John Bellamy Foster

Tag: Turkish

  • The Imperialist World System

    The Imperialist World System

    “The Imperialist World System: Paul Baran’s Political Economy of Growth After Fifty Years“, Monthly Review vol. 59, no. 1 (May 2007), pp. 1-16. DOI: 10.14452/MR-059-01-2007-05_1

    The concept of the imperialist world system in today predominant sense of the extreme economic exploitation of periphery by center, creating a widening gap between rich and poor countries, was largely absent from the classical Marxist critique of capitalism. Rather this view had its genesis in the 1950s, especially with the publication fifty years ago of Paul Baran’s Political Economy of Growth. Baran’s work helped inspire Marxist dependency and world system theories. But it was the new way of looking at imperialism that was the core of Baran’s contribution. A half-century later it is important to ask: What was this new approach and how did it differ from then prevailing notions? What further changes in our understanding of imperialism are now necessary in response to changed historical conditions since the mid-twentieth century?

    Translations:
    • Translated in Monthly Review, Turkish edition (Istanbul: Kalkedon, August 2007.

     

  • 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.

     

  • The Ecology of Destruction

    The Ecology of Destruction

    “The Ecology of Destruction“, Monthly Review vol. 58, no. 9 (February 2007), pp.1-14. DOI: 10.14452/MR-058-09-2007-02_1

    I would like to begin my analysis of what I am calling here “the ecology of destruction” by referring to Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1969 film Burn!. Pontecorvo’s epic film can be seen as a political and ecological allegory intended for our time. It is set in the early nineteenth century on an imaginary Caribbean island called “Burn.” Burn is a Portuguese slave colony with a sugar production monoculture dependent on the export of sugar as a cash crop to the world economy. In the opening scene we are informed that the island got its name from the fact that the only way that the original Portuguese colonizers were able to vanquish the indigenous population was by setting fire to the entire island and killing everyone on it, after which slaves were imported from Africa to cut the newly planted sugar cane.

    Reprints:
    • Reprinted and published in Norwegian in Torstein Dahle (and to artikler av John Bellamy Foster, Ødeleggelsens Økonomi (Tidsskrifter Rødt!, 2008), 100-16.
    Translations:
    • Chinese translation by Dong Jinyu, Foreign Theoretical Trends (China), no. 6, 2008, and translated separately by Liang Yongqiant, Internet Fortune (China), no. 4, 2009.
    • Persian translation in Paul M. Sweezy, et. al., Capitalism and the Environment (Tehran: Digar Publishing House, 2008.
    • French translation in La Brèche-Carré Rouge, December 2007-January February 2008, pp. 46-53.
    • German translation in Perspectiven: Magazin Für Linke Tehoerie Und Praxis, 2007, no. 2 (Vienna);
    • Portuguese translation in O Comuneiro, no. 4, 2007, www.ocomuneiro.com.
    • Norwegian translation in Rødt–special edition in Norwegian daily Klassekampen (Class Struggle), June 2007.
    • Translated in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, 2007.
    • Korean translation October 15, 2009, at http://programto.net/wordpress/.
    • Bangla translation in Bangla Monthly Review, no. 3 (June 2007). Translated by Tushar Chakrabarty.

     

  • Monopoly-Finance Capital

    Monopoly-Finance Capital

    “Monopoly-Finance Capital“, Monthly Review, vol. 58, no. 7 (December 2006), pp. 1-14. DOI: 10.14452/MR-058-07-2006-11_1

    The year now ending marks the fortieth anniversary of Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy’s classic work, Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order (Monthly Review Press, 1966). Compared to mainstream economic works of the early to mid-1960s (the most popular and influential of which were John Kenneth Galbraith’s New Industrial State and Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom), Monopoly Capital stood out not simply in its radicalism but also in its historical specificity. What Baran and Sweezy sought to explain was not capitalism as such, the fundamental account of which was to be found in Marx’s Capital, but rather a particular stage of capitalist development. Their stated goal was nothing less than to provide a brief “essay-sketch” of the monopoly stage of capitalism by examining the interaction of its basic economic tendencies, narrowly conceived, with the historical, political, and social forces that helped to shape and support them.

    Translations:
    • Chinese translation by Research Center on Marxism, Yunnan Normal University, Foreign Theoretical Trends (China), no. 3, 2007.
    • Turkish translation in http://www.sendika.org, October 16, 2008.
    • Arabic translation by Thamer Al-Saffar in Civilized Dialogue 1925, May 24, 2007, http://www.ahewar.org/debat/show.art.asp?aid=97582

     

  • Aspects of Class in the United States

    Aspects of Class in the United States

    “Aspects of Class in the United States: An Introduction“, Monthly Review, vol. 58, no. 3 (July-August 2006), pp. 1-5. DOI: 10.14452/MR-058-03-2006-07_1

    If class war is continual in capitalist society, there is no doubt that in recent decades in the United States it has taken a much more virulent form. In a speech delivered at New York University in 2004 Bill Moyers pointed out that the effects of this relentless offensive by the vested interests against the rest of the society are increasingly evident. In 2005 the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal each published a series of articles focusing on class in the United States.

    Reprints:
    • Reprinted in Michael Yates, ed., More Unequal: Aspects of Class in the United States (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2007), pp. 15-18.
    Translations:
    • Translated in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, no. 9 (Istanbul: Kalkedon, 2006).

     

  • 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.

     

  • Naked Imperialism

    “Naked Imperialism,” Monthly Review, vol. 57, no. 4 (September 2005), pp. 1-11. DOI: 10.14452/MR-057-04-2005-08_1

    The global actions of the United States since September 11, 2001, are often seen as constituting a “new militarism” and a “new imperialism.” Yet, neither militarism nor imperialism is new to the United States, which has been an expansionist power—continental, hemispheric, and global—since its inception. What has changed is the nakedness with which this is being promoted, and the unlimited, planetary extent of U.S. ambitions.

    Translations:
    • Translated in Monthly Review, Turkish edition (Istanbul: Kalkedon, March 2006).

     

  • The Renewing of Socialism

    “The Renewing of Socialism: An Introduction” [PDF], Monthly Review, vol. 57, no. 3 (July-August 2005), pp. 1-18.

    Translation

    • Chinese translation by Zhuang Junju, Contemporary World and Socialism (China), no. 1 (2006).
    • Translated in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, no. 1 (2006), pp. 11-30
    • Greek translation published in Monthly Review (Greek edition, Athens, 2006), pp. 7-26.

    Articles in Monthly Review often end by invoking the socialist alternative to capitalism. Readers in recent years have frequently asked us what this means. Didn’t socialism die in the twentieth century? Wasn’t it defeated by capitalism? More practically: if socialism is still being advocated what kind of socialism is it? Are we being utopian in the sense of advancing a pleasant but impossible dream?

  • The End of Rational Capitalism

    The End of Rational Capitalism

    “The End of Rational Capitalism,” Monthly Review, vol. 56, no. 10 (March 2005), pp. 1-13. DOI: 10.14452/MR-056-10-2005-03_1

    The twentieth century’s dominant myth was that of a “rational capitalism.” The two economists who did the most to promote this idea were John Maynard Keynes and Joseph Schumpeter. Both were responding to the great historical crisis of capitalism manifested in the First World War, the Great Depression, and the Second World War. In the wake of the greatest set of horrors the world had ever seen, accompanied also by the rise of an alternative, contending system in the Soviet Union, it was necessary for capitalism following the Second World War to reestablish itself ideologically as well as materially. In terms of the ideological requirement, the two economists who accomplished this most effectively were Keynes and Schumpeter—not simply because they epitomized the best in bourgeois economic ideology, but also because they were the leading representatives of bourgeois economic science. What they set out in their analyses were the requirements of a rational capitalism and at least the hope that these requirements would be achieved.

    Translations: