of the transition to socialism. An ecological perspective is pivotal to our understanding of capitalism’s limits, the failures of the early socialist experiments, and the overall struggle for egalitarian and sustainable human development.

    Reprints:
    • Reprinted in abridged form, Briarpatch magazine, 2009.
    Translations:

     

  • The U.S. Imperial Triangle and Military Spending

    The U.S. Imperial Triangle and Military Spending

    “The U.S. Imperial Triangle and Military Spending“, (coauthored with Hannah Holleman and Robert W. McChesney, Foster listed first), Monthly Review, vol. 60, no. 5 (October 2008), pp. 1-19. DOI: 10.14452/MR-060-05-2008-09_1

    Note: due to an unfortunate error in the publication of the Turkish edition, in which the bylines of two different articles were confused, the authors are mistakenly listed as Richard York, Brett Clark, and John Bellamy Foster.

    The United States is unique today among major states in the degree of its reliance on military spending, and its determination to stand astride the world, militarily as well as economically. No other country in the post–Second World War world has been so globally destructive or inflicted so many war fatalities. Since 2001, acknowledged U.S. national defense spending has increased by almost 60 percent in real dollar terms to a level in 2007 of $553 billion. This is higher than at any point since the Second World War (though lower than previous decades as a percentage of GDP). Based on such official figures, the United States is reported by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) as accounting for 45 percent of world military expenditures. Yet, so gargantuan and labyrinthine are U.S. military expenditures that the above grossly understates their true magnitude, which, as we shall see below, reached $1 trillion in 2007.

    Translations:
    • Bangla translation in Natun Diganta (a Bangla quarterly from Dhaka), July-September 2009.
    • Translated by Farooque Chowdhury. Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition (Istanbul: Kalkeodon), no. 22, pp. 7-28.

     

  • Marx’s Critique of Heaven and Earth

    Marx’s Critique of Heaven and Earth

    “Marx’s Critique of Heaven and Earth“, Monthly Review vol. 60, no. 5 (October 2008), pp. 22-42. DOI: 10.14452/MR-060-05-2008-09_3

    In recent years the intelligent design movement, or creationism in a more subtle guise, has expanded the attack on the teaching of evolution in U.S. public schools, while promoting an ambitious “Wedge strategy” aimed at transforming both science and culture throughout society. As explained in our book Critique of Intelligent Design: Materialism versus Creationism from Antiquity to the Present (Monthly Review Press, 2008), this has reignited a 2,500-year debate between materialism and creationism, science and design. The argument from design (the attempt to discern evidence of design in nature, thereby the existence of a Designer) can be dated back to Socrates in the fifth century BCE. While the opposing materialist view (that the world is explained in terms of itself, by reference to material conditions, natural laws, and contingent, emergent phenomena, and not by the invocation of the supernatural) to which Socrates was responding also dates back to the fifth century BCE in the writings of the atomists Leucippus and Democritus. The latter perspective was developed philosophically into a full-fledged critique of design by Epicurus in the third century BCE, which later influenced the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century.

    Translations:
    • Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, no. 22 (Istanbul: Kalkedon), pp. 109-32.

     

  • Ecology

    Ecology

    “Ecology: The Moment of Truth—An Introduction“, (coauthored with Brett Clark and Richard York, Foster listed first), Monthly Review, vol. 60, no. 3 (July 2008), pp. 1-11. DOI: 10.14452/MR-060-03-2008-07_1

    It is impossible to exaggerate the environmental problem facing humanity in the twenty-first century. Nearly fifteen years ago one of us observed: “We have only four decades left in which to gain control over our major environmental problems if we are to avoid irreversible ecological decline.” Today, with a quarter-century still remaining in this projected time line, it appears to have been too optimistic. Available evidence now strongly suggests that under a regime of business as usual we could be facing an irrevocable “tipping point” with respect to climate change within a mere decade. Other crises such as species extinction (percentages of bird, mammal, and fish species “vulnerable or in immediate danger of extinction” are “now measured in double digits”);3 the rapid depletion of the oceans’ bounty; desertification; deforestation; air pollution; water shortages/pollution; soil degradation; the imminent peaking of world oil production (creating new geopolitical tensions); and a chronic world food crisis—all point to the fact that the planet as we know it and its ecosystems are stretched to the breaking point. The moment of truth for the earth and human civilization has arrived.

    Translations:
    • Spanish translation in Biblioteca Virtual Umegalfa, February 2014
    • Chinese translation by Dong Hui, in Seeking Truth (China), no. 5, 2009
    • Portuguese translation in Monthly Review, Portuguese-Language Edition (Brazil), July 2009.

     

  • Peak Oil and Energy Imperialism

    Peak Oil and Energy Imperialism

    “Peak Oil and Energy Imperialism“, Monthly Review vol.60, no. 3 (July 2008), pp. 12-33. DOI: 10.14452/MR-060-03-2008-07_2

    The rise in overt militarism and imperialism at the outset of the twenty-first century can plausibly be attributed largely to attempts by the dominant interests of the world economy to gain control over diminishing world oil supplies. Beginning in 1998 a series of strategic energy initiatives were launched in national security circles in the United States in response to: (1) the crossing of the 50 percent threshold in U.S. importation of foreign oil; (2) the disappearance of spare world oil production capacity; (3) concentration of an increasing percentage of all remaining conventional oil resources in the Persian Gulf; and (4) looming fears of peak oil.

    Translations:
    • Chinese translation by Mao Jiaqiang and Xing Yingli, Foreign Theoretical Trends (China), no. 12, 2008.
    • Norwegian translation in Ødeleggelsens Økonomi (Tidsskrifter Rødt!, 2008), 75-99.
    • Portuguese translation in Monthly Review, Portuguese-Language Edition (Brazil), July 2009.
    • Bangla translation in Bangla Monthly Review, vol. 1, no. 1 (December 2008).
    • Translated by Farooque Chowdhury; Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, no. 19 (Istanbul: Kalkedon, 2008).

     

  • Sweezy in Perspective

    Sweezy in Perspective

    “Sweezy in Perspective“, Monthly Review vol. 60, no. 1 (May 2008), pp. 45-49. DOI: 10.14452/MR-060-01-2008-05_4

    Paul M. Sweezy was, in the words of his contemporary John Kenneth Galbraith, “the most distinguished of present-day American Marxists.” A Harvard-trained economist, his writings spanned some seven decades from the early 1930s to the closing years of the twentieth century. For more than half a century he was coeditor of Monthly Review, subtitled An Independent Socialist Magazine, which he founded along with Leo Huberman in 1949. Although first and foremost an economist, Sweezy was also a social scientist in a much broader sense. His impact on political science, sociology, history, and other disciplines was profound. He took the entire globe as his field of analysis, helping to enlarge our understanding of imperialism and of the necessity of revolution, particularly in the third world.

    Translations:
    • Portuguese translation of this piece published in Monthly Review, Portuguese-Language Edition, 2008.

     

  • “Foreword” to Paul M. Sweezy, Globalization is Nothing New; Selected Essays

    “Foreword” to Paul M. Sweezy, Globalization is Nothing New; Selected Essays in Bengali (Dhaka, Bangladesh: Shrabon Prokoshani, 2008).

    English version published as “Sweezy in Perspective,” Monthly Review, vol. 60, no. 1 (May 2008), pp. 45-49.

    Translation(s):
    • Portuguese translation of this piece published in Monthly Review, Portuguese-Language Edition, 2008.
  • The Financialization of Capital and the Crisis

    The Financialization of Capital and the Crisis

    “The Financialization of Capital and the Crisis“, Monthly Review vol. 59, no. 11 (April 2008), pp. 1-19. DOI: 10.14452/MR-059-11-2008-04_1

    With the benefit of hindsight, few now doubt that the housing bubble that induced most of the recent growth of the U.S. economy was bound to burst or that a general financial crisis and a global economic slowdown were to be the unavoidable results. Warning signs were evident for years to all of those not taken in by the new financial alchemy of high-risk debt management, and not blinded, as was much of the corporate world, by huge speculative profits. This can be seen in a series of articles that appeared in this space: “The Household Debt Bubble” (May 2006), “The Explosion of Debt and Speculation” (November 2006), “Monopoly-Finance Capital” (December 2006), and “The Financialization of Capitalism” (April 2007).

    Translations:
    • Polish translation in Le Monde Diplomatique, Polish Edition (July 2008), http://monde-diplomatique.pl/LMD29/.
    • Chinese translation Wu Wei in Marxism and Reality (China), no. 4, 2008.
    • Turkish translation by Özkan Özgur, http:///www.toplumsalbilinc.org, October 22, 2008.
    • Portuguese translation in Resistir.info, http://resistir.info, 2008.
    • Spanish translation in Sin Permiso, issue 4 (December 2008).

     

  • Rachel Carson’s Ecological Critique

    Rachel Carson’s Ecological Critique

    “Rachel Carson’s Ecological Critique“, (coauthored with Brett Clark, Foster listed first), Monthly Review vol. 59, no. 9 (February 2008), pp. 1-17. DOI: 10.14452/MR-059-09-2008-02_1

    Rachel Carson was born just over 100 years ago in 1907. Her most famous book Silent Spring, published in 1962, is often seen as marking the birth of the modern environmental movement. Although an immense amount has been written about Carson and her work, the fact that she was objectively a “woman of the left” has often been downplayed. Today the rapidly accelerating planetary ecological crisis, which she more than anyone else alerted us to, calls for an exploration of the full critical nature of her thought and its relation to the larger revolt within science with which she was associated.

    Translations:
    • Bangla translation in Bangla Monthly Review, no. 3 (July 2008).
    • Translated by Protiva Mondol; Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, no. 19 (Istanbul: Kalkedon, 2008), pp. 165-82