Search results for ""monthly review press""

President Hugo Chavez openly defies the ruling class in the United States, daring to advance universal access to health care and education, to remove itself from the economic orbit dominated by the United States, to diversify its production to meet human needs and promote human development, and to forge an economic coalition between Latin American countries. But as "Bush Versus Chavez" reveals, Venezuela's revolutionary process has drawn more than simply the ire of Washington. It has precipitated an ongoing campaign to contain and cripple the democratically elected government of Latin America's leading oil power. "Bush Versus Chavez" details how millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars are used to fund groups - such as the National Endowment for Democracy, the United States Agency for International Development, and the Office for Transition - with the express purpose to support counter-revolutionary groups in Venezuela. It describes how Washington is attempting to impose endless sanctions, justified by fabricated evidence, to cause economic distress. And it illuminates the build up of U.S. military troops, operations, and exercises in the Caribbean, that specifically threaten the Venezuelan people and government. "Bush Versus Chavez" exposes the imperialist machinations of Washington as it tries to thwart a socialist revolution for the twenty-first century.

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Workers in the United States are systematically being allocated a shrinking share of the prodigious wealth we produce, and that's old news. This widening exploitation of workers and communities further exposes the myth of a 'just' capitalist economy. Despite the radical increase in economic and social inequality, we still lack a cohesive popular understanding and consciousness of why and how our market-based economic system facilitates this 'one-sided class war' against us. More Unequal: Aspects of Class in the United States is a strategically assembled collection which binds diverse, informed, often compellingly personal explorations of social and economic inequity together into a revealing journey through the scarred terrain of today's working-class reality.

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The influence of media on society is unquestioned. Its reach penetrates nearly every corner of the world and every aspect of life. But it has also been a contested realm, embodying class politics and the interests of monopoly capital. In "The Political Economy of Media", one of the foremost media critics of our time, Robert W. McChesney, provides a comprehensive analysis of the economic and political powers that are being mobilized to consolidate private control of media with increasing profit - all at the expense of democracy.In this elegant and lucid collection, McChesney examines the monopolistic competition that has created a global media that is ever more concentrated and centralized. McChesney reveals why questions about the ownership of commercial U.S. media remain off limits within the political culture; how private ownership of media leads to the degradation of journalism and suppression of genuine debate; and why corporate rule threatens democracy by failing to provide the means for an educated and informed citizenry. "The Political Economy of Media" also highlights resistance to corporate media over the last century, including the battle between broadcasters and the public in the 1920s and 1930s and the ongoing media reform movement today. "The Political Economy of Media" makes it clear that the struggle over the ownership and the role of media is of utmost importance to everyone.

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Since September 11, 2001, religion has been at the center of debates about the global future. "Religion and the Human Prospect" relates these issues systematically to a path-breaking interpretation of the history of religion, its part in human development, and its potential role in preventing or enabling global catastrophe. Religion has made possible critical transitions in the emergence and development of human society. At the moment when our humanoid ancestors became aware of the inevitability of death, religion interposed the belief in spiritual beings who gave it new significance. When individual self-interest and collective survival conflicted, religion defended collective survival by codifying its requirements as morality. When inequalities of wealth and power developed, religion extended moral codes to include obligations of dominance and submission. Religion enabled a species facing constant hunger and scarcity to adapt and spread. Today, however, facing ecological disaster, exhaustion of essential natural resources, and the proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, religion no longer provides a collective defense mechanism for the human species. Instead, the solutions it has provided have become central to the problem of human survival. This magisterial and compelling work weaves together evolutionary theory, anthropology, reflection on theological treatments of the problem of evil, and ideas from literature and philosophy into an account of the human prospect that is truly epic in its ambition and explanatory power.

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Girdner (international relations, Bashkent U., Turkey) and Smith (English and philosophy, North Central Missouri College) examine the toxic waste industry and the economic logic behind its expansion. The authors contend that class is the main factor determining where toxic waste dumps are sited both

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In a critical overview of lotteries in the US, this work documents who really profits from lotteries and who really loses.

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Crime tops the headlines, leads the evening news, and is a focus of every election. But what causes crime? Is there a more rational way to address it than by law-and-order crusades? In this treatment, George Winslow offers to take on every aspect of the topic, from the streets to the suites, placing the issue in the context of a larger political economy. From the Burmese heroin trade to homicide, from the capital flight that has generated crime in the inner cities to corporate money-laundering schemes, the study demonstrates how economic forces and elite interests have shaped both the world of crime and society's response to it. Based on research and interviews, the book seeks to present a comprehensive alternative to a "lock 'em up" approach that has produced a gargantuan prison-industrial complex.

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Has any major thinker been more poorly understood than Karl Marx? Over the last 150 years, his name has been invoked in connection with everything from unemployment insurance to Hollywood to guerrilla wars. Any number of international movements have claimed his teachings as their inspiration. Time after time, authorities have proclaimed the death of Marx's theories while new and old audiences continue to draw vital insight from the works of the most important philosopher and economist of the industrial era. Ernst Fischer has crafted a brief, clear, and faithful exposition of Marx's main premises, with particular emphasis on historical context. This new edition of the English translation of 'Was Marx wirklich sagte' (1968) includes new contributions by John Bellamy Foster that sharpen Fischer's focus for today's readers. Also included are a biographical chronology, extracts from major works of Marx, and "Marx's Method," a valuable essay by the political economist Paul M. Sweezy.

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An introduction to the causes and consequences of the Korean War, this history seeks to challenge presumptions about Korea favoured by American politicians and network news pundits. Through a judicious survey of the historical record, Martin Hart-Landsberg demonstrates that the basic aim of U.S. foreign policy in Korea from the outset has been regional control - not democracy, despite Washington's claims. Reconstructing the long pattern of Korean struggles for national unity and independence from foreign domination, he shows that the division of the country into hostile states after World War II produced an "imaginary line" contrary to the interests and desires of a majority of Koreans. He examines the post-war history of North and South Korea, showing how Cold War foreign policy and division undermined valuable efforts at social change on both sides of the 38th parallel. Reunification, he concludes, is the optimal solution for Korea, so long as it transpires on a democratic and egalitarian basis, with participation by popular social movements.

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In Beyond Capital, the internationally esteemed Marxist philosopher István Mészáros provides a major contribution to the task of reassessing the socialist alternative and the conditions for its realization in the light of twentieth-century developments and disappointments. Mészáros brings original Marxist thinking to bear on the most fundamental issue facing the left: how to move theoretically Beyond Capital—beyond the project that Marx began and which he articulated under a specific form of commodity capitalism, as well as beyond the power of capital itself. Steeped in the philosophical roots and revolutionary world outlook of early Marxism, broad in scope and stunning in its erudition, Beyond Capital brilliantly challenges the European-based conceptual framework of socialist theory and begins the urgent task of elaborating a new socialist theory of transition.

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Much of Karl Marx's most important work came out of his critique of other thinkers, including many socialists who differed significantly in their conceptions of socialism. The fourth volume in Hal Draper's series looks at these critiques to illuminate what Marx's socialism was, as well as what it was not. Some of these debates are well-known elements in Marx's work, such as his writings on the anarchists Proudhon and Bakunin. Others are less familiar, such as the writings on "Bismarckian socialism" and "Boulangism," but promise to become better known and understood with Draper's exposition. He also discusses the more general ideological tendencies of "utopian" and "sentimental" socialisms, which took various forms and were ingredients in many different socialist movements.

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This book provides a concise and instructive review of the revolutions of the twentieth century, with separate chapters on the Russian, Chinese, Guinea-Bissau, and Vietnamese revolutions, in which the authors seek to extract the principle lessons from each of these struggles and the special course taken by each. In these and in a summary chapter on the dialectics of revolution the authors furnish a picture of the principal aspects of Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, and the other currents of Marxism active in the revolutions of our times. A second section is devoted to the United States, and begins with a survey of the class forces in American history from the settlement of the original thirteen colonies to the present, with special attention to the enslaved black population. Thereafter, the authors present their ideas on the objects and means of an American Revolution.Includes new introduction by Grace Lee Boggs.

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Since its first publication in 1942, this book has become the classic analytical study of Marxist economics. Written by an economist who was a master of modern academic theory as well as Marxist literature, it has been recognized as the ideal textbook in its subject. Comprehensive, lucid, authoritative, it has not been challenged or even approached by any later study.

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This prescient and timely book documents Noam Chomsky's visit to Lebanon, in May 2006, to lecture on U.S. imperialism and the imminent crises facing the Middle East - two months before Israel orchestrated major military campaigns against Lebanon and Palestine. During his visit, he met with political leaders - including those of Hizbullah - toured refugee camps, and inspected a former Israeli prison and torture compound. "Inside Lebanon" describes Chomsky's journey and situates it within the tragically altered context of Lebanon and Palestine before and after the war of 2006. Chomsky's essays provide a framework for understanding the role of U.S. politics, power, and policies in these conflicts by examining how the United States wages war and imposes world domination while presenting itself as the righteous protector of democracy. Ironically, U.S. efforts at imperial control generate conflict and crises within the region while undermining democracy. "Inside Lebanon" includes essays and photographs by Carol Chomsky, Irene L. Gendzier, Assaf Kfoury, Jennifer Loewenstein, Hanady Salman, Rasha Salti, and Fawwaz Traboulsi and provides an analysis of the social-political conditions of people in Lebanon, Gaza, and refugee camps. It situates Israel's attacks and the position of Hizbullah and Hamas in this conflict while at the same time providing a record of events during the war, linking the conflicts on the ground to the global order.

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This title describes the brutal impact of capitalism and colonialism on both the colonizer and the colonized, exposing the contradictions and hypocrisy implicit in western notions of progress and civilisation.

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Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx. Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation. Thus he is concerned with gold and silver, cacao and cotton, rubber and coffee, fruit, hides and wool, petroleum, iron, nickel, manganese, copper, aluminum ore, nitrates, and tin. These are the veins which he traces through the body of the entire continent, up to the Rio Grande and throughout the Caribbean, and all the way to their open ends where they empty into the coffers of wealth in the United States and Europe. Weaving fact and imagery into a rich tapestry, Galeano fuses scientific analysis with the passions of a plundered and suffering people. An immense gathering of materials is framed with a vigorous style that never falters in its command of themes. All readers interested in great historical, economic, political, and social writing will find a singular analytical achievement, and an overwhelming narrative that makes history speak, unforgettably. This classic is now further honored by Isabel Allende's inspiring introduction. Universally recognized as one of the most important writers of our time, Allende once again contributes her talents to literature, to political principles, and to enlightenment.

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Lengthening hours, lessening pay, no parental leave, scant job security. Never have so many workers needed so much support. Yet the very labour unions that could garner us protections and help us speak up for ourselves are growing weaker every day. In an age of rampant inequality, of increasing social protest and strikes—and when a majority of workers say they want to be union members — why does union density continue to decline? In this compelling new book, Shaun Richman offers some answers. But bringing unions back from the edge of institutional annihilation, says Richman, is no simple proposition. The next few years offer a rare opportunity to undo the great damage wrought on labour by decades of corporate union-busting, if only union activists raise our ambitions. Based on deft historical research and legal analysis, as well as his own experience as a union organizing director, Richman lays out an action plan for U.S. workers in the twenty-first century by which we can internalize the concept that workers are equal human beings, entitled to health care, dignity, job security—and definitely, the right to strike. Unafraid to take on some of the labour movement’s sacred cows, this book describes what it would take—some changes that are within activists’ power and some that require meaningful legal reform—to put unions in workplaces across America.

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“In The Russians are Coming Again, Jeremy Kuzmarov and John Marciano present an excellent and well researched effort to remind liberal America of how awful the Cold War was and how it was based on a cynical exaggeration of a largely fictional `Russian threat.’ Their warning against creating a new Cold War with post-communist Russia is well worth considering.”—David N. Gibbs, University of Arizona, author, First Do No Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia Karl Marx famously wrote in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon that history repeats itself, “first as tragedy, then as farce.” The Cold War waged between the United States and Soviet Union from 1945 until the latter's dissolution in 1991 was a great tragedy, resulting in millions of civilian deaths in proxy wars, and a destructive arms race that diverted money from social spending and nearly led to nuclear annihilation. The New Cold War between the United States and Russia is playing out as farce – a dangerous one at that. The Russians Are Coming, Again is a red flag to restore our historical consciousness about U.S.-Russian relations, and how denying this consciousness is leading to a repetition of past follies. Kuzmarov and Marciano's book is timely and trenchant. The authors argue that the Democrats’ strategy, backed by the corporate media, of demonizing Russia and Putin in order to challenge Trump is not only dangerous, but also, based on the evidence so far, unjustified, misguided, and a major distraction. Grounding their argument in all-but-forgotten U.S.-Russian history, such as the 1918-20 Allied invasion of Soviet Russia, the book delivers a panoramic narrative of the First Cold War, showing it as an all-too avoidable catastrophe run by the imperatives of class rule and political witch-hunts. The distortion of public memory surrounding the First Cold War has set the groundwork for the New Cold War, which the book explains is a key feature, skewing the nation’s politics yet again. This is an important, necessary book, one that, by including accounts of the wisdom and courage of the First Cold War's victims and dissidents, will inspire a fresh generation of radicals in today's new, dangerously farcical times.

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"The World We Wish to See" presents a sweeping view of twentieth-century political history and a stirring appeal to take political culture seriously. Samir Amin offers a provocative analysis of resistance to capitalism and imperialism and calls for a new politics of opposition. Capitalism is a global system, so ultimately any successful challenge to it must be organized on the same level: an "internationalism of peoples."Throughout the twentieth century the socialist and communist internationals, national liberation movements, and great revolutions have presented challenges to the world order. Amin provides a succinct discussion of the successes and failures of these mobilizations, in order to assess the present struggle. Neoliberalism and the drive for military hegemony by the United States have spawned new political and social movements of resistance and attempts at international organization through the World Social Forum. Amin assesses the potential and limitations of these movements to confront global capitalism in the twenty-first century. "The World We Wish to See" makes a distinction between "political cultures and conflict" and "political cultures of consensus." A new politics of struggle is needed; one that is not afraid to confront the power of capitalism, one that is both critical and self-critical.In this persuasive argument, Amin explains that effective opposition must be based on the construction of a "convergence in diversity" of oppressed and exploited people - whether they are workers, peasants, students, or any other opponent of capitalism and imperialism. What is needed is a new "international" that has an open and flexible organizational structure to coordinate the work of opposition movements around the world."The World We Wish to See" is a bold book, calling for an international movement that can successfully transcend the current world order, in order to pursue a better world. Amin's lucid analysis provides a firm basis for furthering this objective.

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"Global Flashpoints" critically examines today's neoliberal order and the new resistance movements which it has sparked across the globe. This timely and panoramic work offers penetrating historical analysis of the role of politics, religion and imperialism in shaping the contemporary crisis in the Middle East and of the prospects for the Left throughout the Islamic world. "Global Flashpoints" also explores the present state of resistance movements in Europe and the United States and highlights developments in Latin America, including Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution, the recent uprising in Oaxaca, indigenous agrarian movements in Bolivia, and Brazil's landless movement. "Global Flashpoints" offers a uniquely powerful and provocative account of the worldwide struggle against imperialism and neoliberalism in the new century.

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"Through a Glass Darkly" was William Hinton's last book. It draws on a lifetime of immersion in Chinese politics and society, beginning with the seven years he spent in China, working mainly in agriculture and land reform, until 1953. On his return to the United States in that year, Hinton first encountered the distortions and misrepresentations of the Chinese Revolution that he examines in this book. Hinton defends the achievements of the Chinese Revolution during the three decades from 1948 to 1979 from its detractors both in the United States and, since 1979, in China itself. His starting point is the work of John K. Fairbank, for many years a professor at Harvard and the "dean of China Studies" in the United States. But it is not limited to critique. Instead, Hinton's critique of Fairbank leads into a wide-ranging examination of the nature of the transformation attempted in China, its social and political bases, and the causes and consequences of its policies in land reform, agriculture, combating famine, popular culture, industrialization, morality, and much else besides. Moving from large questions to concrete details, often drawn from his own experiences, Hinton brings everyday life in revolutionary China graphically to life. In a time when the distorted views first developed by U.S. critics of the Chinese Revolution are often propagated by the new Chinese elite themselves, "Through a Glass Darkly" has more than just historical relevance. For anyone wishing to understand present-day rivalries between the United States and China, Hinton shows how these began. This is a fitting completion of the work of a great scholar and revolutionary.

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The symptoms of the crisis of the U.S. media are well-known - a decline in hard news, the growth of info-tainment and advertorials, staff cuts and concentration of ownership, increasing conformity of viewpoint and suppression of genuine debate. McChesney's new book, The Problem of the Media, gets to the roots of this crisis, explains it, and points a way forward for the growing media reform movement.

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The essays collected in Eastern Cauldron describe and explain the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism, the fate of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and its aftermath, and above all the Palestinian conflict - in which the regional stakes are so dramatically embodied and contested. Achcar analyzes the social bases, strategies and tactics of PLO, Hizbollah, Israel and the United States from the establishment of the state of Israel to the second Intifada. He pinpoints the contradictions of the Israeli state - seeking at the same time to be Jewish and yet democratic - and the impact of these contradictions on all parties to the conflict.

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