MR Press News & Reviews
The Implosion of Contemporary Capitalism reviewed by Systemic Disorder
…[A]n international movement that brings together the peoples of the global North and the global South, with a common goal of nationalizing the monopolies that currently have a stranglehold on the world’s economy and a commitment to “de-financialization” (a “world without Wall Street”) is not only possible but indispensable, argues Samir Amin in his latest book, The Implosion of Contemporary Capitalism. These would not be ends unto themselves, but rather the first necessary steps on a long road toward a sustainable and equitable future.… | more |
Capital Accumulation and Women’s Labour in Asian Economies reviewed in Rethinking Marxism
In the context of rapid industrialization and globalization in Asia’s dynamic economies, Peter Custers’s book highlights the continuing relevance of Marxian theory to understanding the exploitation of women’s productive and reproductive work. At the same time, it critiques the silences in Marx’s work regarding the key role of women’s labor in the perpetuation of capitalism…In tracing the coevolution of capitalism and patriarchy and the different ways in which women are impacted by capitalist accumulation processes, Custers makes a noteworthy contribution to the causes of both Marxism and feminism. This book, with its rethinking of Marxist analysis to incorporate insights from feminist theories, would be a very worthy addition to the library of academics, researchers, and students of development alike.… | more |
35% off February Book of the Month! The Structural Crisis of Capital by István Mészáros
For the month of February, we’re excited to offer The Structural Crisis of Capital as our Book of the Month. This collection of essays and interviews is the perfect introduction to Mészáros’s thought and a worthy stepping stone to denser theoretical works like Beyond Capital. Mészáros discusses the trajectory of contemporary capitalism, issues related to the transition to socialism, the Venezuelan Revolution, the Great Recession, and more. Use coupon code MESZAROS2014 when you checkout and receive 35% off.… | more |
Back in Print! The Military Art of People’s War: Selected Writings of General Vo Nguyen Giap
This collection includes the major writings of General Giap, who, on the evidence of his record as well as his theoretical work, has long been recognized as one of the military geniuses of modern times. The book includes writings from the 1940s to the end of the 1960s and is presented here with a valuable historical introduction by Russell Stetler.… | more |
Back in Print! Value and Crisis: Essays on Marxian Economics in Japan by Makoto Itoh
Value and Crisis opens with a long and highly informative essay on the development of Marxian economics in Japan, and contains a number of the author’s important and original contributions to this stream of thought. Itoh discusses the major points of view on Marx’s theory of value, on theories of crisis, and on problems of Marx’s theory of market value. The essays demonstrate a wide-ranging familiarity with all the major theoretical schools of Marxist thought. In dealing with theories of crisis, for example, Itoh succinctly summarizes and criticizes the points of view of Tugan-Baranovsky, Hilferding, Bauer, Kautsky, Bukharin, and Luxemburg, as well as Grossman, Sweezy, and the Japanese Marxist Kozo Uno, together with the relevant parts of Capital. The book includes a section on the 1930s Great Depression in the context of the theoretical discussion about crisis theory.… | more |
Registering Class reviewed in The Spokesman
The Socialist Register 2014 is the 50th edition of the journal which was founded by Ralph Miliband and John Saville in 1964 to advance socialist analysis and discussion. It was an offshoot of the New Left, but reflected a different approach from that of the New Left Review editors, Perry Anderson and Tom Nairn. Over the years, it has produced a rich collection of contributions on socialist ideas.… | more |
Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War against Apartheid reviewed in the Morning Star
Alan Wieder has put his oral history expertise together with already existing material on Ruth First and Joe Slovo to construct a remarkable record of these two heroes of South African emancipation. When Nelson Mandela went to Camden Town’s Lyme Street to unveil a blue plaque on the house where they lived in exile from 1966 to 1978, he noted their description as freedom fighters. “This means they were Communists,” he explained to his audience, for some of whom this bluntly positive assessment of a political current that was supposed to be over and done was a little disquieting.… | more |
Steve Early discusses Save Our Unions on Alternative Visions Radio
Steve Early is the author of Save Our Unions: Dispatches from a Movement in Distress, recently published by Monthly Review Press. He is interviewed by Dr. Jack Rasmus, discussing the strategic implications of the past four decades of partial victories, and numerous defeats, suffered by union labor in America, and what ‘needs to be done’ going forward if unions are to rise again to play the economic and social role in the future they once did in the past. … | more |
Ruth First and Joe Slovo in the War against Apartheid reviewed in the Daily Maverick
As 2013 bled into 2014, I read two books that on the surface, had nothing to do with each other. Yet they led me to a startling realisation that made me think perhaps they should be set reading for all South Africans … a ‘history’ that should be recognised as a definitive account of the struggle era and some of its key actors, is the recently published Joe Slovo and Ruth First in the War against Apartheid, by Alan Wieder.… | more |
A Freedom Budget for All Americans reviewed by International Viewpoint
This new book, A Freedom Budget for All Americans, by Paul LeBlanc and Michael Yates looks back at a piece of history from the Civil Rights Revolution that gets little if any mention today. It’s a time worth revisiting as the proposals offered in the Freedom Budget remain unfulfilled. The Freedom Budget for All Americans was issued at a broadly endorsed conference in 1966. It was initiated by civil rights leaders A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, who co-founded the A. Philip Randolph Institute with funding from the AFL-CIO. The objective was to keep the momentum after the 1964 Civil Rights and 1965 Voting Rights Acts.… | more |
NEW! Socialist Register 2014: Registering Class, edited by Leo Panitch, Greg Albo and Vivek Chibber
For fifty years, the Socialist Register has brought together some of the world’s leading radical thinkers to address the most pressing issues of the day. Independent, searching, and erudite analysis is the hallmark of the Socialist Register, and this fiftieth-anniversary issue is no exception. Contributors to Registering Class examine some of our assumptions about class in the light of the global economic crisis and the many forms of resistance it has produced. Furthermore, they address how capitalist classes are reorganizing to respond to the economic turmoil and how the structure and composition of working classes in the twenty-first century are also changing. This volume captures the essence of the Socialist Register project and is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the shifting realities of class and class struggle today.… | more |
