John Bellamy Foster

Tag: Review of Radical Political Economics

  • The Age of Planetary Crisis

    “The Age of Planetary Crisis: The Unsustainable Development of Capitalism” (in special issue on “The Future of Capitalism”),” [PDF], Review of Radical Political Economics, vol. 29, no. 4 (Fall 1997), pp. 113-42. DOI: 10.1177/048661349702900406

    The final years of the twentieth century have revealed three critical conditions likely to dominate the history of the coming century: (1) economic stagnation and globalization; (2) environmental decline; and (3) the weakness of antisystemic movements. As economic conditions stagnate and environmental conditions worsen, the material bases will emerge for a new, much broader movement of global resistance; one in which the struggle of labor vs. capital will be joined with the struggle of life vs. capital.

    Translations:
    • Spanish translation, “La Era de la Crisis Planetaria: El Desarrollo Insostenible del Capitalismo,” Economía Politica, no. 15 (September-October 1997), pp. 31-52.

  • Monopoly Capital Theory and Stagflation: A Comment

    “Monopoly Capital Theory and Stagflation: A Comment,” [PDF], Review of Radical Political Economics, vol. 17, nos. 1 and 2 (Spring and Summer 1985), pp. 221-25.
    DOI: 10.1177/048661348501700113 

    In my view, David Kotz’s article, ‘Monopoly. Inflation and Economic Crisis” (Kotz 1982), provides a clear and, for the most part, internally consistent explanation of the inflationary features of monpolistic pricing in the context of long-term economic stagnation, and deserves to be recognized as a notable addition to Marxian analysis. But his claim of having constructed a “new theory” (1982: 7) demands critical comment of a fraternal kind for two reasons: (1) It downplays the extent to which Kotz’s argument merely expresses the main tendency of neo-Marxian monopoly capital theory, as previously developed by Michal Kalecki, Josef Steindl, Paul Baran, Paul Sweezy, Paolo Sylos-Labini and Howard Sherman, among others (see Foster and Szlajfer 1984); (2) Kotz’s own contribution is not diminished, but only enhanced, when seen in terms of his larger historical tradition.