May 2021 (Volume 73, Number 1)
In 1884, important figures in England’s budding socialist movement broke with the Social Democratic Federation over concealed jingoism and strong support for the British Empire. A similar division within the broad left on the issue of imperialism is threatening to reappear in our time. | more…
The Council on Foreign Relations, the Biden Team, and Key Policy Outcomes
Climate and China
We can analyze the new Biden administration, its personnel, and the policies it is likely to follow, especially on the all-important questions of the climate crisis and U.S. grand strategy toward China, by looking at the Council on Foreign Relations. | more…
Five Characteristics of Neoimperialism
Building on Lenin's Theory of Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century
Neoimperialism, the specific contemporary phase of historical development, can be summed up on the basis of five key features: the new monopoly of production and circulation; the new monopoly of finance capital; the monopoly of the U.S. dollar and intellectual property; the new monopoly of the international oligarchic alliance; and the economic essence and general trend. | more…
The Paris Commune: Marx, Mao, Tomorrow
Today the political visibility of the Paris Commune is not at all evident. At least, that is, if what we mean by “today” is the moment when we have to take up the challenge of thinking politics outside its subjection to the state and outside the framework of parties or party.… And yet the Commune was a political sequence that, precisely, did not situate itself in such a subjection or in such a framework. [To tackle] the political facts and determinations of the Commune…[it is necessary to utilize] a completely different method…[than that of the classical interpretation]. | more…
Nostalgia for what never was
A new poem by Marge Piercy. | more…
April 2021 (Volume 72, Number 11)
Many factors are involved in COVID-19 mortality rates. Nevertheless, it is clear that the more socialist-oriented countries—by prioritizing social needs and public health, plus aggressive testing, tracing, and enlisting the aid of their populations—have generally been more effective in limiting the effects of the disease on their societies. The failure of the wealthier capitalist countries to do so is largely a result of their prioritization of profits over people. | more…
Repairing the Soil Carbon Rift
Enhancing Agriculture and Environment
To create and preserve a permanent thriving agriculture for untold generations to come, it is essential to manage and care for soils using practices that build and maintain healthy soils. | more…
Building Communities of Solidarity
Bill Fletcher Jr. and Bill Gallegos interview Fernando Gapasin on race, class, and building communities of solidarity. | more…
History comes in bad cycles
A new poem by Marge Piercy. | more…
I wake to the possible
A new poem by Marge Piercy. | more…
What Sort of Kinetic Materialism Did Marx Find in Epicurus?
In his Theses on Feuerbach, Karl Marx suggests that the main flaw of all previous materialism has been to uncritically accept and champion a notion of matter that has its proper place in a dualistic framework, where matter is passive and the mind is active. If this is so, true materialism will conceive of matter as an active principle, and of material beings as perfectly capable of conscious sensation and agency. | more…