MR Press News & Reviews
Lecture by Michael A. Lebowitz on The Concept of “Fairness” [VIDEO]
Michael A. Lebowitz is the author, most recently, of The Contradictions of “Real Socialism”: The Conductor and the Conducted. This lecture was recorded at the Critical Social Research Collaborative (CSRC) Fourth Annual Conference in Critical Social Research: Faultlines of Revolution!, May 4th, 2012, Carleton University. … | more |
The Contradictions of “Real Socialism” reviewed by Socialist Resistance
It isn’t enough to blame the tragedy on the inadequate development of productive forces or on the belligerence of imperialism (what, after all, do we expect from imperialism?) Nor is a formulaic response sufficient, to simply decry 20th Century socialism as “state capitalism” or even “deformed and degenerated workers states.” What is needed instead is a serious Marxist analysis of the social relations that pertained in ‘real socialism’. In writing this book Lebowitz has made an important contribution to developing such an analysis, and one that deserves to be read and discussed widely on the left.… | more |
The Endless Crisis reviewed in The Progressive Populist
The Great Recession has ended, unlike slow/no growth. For a deeper sense of why, get a copy of The Endless Crisis: How Monopoly-Finance Capital Produces Stagnation and Upheaval from the USA to China by John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney. The duo of scholars and professors connect the dots in a radical critique of modern-day capitalism. Theirs is a rigorous analysis, empirical and theoretical, of the twin trends of slowing growth and growing tumult.… | more |
Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti reviewed in The Bullet
Drawing upon first-hand interviews with both paramilitaries, elites and their victims, and with corroboration provided by thousands of U.S. State Department documents (obtained through Freedom of Information Act document requests), Sprague’s incisive contribution to the historical record makes it all too clear how the U.S. government and a collection of local elites have consistently undermined democracy in Haiti – from the nineteenth century right through to the present day.… | more |
Walter A. Rodney Book Launch and Film Screening in NYC
Join Clairmont Chung, editor of the new book Walter A. Rodney: A Promise of Revolution and director of the documentary W.A.R. Stories: Walter A. Rodney, for a book launch and film screening on Sunday, Dec. 2nd, 7:30pm, at the Maysles Institute in New York City. … | more |
The ABCs of the Economic Crisis reviewed by the New American Movement for People with Disabilities
The ABCs of the Economic Crisis by Fred Magdoff and Michael D. Yates, despite its small size, is packed with direct, concise and simple facts as the cause of the United States’ recession in 2007. Written with the academic audience in mind, Magdoff and Yates have produced a read that is essential to all those confused by the rhetoric of economists, the media and politicians.… | more |
Steve Brouwer events in November
Join MR Press author Steve Brouwer as he discusses his book, Revolutionary Doctors: How Venezuela and Cuba are Changing the World’s Conception of Health Care, in Ithaca, Chicago, Milwaukee, and Madison. … | more |
Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital reviewed on Counterfire
There are an increasing number of helpful introductions to Capital to make it more accessible for those reluctant to jump in feet first. The German Marxist Michael Heinrich wrote this introduction in 2004, and it is very welcome that it is now available in English. One aspect of Capital that could well seem daunting is the number of terms with quite precise meanings, such as the various concepts of value, their distinction from price, or surplus value, which is not quite the same thing as profit, or even further, the various specific forms of capital. An understanding of these is not in fact difficult to acquire and Heinrich’s short book is a crisp and clear introduction to all the relevant concepts, and the very exact ways in which Marx uses them.… | more |
Video interview with Jeb Sprague
Watch Jeb Sprague, author of Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti, interviewed by David Zlutnick in San Francisco for Upheaval Productions. The conversation focuses on paramilitarism and its consequences in Haiti, but also touches on the roles of outside powers and their influence, Haiti’s vibrant social movements, and the country’s most recent developments. … | more |
The Socialist Alternative reviewed by Radical Notes
This book is part of Michael Lebowitz’s larger project of demonstrating the ever-existing necessity of a socialist transformation as the revolutionary resolution of class struggle in capitalism. It builds a theoretical foundation for such revolutionary praxis in the specific objectivity of the 21st century. Lebowitz’s previous book, Build it Now, captured and described the specificities of socialist praxis and possibilities in the Bolivarian experience of Venezuela. The Socialist Alternative can be seen as building a coherent model of an alternative by gathering and arranging the elements that are found scattered in that experience.… | more |