John Bellamy Foster

Tag: Sole Author

  • Contradictions in the Universalization of Capitalism

    Contradictions in the Universalization of Capitalism

    “Contradictions in the Universalization of Capitalism,” Monthly Review, vol. 50, no. 11 (April 1999), pp. 29-39. DOI: 10.14452/MR-050-11-1999-04_3

    A central, perhaps the central, idea of economic liberalism has always been that a market society organized on the basis of individual self-interest is the natural state of humankind, and that such a society is bound to prosper—through an almost providential invisible hand—provided that no external barriers stand in its way. In this view all of human history is nothing more than the gradual freeing up of market relations—the release of the universal and rational forms of society only waiting to be let loose. “In most accounts of capitalism,” Ellen Meiksins Wood has critically observed, “there really is no beginning. Capitalism seems always to be there, somewhere; and it only needs to be released from its chains—for instance, from the fetters of feudalism—to be allowed to grow and mature.”

     

  • Rebuilding Marxism

    Rebuilding Marxism

    “Rebuilding Marxism,” (John Bellamy Foster) Monthly Review vol. 50, no. 10 (March 1999), pp. 38-45. DOI: 10.14452/MR-050-10-1999-03_4

    Review of Reinventing Marxism by Howard Sherman.

     

  • A Classic of Our Time

    “A Classic of Our Time: Labor and Monopoly Capital After a Quarter-Century,” Monthly Review, vol. 50, no. 8 (January 1999), pp. 12-18. DOI: 10.14452/MR-050-08-1999-01_2

    Three years ago, on the occasion of its silver anniversary, Contemporary Sociology, the American Sociological Association’s book review journal, published a special section on the ten most influential books of the previous twenty-five years. Each book chosen for this honor by Contemporary Sociology‘s editorial board was reassessed by a notable figure in the field. One of the books selected was Harry Braverman’s Labor and Monopoly Capital. The sociologist who wrote on Braverman’s book was Michael Burawoy.

     

  • Mathus’ Essay on Population at Age 200

    “Mathus’ Essay on Population at Age 200: A Marxian View,” Monthly Review, vol. 50, no. 7 (December 1998), pp. 1-18. DOI: 10.14452/MR-050-07-1998-11_1

    Since it was first published 200 years ago in 1798, no other single work has constituted such a bastion of bourgeois thought as Thomas Malthus’ Essay on the Principle of Population. No other work was more hated by the English working class, nor so strongly criticized by Marx and Engels. Although the Malthusian principle of population in its classical form was largely vanquished intellectually by the mid-nineteenth century, it continued to reemerge in new forms. In the late nineteenth century it took on new life as a result of the Darwinian revolution and the rise of social Darwinism. And in the late twentieth century Malthusianism reemerged once again in the form of neo-Malthusian ecology.

     

  • Science in a Skeptical Age

    Science in a Skeptical Age

    “Science in a Skeptical Age,” Monthly Review, vol. 50, no. 2 (June 1998), pp. 39-52.

    Review of; Science and the Retreat From Reason by John Gillott and Manjit Kumar.
    DOI: 10.14452/MR-050-02-1998-06_4

    We live in a skeptical age. All of the basic concepts of the Enlightenment, including progress, science and reason are now under attack. At the center of this skepticism lie persistent doubts about science itself, emanating both from within and from without the scientific community. Recent titles by scientists give an idea of the extent of the crisis in confidence within science: Science: The End of the Frontier? (1991) by Nobel prize winner Leon Lederman; The End of Certainty (1996) by Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine; and The End of Science (1996) by Scientific American writer John Horgan.

     

  • The Scale of Our Ecological Crisis

    “The Scale of Our Ecological Crisis,” Monthly Review vol. 49, no. 11 (April 1998), pp. 5-16. DOI: 10.14452/MR-049-11-1998-04_2

    One of the problems that has most troubled analysts of global ecological crisis is the question of scale. How momentous is the ecological crisis? Is the survival of the human species in question? What about life in general? Are the basic biogeochemical cycles of the planet vulnerable? Although few now deny that there is such a thing as an environmental crisis, or that it is in some sense global in character, some rational scientists insist that it is wrong to say that life itself, much less the planet, is seriously threatened. Even the mass extinction of species, it is pointed out, has previously occurred in evolutionary history. Critics of environmentalism (often themselves claiming to be environmentalists) have frequently used these rational reservations on the part of scientists to brand the environmental movement as “apocalyptic.”

    Translations:
    • Serbian translation, 2012 by Goran Stankovic for collection on Modern  Apocalypse, Službeni Glasnik, Belgrade.

     

  • William Morris’ Letters on Epping Forest: An Introduction

    “William Morris’ Letters on Epping Forest: An Introduction,” Organization and Environment, vol. 11, no. 1 (March 1998), pp. 82-84. DOI: 10.1177/0921810698111005

    In the initial entry for this section, we are publishing “Three Letters on Epping Forest” written by William Morris (1834-1896). Morris was an English artist, master craftsperson, designer, port, socialist, and forerunner of modern ecological thought. His designs for furniture, wallpaper, fabrics, stained glass, and other decorative arts revolutionized Victorian sensibilities spawned the late nineteenth century arts and crafts movement. Hence, he earned a reputation as one of the outstanding figures of his century.

  • ‘William Morris’ Letters on Epping Forest: An Introduction

    “William Morris’ Letters on Epping Forest: An Introduction,” [PDF], Organization and Environment, vol. 11, no. 1 (March 1998), pp. 82-84. DOI: 10.1177/0921810698111005

    In the initial entry for this section, we are publishing “Three Letters on Epping Forest” written by William Morris (1834-1896). Morris was an English artist, master craftsperson, designer, poet, socialist, and forerunner of modern ecological thought. His designs for furniture, wallpaper, fabrics, stained glass, and other decorative arts revolutionized Victorian sensibilities and spawned the late nineteenth century arts and crafts movement. Hence, he earned a reputation as one of the outstanding figures of his century.

  • Free Market Democracy and Global Hegemony

    Free Market Democracy and Global Hegemony

    “Free Market Democracy and Global Hegemony,” (John Bellamy Foster) Monthly Review, vol. 49, no. 4 (September 1997), pp.51-64. DOI: 10.14452/MR-049-04-1997-08_5

    Review of Promoting Polyarchy: Globalization, U.S. Intervention, and Hegemony by William I. Robinson.

    Neoliberalism is usually thought of as a purely economic philosophy, stemming from the work of the arch-conservative economist Friedrich hayek and other twentieth century economist (particularly those associated with the University of Chicago), and involving an attempt to construct a much more complete justification for a pure, self-regulating market economy than could be found in the work of Adam Smith himself. Yet, neoliberalism—it is important to understand—also has its politcal component in the dominant model of liberal democracy, termed “polyarchy” by one of its leading proponents, Robert Dahl.

     

  • 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.