John Bellamy Foster

Tag: Spanish

  • 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 Rediscovery of Imperialism

    The Rediscovery of Imperialism

    “The Rediscovery of Imperialism: Introduction” to Harry Madoff, Essays on Imperialism and Globalization,” Monthly Review vol. 54, no. 6 (November 2002), pp. 1-16. DOI: 10.14452/MR-054-06-2002-10_1

    The concept of “imperialism” was considered outside the acceptable range of political discourse within the ruling circles of the capitalist world for most of the twentieth century. Reference to “imperialism” during the Vietnam War, no matter how realistic, was almost always a sign that the writer was on the left side of the political spectrum. In a 1971 foreword to the U.S. edition of Pierre Jalée’s Imperialism in the Seventies Harry Magdoff noted, “As a rule, polite academic scholars prefer not to use the term ‘imperialism.’ They find it distasteful and unscientific.”

    Translations:
    • Turkish translation in Cosmo Politik, no. 6 (Winter 2002), pp. 16-25.
    • Spanish translation at Correntroig, July 6, 2008. Translation by Fernando Lizárraga.

     

  • Paul Sweezy and Monopoly Capitalism

    ”Paul Sweezy and Monopoly Capitalism,” in Doug Dowd, ed., Understanding Capitalism: Critical Analysis from Karl Marx to Amartya Sen (London: Pluto Press, 2002), pp. 132-50.

    Translations:
    • Spanish translation in Doug Dowd, ed., Entender el capitalismo Hacienda, 2006.
  • Imperialism and ‘Empire’

    Imperialism and ‘Empire’

    “Imperialism and ‘Empire,” Monthly Review, vol. 53, no. 7, pp. 1-9. (December, 2001) DOI: 10.14452/MR-053-07-2001-11_1

    Only a little more than a month ago at this writing, before September 11, the mass revolt against capitalist globalization that began in Seattle in November 1999 and that was still gathering force as recently as Genoa in July 2001 was exposing the contradictions of the system in a way not seen for many years. Yet the peculiar nature of this revolt was such that the concept of imperialism had been all but effaced, even within the left, by the concept of globalization, suggesting that some of the worst forms of international exploitation and rivalry had somehow abated.

    Translations:

     

  • 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.

  • Marx and the Environment

    “Marx and the Environment”, Monthly Review vol. 47, no. 3 (July 1995), pp. 108-123. DOI: 10.14452/MR-047-03-1995-07_8

    It has become fashionable in recent years, in the words of one critic, to identify the growth of ecological consciousness with “the current postmodernist interrogation of the metanarrative of the Enlightenment.” Green thinking, we are frequently told, is distinguished by its postmodern, post-Enlightenment perspective. Nowhere is this fashion more evident than in certain criticisms directed at Marx and Engels. Historical materialism, beginning with the work of its two founders, is often said to be one of the main means by which the Baconian notion of the mastery of nature was transmitted to the modern world. The prevalence of this interpretation is indicated by its frequent appearance within the analysis of the left itself. “While Marx and Engels displayed an extraordinary understanding of and sensitivity toward the ‘ecological’ costs of capitalism,” socialist ecofeminist Carolyn Merchant writes, “… they nevertheless bought into the Enlightenment’s myth of progress via the domination of nature.”

    Reprints:
    • Reprinted in John F. Sitton, ed., Marx Today: Selected Works and Recent Debates (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2010), 229-40.
    • Reprinted in Bob Jessop and Russell Wheatley, ed., Marx’s Social and Political Thought, volume 8(London: Taylor and Francis, 1999), 44-56.
    Translations:
    • Translated and published in German as “Marx, der Produktivismus und die Ökologie,” Sozialistische Zeitung, vol. 11, no. 13 (June 27, 1996), pp. 14-19.
    • Spanish translation by Renán Vega Cantor, 1998.

     

  • The Absolute General Law of Environmental Degradation Under Capitalism

    “The Absolute General Law of Environmental Degradation Under Capitalism,” [PDF] Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, vol. 3, no. 3 (September 1992), pp. 77-82. DOI:10.1080/10455759209358504

    James O’Connor has asked us to consider the relationship between what he has termed the “first and second contradictions” of capitalism. I would like to refer to the first contradiction, following Marx, as ‘the absolute cereal law of capitalist accumulation.” The second contradiction may then be designated as “the absolute general law of environmental degradation under capitalism.” It is characteristic of capitalism that the second of these “absolute general laws” derives its momentum from the first; hence it is impossible to overthrow the second without overthrowing the first. Nevertheless, it is the second contradiction rather than the first that increasingly constitutes the most obvious threat not only to capitalism existence but to the life of the planet as a whole.

    Translations:
    • Translated and published in Spanish as “La Ley General Absoluta de la Degradacion Ambiental en el Capitalismo,” Ecología Politica (September 1992), pp. 167-73.
    • Spanish translation later reprinted in Economía Politica, no. 11, Jan.-Feb. 1997.
    • Translated and published in Italian as “La Legge Assoluta, Generale del Degrado Ambientale nel Capitalismo,” Capitalismo, Natura, Socialismo, no. 6 (November 1992).