John Bellamy Foster

Tag: Spanish

  • 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).

     

  • The Latin American Revolt

    The Latin American Revolt

    “The Latin American Revolt: An Introduction“, Monthly Review vol. 59, no. 3 (July 2007), pp. 1-8. DOI: 10.14452/MR-059-03-2007-07_1

    The revolt against U.S. hegemony in Latin America in the opening years of the twenty-first century constitutes nothing less than a new historical moment. Latin America, to quote Noam Chomsky, is “reasserting its independence” in an attempt to free itself from centuries of imperialist domination. The gravity of this threat to U.S. power is increasingly drawing the attention of Washington. Julia Sweig, Latin American program director at the Council on Foreign Relations, argues that the twenty-first century is likely to be known as the “Anti-American Century,” marking a growing intolerance of the “waning” U.S. empire. Outweighing even the resistance to the U.S. war machine in Iraq in this respect, Sweig suggests, is the political realignment to the left in Latin America, which, in destabilizing U.S. rule in the Americas, offers a “prophetic microcosm” of what can be expected worldwide.

    Translations:
    • Spanish translation in America Latina en Movimiento, Barcelona.
    • Translated in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, no. 16 (Istanbul: Kalkedon, 2007).
    • Bangla translation in Bangla Monthly Review, no. 4 (September-November 2007. Translated by Protiva Mondol.

     

  • The Financialization of Capitalism

    The Financialization of Capitalism

    “The Financialization of Capitalism“, Monthly Review, vol. 58, no. 11 (April 2007), pp. 1-12. DOI: 10.14452/MR-058-11-2007-04_1

    Changes in capitalism over the last three decades have been commonly characterized using a trio of terms: neoliberalism, globalization, and financialization. Although a lot has been written on the first two of these, much less attention has been given to the third. Yet, financialization is now increasingly seen as the dominant force in this triad. The financialization of capitalism-the shift in gravity of economic activity from production (and even from much of the growing service sector) to finance—is thus one of the key issues of our time. More than any other phenomenon it raises the question: has capitalism entered a new stage?

    Translations:
    • Chinese Translations by Wang Nianyong and Chen Jiali Foreign Theoretical Trends (China), no. 7 (2007) and Wu Wei, Marxism and Reality (2008).
    • Translated in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, August 2007.
    • Spanish translation in Monthly Review, Selecciones en Castellano, no. 8 (March 2008).
    • Bangla translation in Bangla Monthly Review, no. 4 (September-November, 2007). Translated by Arindam Bandopaddhay.

     

  • “Foreword” to István Mészáros

    “Foreword” to István Mészáros, O Desafio E O Fardo Do Temp Histórico: O Socialismo No Século XX! [The Challenge and Burden of Historical Time] (Portuguese edition, Boitempo Editorial, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2007), pp. 13-18.

    Translation(s):
    • English version of foreword in English edition of book, (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2008).
    • Portuguese language version also printed in Le Monde Diplomatique—Brazilian edition, November 2007.
    • Included in Spanish edition: El Desafio y la Carga del Tiempo Histórico.

  • Organizing Ecological Revolution

    “Organizing Ecological Revolution,” Monthly Review, vol. 57, no. 5 (October 2005), pp.1-10. DOI: 10.14452/MR-057-05-2005-09_1

    My subject—organizing ecological revolution—has as its initial premise that we are in the midst of a global environmental crisis of such enormity that the web of life of the entire planet is threatened and with it the future of civilization.

    Reprints:
    • Reprinted in John Jermier, ed., Corporate Environmentalism and the Greening of Organizations (Sage Publications, March 2013). Reprinted in Jane Kelley and Sheila Malone, ed., Ecosocialism or Barbarism (London: Socialist Resistance, 2006, pp. 56-67).
    Translations:
    • Persian translation in Paul M. Sweezy, et. al., Capitalism and the Environment (Tehran: Digar Publishing House, 2008).
    • Greek translation published in Monthly Review (Greek edition, Athens), no. 2 (2005), pp. 11-23.
    • Spanish translation in Globalización, September 2005.
    • Portuguese translation at
      http://cai.xtreemhost.com/cdc-galiza/foster.htm.
    • Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition (Istanbul: Kalkedon, 2008), pp. 183-93.

     

  • The Great Financial Crisis

    “The Great Financial Crisis—Three Years On,” (coauthored with Fred Magdoff), Monthly Review vol. 62, no. 5 (October 2010), pp. 52-55. DOI: 10.14452/MR-062-05-2010-09_5

    The Great Financial Crisis began in the summer of 2007 and three years later, despite a putative “recovery,” it is still having profound effects in the United States, Europe, and in much of the world. Austerity is being forced on working people in many countries. Matters are especially difficult in Greece, a country that is being compelled by the demands of bankers, including the International Monetary Fund, to squeeze its workers in return for loans from abroad to help pay down government debts. Official unemployment in the United States is still around 10 percent, and real unemployment is much higher. An unprecedented 44 percent of the officially unemployed have been without work for over six months. A record number of people are receiving government food assistance as well as meals and groceries from charities. Many U.S. states and cities, facing large shortfalls in their budgets due to falling tax revenues, are cutting jobs and reducing funding for schools and social programs.

    Translations:
    • English language version of preface to the Bangla edition of The Great Financial Crisis.
    • Spanish translation by Alberto Nadal in Viento Sur, November 11, 2010.
    • Spanish language translation by Alberto Nadal in El Diario Internacional (December 2010).
    • Italian version published by Attac Italia, January 7, 2011, at http://www.italia.attac.org/spip/spip.php?article3525.
    • French translation printed by Le Comité pour l’Annulation de la Dette du Tiers Monde, December 29, 2010.
    • Galician translation published by Avantar, December 21, 2010, http://www.galizacig.com/avantar/autor/john-bellamy-foster-e-fred-magdoff.
    • Catalan translation published by En Lluita, http://www.enlluita.org/site/?q=node/3150.
    • Turkish translation appears in Kapitalizmin Finansal Krizi, edited by Prof. Dr. Abdullah Ersoy (Ankara, Turkey: Imaj Publishing, 2011), 330pp.

     

  • 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.

     

  • Ecological Imperialism

    “Ecological Imperialism: The Curse of Capitalism,” (coauthored with Brett Clark), In Leo Panitch and Colin Leys, ed., The Socialist Register, 2004 (London: Merlin Press, 2004), pp. 230-46.

    Translations:
    • Catalan translation in Corrent Roig, June 6, 2010, http://www.correntroig.org.
    • Spanish translation in El Nuevo Desafío Imperial: Socialist Register 2004 (Clasco, February 2005).
    • Portugese translation in O Novo Desafio Imperial: Socialist Register 2004 (Sao Paolo, Brazil: Clasco, 2006).
  • Kipling, the ‘White Man’s Burden,’ and U.S. Imperialism

    Kipling, the ‘White Man’s Burden,’ and U.S. Imperialism

    “Kipling, the ‘White Man’s Burden,’ and U.S. Imperialism,” (coauthored with Harry Magdoff and Robert W. McChesney listed as “by the editors”), Monthly Review vol. 55, no. 6 (November 2003), pp. 1-11. DOI: 10.14452/MR-055-06-2003-10_1

    We are living in a period in which the rhetoric of empire knows few bounds. In a special report on “America and Empire” in August, the London-based Economist magazine asked whether the United States would, in the event of “regime changes … effected peacefully” in Iran and Syria, “really be prepared to shoulder the white man’s burden across the Middle East?” The answer it gave was that this was “unlikely”—the U.S. commitment to empire did not go so far. What is significant, however, is that the question was asked at all.

    Translations:
    • Spanish translation published in Neoimperialism en la Era de la Globalización (Monthly Review—Selecciones en Castellano, 2004).

     

  • 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