Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Absolute Impunity: On The Legacies Of 9/11 & The Policies Of The War On/Of Terror, Bryant William Sculos

Class, Race and Corporate Power

It has been a little over twenty years since the attacks of September 11, 2001, and thus we are also going to be coming up on twentieth anniversaries of some of the most heinous restrictions on civil liberties in US history (though there is a lot of competition) and the twentieth anniversaries of instance after instance of unjustifiable atrocities committed in the name of the Stars and Stripes. Through autoethnographic reflection in conversation with Netflix’s Turning Point: 9/11 and the War on Terror (2021) and Spencer Ackerman’s Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump (2021), …

Louis Proyect: A Fierce And Uncompromising Spirit, Jeffrey St. Clair

Class, Race and Corporate Power

This is a tribute to Louis Proyect by Jeffrey St. Clair, published originally in Counterpunch, August 30, 2021. Louis contributed film reviews to this journal, with his usual wit, flair and unadorned appreciation for works of art that have a political and artistic passion. We had the pleasure of conversing with Louis on social media. He will be missed.

The Owners Phony Proposal Will Not Address Competitive Balance, Ronald W. Cox

Class, Race and Corporate Power

The owners of major league baseball are once again negotiating with the MLB Players Association to draft a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, as the current agreement expires on December 1, 2021. This article dissects the opening “pitch” that the owners have recently made to the players at the beginning of this negotiating process, locating the owner-player battle in the context of how revenue is distributed within the business of baseball.

This article was originally published in Just Baseball in August of 2021.

Eleven Theses On Socialist Revolution, Chris Wright

Class, Race and Corporate Power

It is an open question whether socialism will ever exist on a national or international scale. But if it will, it will come about in ways different from what both Marxists and anarchists have traditionally thought. In this article I present eleven "theses" regarding how it might be possible for the world to achieve an economically democratic civilization in an era of unprecedented crisis. In the process, I try to explain what has gone wrong with attempted socialist revolutions in the past.

This is reprinted with permission. The article originally appeared in Counterpunch, August 27, 2021.

Realizing A Green New Deal: Lessons From World War Ii, Martin Hart-Landsberg

Class, Race and Corporate Power

Many activists in the United States are working to build a movement for a Green New Deal transformation of the economy in order to tackle both global warming and the country’s worsening economic and social problems. To this point, Green New Deal advocates have been far more interested in discussing the programs to be included than in how to achieve the desired transformation. Helpfully, we have the experience of World War II to provide some guideposts. This paper begins by highlighting the enormity and speed of the US economy’s wartime transformation from civilian to military production. Then, it describes the …

Poverty In The High-Income Countries: A Marxist Alternative To Mainstream Ideologies, Jamie A. Gough, Aram Eisenschitz

Class, Race and Corporate Power

Poverty has been present in all the advanced capitalist countries since the dawn of industrial capitalism in the late 18C, and remains so to this day. Mainstream explanations of this phenomenon are superficial and mistake symptoms for causes. In this article we present a Marxist explanation of poverty in the high-income countries since the late 19C. We show how poverty is systematically produced by the dynamics of capital accumulation and the capital-labour relation, including their spatial dynamics, operating in the realms of production, social reproduction, and their mediations by the state. Since poverty is produced by the totality of society, …

Canadian Financial Imperialism And Structural Adjustment In The Caribbean, Tamanisha J. John

Class, Race and Corporate Power

From the start of the early 1980s, structural adjustment was already normalized in the Caribbean given the power of a variety of self-interested actors, including the U.S., IFIs, and Canadian investors who continued to advance and support— by any means necessary— structural adjustment policies in the Caribbean. Debt traps, coupled with incursions on Caribbean state’s sovereignty would see the neoliberal and capitalist doctrine accepted by all of the independent states in the English-speaking Caribbean region by the mid-1980s. Structural adjustment drastically intensified the existing inequalities in states and removed the ability for governments to alleviate these situations. Alongside Caribbean structural …

A Review Of Shlomo Avineri, "Karl Marx: Philosophy And Revolution” (Yale University Press, 2019), Daniel Skidmore-Hess

Class, Race and Corporate Power

A review essay of Shlomo Avineri's "Karl Marx: Philosophy and Revolution" (Yale University Press, 2019)

Capitalism And Neo-Fascism, Ronald W. Cox

Class, Race and Corporate Power

Originally published on "The View from Left Field."

The growth of global far right political movements poses a threat to humanity. To defeat these movements, we need to understand their origins and their relationship to capitalist structures of power. Should political leaders like Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro be labeled “far right” or “fascist?” In this post, I will defend the use of “neo-fascist” to define both Trump and Bolsonaro, as well as movements closely linked to them, such as the Brexit movement in Britain.

Which Side Are You On? The Answer Is Clear For Today’S Useful Idiots For The Right, Tony Belletier

Class, Race and Corporate Power

This article is reprinted with permission from Washington Babylon. It is the second in a weeklong series. Read Part I here.

Our thanks to the author, Tony Belletier as well as Ken Silverstein, Editor of Washington Babylon.

The Fbi, Fred Hampton And The Mythology Of The Panthers, Louis Proyect

Class, Race and Corporate Power

This piece has been reprinted from CounterPunch and is a review of Judas and the Black Messiah by Louis Proyect. Thanks to CounterPunch and Louis Proyect for allowing us to reprint this here.

Criticizing Past And Modern Ideology Through Twisted Comedy Series: A Case Of "Comrade Detective", Damian Winczewski, Slawomir Czapnik

Class, Race and Corporate Power

The objective of the paper is to solve the interpretative controversies around Comrade Detective, one of the most original TV entertainment productions of the recent years. This production is a pastiche of American buddy police films. The plot refers to the reality of the socialist Romania in the 1980s and presents in a satirical way the local militia’s fight against the American threat. We have attempted to prove that its not only deriding the reality of the political system, but the series constitutes also a satire on American propaganda films. Although the humour in the series seems vulgar and …

Mexico's Fate Amid U.S. – China Competition, Kathleen C. Schwartzman

Class, Race and Corporate Power

What is Mexico’s future in the face of global hierarchical shifts. Mexico has existed in a dependent relationship with the United States since the beginning of the 20th century. Mexico’s dependency evolved in tandem with the U.S.’ rise to power. That U.S. dominance is being challenged in the 21st century, thus offering Mexico a chance for a different development path. Drawing on elements from world-systems, dependency, and political economy theories, I consider three possible trajectories: Mexico will develop more autonomously; it will become dependent on China; or it will experience stagnation. Using international and governmental data sets, reports from U.S. …

Marxism And The Solidarity Economy: Toward A New Theory Of Revolution, Chris Wright

Class, Race and Corporate Power

In the twenty-first century, it is time that Marxists updated the conception of socialist revolution they have inherited from Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Slogans about the “dictatorship of the proletariat” “smashing the capitalist state” and carrying out a social revolution from the commanding heights of a reconstituted state are completely obsolete. In this article I propose a reconceptualization that accomplishes several purposes: first, it explains the logical and empirical problems with Marx’s classical theory of revolution; second, it revises the classical theory to make it, for the first time, logically consistent with the premises of historical materialism; third, it provides …

The Political Economy Of The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election, Michael Roberts

Class, Race and Corporate Power

This article examines the demographic data behind the 2020 election and forecasts the limitations on the Biden administration for dealing with the economic fallout of COVID. Finally, the article argues that without an economic revolution, the US may be slated to return to the low growth, low investment, and low wage-growth economy of the previous ten years.

Find more of Roberts' work at "The Next Recession."