In this review of ‘Marxist Economic Theory’ by Ernest Mandel, Dunayevskaya criticizes Mandel’s denuding economic categories of their specifically capitalistic nature, and his distortion of Marx’s theory of crises.
Stalinism
60th International Antiwar Assembly
November 11, 2022Excerpts of the appeal from the Executive Committee for the 60th International Antiwar Assembly, together with the message of solidarity sent to the Assembly from News and Letters Committees. Against Putin’s war and for revolutionary new beginnings!
Essay: State-capitalism and the idea of freedom
September 13, 2022Wislanka reviews Lea Ypi’s ‘Free,’ a testimonial of experiencing both “socialism” and then a Western style of life in 1990’s Albania, and relates it to the present moment. The book asks what freedom means and the essay takes it deeper in the new context of wars, fascism, resistance from below and the self-development of the idea of freedom.
Left Apologetics for Putin
July 17, 2022This appendix to “Society in the Grip of Genocidal Ideology” details Putin’s genocidal ideology and how prominent Left journal “Monthly Review,” its editor John Bellamy Foster, and Noam Chomsky echo Putin’s propaganda in their apologetics for Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Essay: Society in the grip of genocidal ideology
July 5, 2022Genocidal ideology, which was manifested differently in the Buffalo mass shooting and in Putin’s war on Ukraine, has spread throughout our society, pervading the Right but also polluting the Left. How to fight this retrogression in all its forms?
Ortega jails dissidents
July 3, 2021Nicaragua’s President (for life?) Daniel Ortega, who has won three consecutive terms since returning to office 14 years ago, ruthlessly moved to consolidate his absolute hold on power in advance of the November elections by jailing four of his possible opponents, including Cristiana Chamorro.
World in view: Massacre in Tigray
January 30, 2021Thousands have died—including an undetermined number of civilians—and tens of thousands become refugees in the current conflict between Ethiopia’s central government and the regional government of Tigray. The central government of Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is being aided in its war by the Eritrean regime of long-time dictator Isaias Afwerki.
World in view, July-August 2020: Memmi’s century
July 1, 2020The great Tunisian-Jewish French writer Albert Memmi passed away May 20. Memmi’s complex identity registered the tensions of his century.
Essay: What is Socialism? Socialism and a philosophy of revolution
March 10, 2019What is socialism? From Left to Right, this question is becoming central to political discussion. For me, it raises another question, too: What is philosophy? This is where I will begin, with the young Karl Marx.
What Is Socialism? Socialism and Philosophy
March 3, 2019This is the first in a series of four presentations on “What is Socialism?” Shorter versions will be published in News & Letters. The second essay is “Socialism, labor and the Black dimension”; the third is “Socialism and ecology”; and the last is “Socialism and Women’s Liberation.”
Massacre of Jews measures the inhumanity of capitalism
October 29, 2018The Oct. 27 massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue was a modern pogrom, with assault weapons, social media presence, and poisoned roots in the current stage of world counter-revolution represented by Trump, Putin, and their like.
Essay: Marx’s Marxism vs. Trump-Putin’s barbarism
March 21, 2017Trump’s barbarism in power is a crisis for bourgeois democracy and revolutionary thought. Opposition from below is far deeper than bourgeois opposition to Trump. To have efficacy today, Marx’s body of ideas must be grasped and projected as a whole. The movement from theory needs to meet the challenge of history, of freedom struggles and revolution.
Review: ‘The Value of Radical Theory’ by Wayne Price
March 11, 2015Price presents a clear explanation of what Marx wrote in Capital about the capitalist mode of production…He correctly sees state capitalism as the final stage of the capitalist mode of production, where private capitalist property is replaced by state capitalist ownership of the means of production and distribution.
Readers’ Views, March-April 2015, Part 1
March 8, 2015Revolt and Counter-Revolution, from Greece to Syria; Here Come the Reformers; Women’s Freedom; Against Racism
Women as Reason: 60 years of News & Letters, the women’s dimension
January 28, 2015As we celebrate 60 years of publishing News & Letters, a look back at the Women’s Liberation Movement encountering Marxist-Humanism and how the women’s movement was anticipated as well as documented in its pages. It is an ongoing perspective.
Essay: Karl Marx’s ground for organization
August 30, 2014Today’s vital debate about revolutionary organization is illuminated by Marx’s concept of organization in his “Critique of the Gotha Program.”
Ukraine: New Unions and Democratic Left meet
February 25, 2014Kiev was host to an historic international gathering of workers’ organizations from four formerly Soviet nations that demonstrated the development of a new independent labor movement in Ukraine, now very active in the huge democratic-revolutionary movement.
Arab Spring and the missing link of philosophy
May 4, 2013Tunisia, Syria and Egypt show the determination of the masses to continue their revolutions in the face of vicious counter-revolution.
Free Pussy Riot from Russian jail!
September 18, 2012World in View
by Gerry Emmett
Three members of the punk band/art collective Pussy Riot were each sentenced to two years in prison on Aug. 17, accused of “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred.” On Feb. 13, they had entered the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow and cried out “Our Lady, chase Putin out!” They were [=>]
Kim dynasty drags on
February 11, 2012From the January-February 2012 issue of News & Letters:
World in View
Kim dynasty drags on
by Gerry Emmett
The body of late North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il will be placed on display in Pyongyang, beside that of his father Kim Il-sung. The official news agency reported “natural wonders” following Kim’s death, including that “…a Manchurian crane [=>]
The masses as Reason
November 14, 2011As Others See Us
This review by Abe Cabrera is excerpted from a Sept. 20, 2011, post on his blog, The Rose in the Crosshttp://elblogdelpelon.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/the-masses-as-reason/
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Raya Dunayevskaya’s book, Marxism and Freedom: From 1776 Until Today, is the founding document of a small political movement, Marxist-Humanism. Opposed equally to the tyranny of “ordinary” capitalism and its counterpart in the [=>]
American Civilization on Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard
December 16, 2010Part of the classic American Civilization on Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard, written by Raya Dunayevskaya, has been posted on the web at the Marxists Internet Archive. The entire book can be obtained from News and Letters Committees.
This was excerpted from Part V, “From Depression Through World War II.”
Source: American Civilization on Trial, Part V “From Depression Through [=>]