John Bellamy Foster

Tag: PDF

  • The Treadmill of Production: Extension, Refinement and Critique

    ”The Treadmill of Production: Extension, Refinement and Critique,” [PDF] (coauthored with Richard York, York listed first – special issue on ‘the treadmill of production, part II’), Organization and Environment, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 2005), pp. 5-6. DOI: 10.1177/1086026604270325

    Philosopher of science Imre Lakatos (1978) argued that the key to evaluating merit in the sciences lies in the distinction between progressive and degenerative research programs. A research program is progressive if its theoretical growth anticipates its empirical growth (i.e., if it predicts novel facts with some frequency rather than merely explaining facts discovered by rival research pro- grams). In contrast, degenerative research programs are those whose theoretical development lags behind their empirical development. Needless to say, a research program may switch between these two states at different periods in time. This part of the special issue is focused on Schnaiberg’s (1980) “Treadmill of Production” (ToP), in environmental sociology and presents articles that implicitly explore the extent to which the (ToP) research program has been progressive and has the potential to be progressive in the coming years by providing novel insights into emerging phenomena. Whether the program ultimately proves to be progressive or degenera- tive remains to be seen, but it is indisputable that the (ToP) is one of the leading theoretical perspectives in environmental sociology and is at the center of most major contemporary debates in the subdiscipline.

     

  • Empire of Barbarism

    Empire of Barbarism

    “Empire of Barbarism,” coauthored with Brett Clark (Foster listed first), Monthly Review vol. 56, no. 7 (December 2004), pp. 1-15. DOI: 10.14452/MR-056-07-2004-11_1

    “A new age of barbarism is upon us.” These were the opening words of an editorial in the September 20, 2004, issue of Business Week clearly designed to stoke the flames of anti-terrorist hysteria. Pointing to the murder of schoolchildren in Russia, women and children killed on buses in Israel, the beheading of American, Turkish, and Nepalese workers in Iraq, and the killing of hundreds on a Spanish commuter train and hundreds more in Bali, Business Week declared: “America, Europe, Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, and governments everywhere are under attack by Islamic extremists. These terrorists have but one demand—the destruction of modern secular society.” Western civilization was portrayed as standing in opposition to the barbarians, who desire to destroy what is assumed to be the pinnacle of social evolution.

    Translations:
    • Original published version appeared in Portuguese translation in Commnicações, vol. 1, Civilização ou Barbárie (Serpa, Portugal: Encontro Internacional, September 2004), pp. 46-53.
    • German translation in Utopiekreativ: Diskussion Sozialistischer Alternativen, June 2005, vol. 176, 491-503;
    • Spanish translation in Marx Ahora (Cuba), no. 19 (2005), 7-19.
    • Polish translation in Rewolucja, no. 4, 2006.
    • Translated in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, no. 9 (Istanbul: Kalkedon, 2006).
    • Japanese translation, February 1, 2005, at http://www.ne.jp/asahi/institute/association/old/newsletter/20050201/article_2.htm.

     

  • The Commitment of an Intellectual

    The Commitment of an Intellectual

    “The Commitment of an Intellectual: Paul M. Sweezy (1910-2004),” Monthly Review, vol. 56, no. 5 (October 2004), pp. 5-39. DOI: 10.14452/MR-056-05-2004-09_2

    Original draft placed on the Monthly Review web page in March of 2004, shortly after Sweezy’s death.

    The following brief intellectual biography of Paul Sweezy was drafted in September 2003 shortly before I saw Paul for the last time. It conveys many of the basic facts of his life. But as with all biographies of leading intellectuals it fails to capture the brilliance of his work, which must be experienced directly through his own writings. Nor is the warmth of Paul’s character adequately conveyed here. A short personal note is therefore needed. What was so surprising about Paul was his seemingly endless generosity and humanity. Paul gave freely of himself to all of those seeking his political and intellectual guidance. But a few, such as myself, were particularly blessed in that they experienced this on a deeper, more intense level. For decades Paul was concerned that Monthly Review not perish as had so many socialist institutions and publications in the past. He recognized early on that the continuance of the magazine and the tradition that it represented required the deliberate cultivation of new generations of socialist intellectuals. I was fortunate to be singled out while still quite young as one of those. For decades Paul wrote me letter after letter—no letter that I wrote to him ever went unanswered—sharing his knowledge, intellectual brilliance, and personal warmth. It was an immense, indescribable gift.

    Translations:
    • Turkish translation of early version in iktisat dergisi (August 2004), pp. 22-40.
    • Persian translation of early version in Ketaab-e-Bar-rassi-haa-ye Ejtema’i (Journal of Social Reviews), November 2004 (publisher: Baztabnegar).
    • Bengali translation included in In the Rank of the Wretched: A collection of Short Biographies of Albert Einstein, Paul M. Sweezy, and Harry Magdoff. (Dhaka, Bangladesh: Shrabon Prokashoni, 2006).
    • Chinese translation by Xi Cai in Foreign Theory Dynamics, 6 (2003).

     

  • The American Empire

    “The American Empire: Pax Americana or Pox Americana?,” Monthly Review, vol. 56, no. 4 (September 2004), pp. 1-4. DOI: 10.14452/MR-056-04-2004-08_1

    From the Book: Pox Americana: Exposing the American Empire

    “Editors’ Preface”

    On June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy delivered a commencement address at American University in Washington, D.C., in which he declared that the peace that the United States sought was “not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war.” His remarks were a response to criticisms of the United States advanced in a recently published Soviet text on military strategy. Kennedy dismissed the charge that “American imperialist circles” were “preparing to unleash different kinds of wars” including “preventative war.” The Soviet text, he pointed out, had stated, “The political aims of American imperialists were and still are to enslave economically and politically the European and other capitalist countries and, after the latter are transformed into obedient tools, to unify them in various military-political blocs and groups directed against the socialist countries. The main aim of all this is to achieve world domination.” In Kennedy’s words, these were “wholly baseless and incredible claims,” the work of Marxist “propagandists.” “The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war.”

    Translations:

     

  • Land, the Color Line and the Quest of the Silver Fleece: An Introduction to W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk and The Quest of the Silver Fleece

    “Land, the Color Line and the Quest of the Silver Fleece: An Introduction to W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk and The Quest of the Silver Fleece (selections),” [PDF] (coauthored with Brett Clark, Clark listed first) Organization and Environment, vol. 16, no. 4 (December 2003), 459-69.

    Manning Marable (1999) writes that William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963) “was without question the most influential black intellectual in American history” (p. v). Even more, he was a citizen of the world, gaining an international stature rarely achieved (Gates, 1989, p. xii). This year is the centennial of The Souls of Black Folk (Du Bois, 1903/1989), in which Du Bois famously declared, “the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line” (p. xxxi). The color line divides people within the countryside, cities, and the globe. People of color are denied the same opportunities, privileges, and rights as Whites. During a life spanning 95 years, Du Bois’s scholarly work and commitment to activism were unsurpassed. He engaged in critical examinations of social and racial relations within the United States, as well as on the global level, always incorporating a rich historical context for situating his studies. Unfortunately, the relationship between human beings and nature, which was such a crucial part of his overall analysis, has received little attention.

  • The New Age of Imperialism

    The New Age of Imperialism

    “The New Age of Imperialism,” Monthly Review vol. 55, no. 3 (July 2003), pp. 1-14. DOI: 10.14452/MR-055-03-2003-07_1

    Imperialism is meant to serve the needs of a ruling class much more than a nation. It has nothing to do with democracy. Perhaps for that reason it has often been characterized as a parasitic phenomenon-even by critics as astute as John Hobson in his 1902 classic, Imperialism: A Study. And (rom there it is unfortunately all too easy to slide into the crude notion that imperialist expansion is simply a product of powerful groups of individuals who have hijacked a nation’s foreign policy to serve their own narrow ends.

    Translations:
    • Portuguese translation in Fragmetos de Cultura in Goiânia (Brazil), vol. 13, no. 6 (Nov-December 2003), pp. 1235-53.
    • Spanish translation in Marx Ahora (Havana, Cuba), no. 17 (November 2004)
    • Turkish translation in Cosmo Politik, vol. 6 (Fall 2003), pp. 12-22.
    • Russian translation on www.left.ru

     

  • The ‘Left-Wing’ Media?

    The ‘Left-Wing’ Media?

    “The ‘Left-Wing’ Media?,” (coauthored with Robert W. McChesney, McChesney listed as first author), Monthly Review, vol. 55, no. 2 (June 2003), pp. 1-16. DOI: 10.14452/MR-055-02-2003-06_1

    If we learn nothing else from the war on Iraq and its subsequent occupation, it is that the U.S. ruling class has learned to make ideological warfare as important to its operations as military and economic warfare. A crucial component of this ideological war has been the campaign against “left-wing media bias,” with the objective of reducing or eliminating the prospect that mainstream U.S. journalism might be at all critical toward elite interests or the system set up to serve those interests. In 2001 and 2002, no less than three books purporting to demonstrate the media’s leftward tilt rested high atop the bestseller list. Such charges have already influenced media content, pushing journalists to be less critical of right-wing politics. The result has been to reinforce the corporate and rightist bias already built into the media system.

    Reprints:
    • Reprinted in abridged from in Karl Finsterbusch, ed., Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Social Issues, 13th edition (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2005), pp. 29-37.
    • Republished in expanded and revised form in Robert W. McChesney, The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the 21st Century. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004, pp. 98-137.

     

  • Imperial America and War

    Imperial America and War

    “Imperial America and War,” Monthly Review vol. 55, no. 1 (May 2003), pp. 1-10. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.14452/MR-055-01-2003-05_1

    On November 11, 2000, Richard Haass—a member of the National Security Council and special assistant to the president under the elder Bush, soon to be appointed director of policy planning in the State Department of newly elected President George W. Bush—delivered a paper in Atlanta entitled “Imperial America.” For the United States to succeed at its objective of global preeminence, he declared, it would be necessary for Americans to “re-conceive their role from a traditional nation-state to an imperial power.” Haass eschewed the term “imperialist” in describing America’s role, preferring “imperial,” since the former connoted “exploitation, normally for commercial ends,” and “territorial control.”

    Reprints:
    • Reprinted in Pratyush Chandra, Anuradha Ghosh and Ravi Kumar, The Politics of Imperialism and Counterstrategies. Delhi: Aakar Books, 2004, pp. 25-36.
    Translations:
    • French translation published in À L’ Encontre, no.12 (2003), pp. 35-39;
    • Spanish translation published in Monthly Review—Selecciones en castellano, no. 1 (May 2004).
    • Russian translation on www.left.ru.
    • German translation in AG Friedenforschung, http://www.unikassel.de/fb5/frieden/regionen/USA/foster.html.

     

  • The Commercial Tidal Wave

    The Commercial Tidal Wave

    “The Commercial Tidal Wave,” (coauthored with Robert W. McChesney, McChesney listed as first author), Monthly Review vol. 54, no. 10 (March 2003), pp. 1-16. DOI: 10.14452/MR-054-10-2003-03_1

    For a long time now it has been widely understood within economics that under the capitalism of giant firms, corporations no longer compete primarily through price competition. They engage instead in what economists call “monopolistic competition.” This consists chiefly of attempts to create monopoly positions for a particular brand, making it possible for corporations to charge more for the branded product while also expanding their market share. Competition is most intense in what Thorstein Veblen called the “production of salable appearances,” involving advertising, frequent model changes, branding of products, and the like. Once this logic takes over in twentieth and now twenty-first century capitalism it is seemingly unstoppable. All human needs, relationships and fears, the deepest recesses of the human psyche, become mere means for the expansion of the commodity universe under the force of modem marketing. With the rise to prominence of modem marketing, commercialism—the translation of human relations into commodity relations—although a phenomenon intrinsic to capitalism, has expanded exponentially.

    Reprints:
    • Republished in expanded and revised form in Robert W. McChesney, The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the 21st Century. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2004, pp. 138-74.

     

  • A Planetary Defeat

    A Planetary Defeat

    “A Planetary Defeat: The Failure of Global Environmental Reform,” Monthly Review, vol. 54, no. 8 (January 2003), pp.1-9. DOI: 10.14452/MR-054-08-2003-01_1

    The first Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 generated hopes that the world would at long last address its global ecological problems and introduce a process of sustainable development. Now, with a second summit being held ten years later in Johannesburg, that dream has to a large extent faded. Even the principal supporters of this process have made it clear that they do not expect much to be achieved as a result of the Johannesburg summit, which is likely to go down in history as an absolute failure. We need to ask ourselves why.

    Translations:
    • Persian translation in Paul M. Sweezy, et. al., Capitalism and the Environment (Tehran: Digar Publishing House, 2008).