The Unbearable Unawareness of our Ecological Existential Crisis

Over the past two years, the full report on Climate Change Mitigation by IPCC scientists, as well as research from other centres such as the Stockholm Resilience Centre, has consistently confirmed that we are on a doomsday trajectory. Unless we move rapidly in the opposite direction, the chances that we will face planetary catastrophes that seriously threaten the existence of life on our planet in the next twenty years are realistic and probable. Unsustainable capitalism keeps us deluded and largely unaware that we are on the brink of a serious existential risk. Therefore the great challenge is to provoke the awareness and critical thinking of ordinary citizens. Only a Citixens Revolution can stop our demise, but capitalism’s behemoth keeps people deceitful and mostly unaware of being on the verge of a catastrophic end. We must arouse Now! –– Álvaro J. de Regil

Controversial Demographic Projections Under Climate Collapse in 2050 - South and Mesoamerica in a Global Context

The corporate sector is building another aggressive re-engineering of global agrifood systems in South America and Mesoamerica. The region represents a pillar for global food security, warns the UN in the New Mission. Capitalist euphoria assumes 10 billion inhabitants by 2050. This is forging higher agricultural productivity, innovation, digitalisation and the expansion of standardised agriculture. Thus, they produce and market food destined for populations with some or enough consumption capacity, overconsumption and waste of food with equivalent carbon footprints. –– Nubia Barrera Silva

Spiral of contradictions between financialised capitalism and rural smallholdings in South and Mesoamerica

Irreversible destruction of the Earth's soil food webs leads to drought and collapse of global food security. The logic of peripheral capitalism slips through the cracks of economic growth without development... Thus we have a direct correlation between the dispossession of land, the alienation of the rural workforce and the loss of food sovereignty. — Nubia Barrera Silva

Urban Commons and Collective Action to Address Climate Change

Community centres can have a key role in the social mobilisation of community climate commons. Group-based learning on climate change is more effective than individual learning. We deal with three types of urban commons, i.e., “urban green commons,” “coworking spaces,” and “community climate commons.” — Johan Colding, Stephan Barthel, Robert Ljung, Felix Eriksson and Stefan Sjöberg

The Case for Universal Basic Services

This paper shifts the focus from transfers to public services. It mounts a case for Universal Basic Services (UBS): a proposal to safeguard and develop existing public services and to extend this model of provision into new areas. The first part argues that public services require a distinct conceptual justification and sets this out in terms of shared human needs and a foundational economy. The second part develops the normative arguments for UBS, in terms of efficiency, equality, solidarity and sustainability. The third part considers some of the issues to be faced in delivering UBS and the role of state institutions, with brief service provisions. The final section summarises some developments, including experience of Covid-19, which might enhance the political impetus for UBS. –– Ian Gough

World Development under Monopoly Capitalism

In the recent period of globalisation - following the collapse of the Eastern bloc and the reintegration of China into the world economy - global value chains have become the dominant organisational form of capitalism. From low-tech to high-tech, from basic consumer goods to heavy capital goods, from food to services, goods are now produced in many countries, integrated through global value chains. According to the ILO, between 1995 and 2013 the number of people employed in global value chains increased from 296 million to 453 million, representing one in five jobs in the world economy. We live in a world of global value chains. -- Benjamin Selwyn and Dara Leyden

Transitioning to Geocratia — the People and Planet and Not the Market Paradigm — First Steps

Parting from the fact that saving Planet Earth, our home, changes everything, we need to build a new ethos where the majority of humankind commits to a system whose only purpose is the pursuit of the welfare of people and Planet Earth. This requires that all Earth resources necessary for the enjoyment of life of all living things be managed to achieve true long-term sustainability. — Álvaro J. de Regil

Population in the IPCC’s new mitigation report.

A new IPCC climate change mitigation report confirms that population increase and economic growth are the main drivers of today’s historically high greenhouse gas emissions. — Philip Cafaro

Just Transition Is About Systemic Change

Since the 1970s, a term has gained prominence as workers have forced governments to look at the social side to their environmental policies: just transition. Today the term is everywhere, its meaning at once elusive but also key to facing the multiple crises of environmental breakdown, social injustice, and global inequality. In a forthcoming collection on the concept and practice, Dirk Holemans unpicks just transition as cause for Greens. –– Dirk Holemans

Planned Degrowth: Ecosocialism and Sustainable Human Development

The word degrowth designates a family of political-economic approaches which, in the face of the acceleration of the current planetary ecological crisis, reject exponential and unlimited economic growth as the definition of human progress. With continuous technological development and the improvement of human capabilities, mere replacement investment is capable of promoting constant qualitative advances in production in mature industrial societies, while eliminating exploitative labour conditions and reducing working hours. Degrowth, which is specifically targeted at the most affluent sectors of the world's population, is thus aimed at improving the living conditions of the vast majority, while maintaining environmental conditions of existence and promoting sustainable human development. –– John Bellamy Foster

Marketocracy and the Capture of People and Planet — The acceleration of Twenty-First Century Monopoly Capital Fascism through the pandemic and the Great Reset

This study examines the trajectory that the world has followed since neoliberalism was imposed on humanity half a century ago, assessing the subsequent motivations—and their consequences for humanity and the planet as a whole—of key global elite groups and individuals (Gates, Musk, Bezos and the World Economic Forum, and its proclaimed "Fourth Industrial Revolution" through "The Great Reset") who have powerful influence on the world's governments. We live in dangerous times on our planet that threaten the future of all living things, but there is a way to avoid such a future –––– Álvaro J. de Regil

Lithium and the Contradictions in the Energy Transition that Devastate the Global South In Favour of the Global North

Green Capitalism is a Hoax, because switching to batteries is not sustainable and it keeps depredating the ecosystems. — Nubia Barrera Silva

Let the cities move by pedalling

The way urban space is configured has an immediate effect on our quality of life. In Spain alone there are more than 30,000 premature deaths associated with poor air quality. Let's get the bikes on our streets. –– Samuel Romero Aporta

The New Irrationalism

More than a century after the commencement of the Great Crisis of 1914–1945, represented by the First World War, the Great Depression, and Second World War, we are seeing a sudden resurgence of war and fascism across the globe. The capitalist world economy as a whole is now characterised by deepening stagnation, financialization, and soaring inequality. All of this is accompanied by the prospect of planetary omnicide in the dual forms of nuclear holocaust and climate destabilisation. In this dangerous context, the very notion of human reason is frequently being called into question. It is therefore necessary to address once again the question of the relation of imperialism or monopoly capitalism to the destruction of reason and the ramifications of this for contemporary class and anti-imperialist struggles. –– John Bellamy Foster

Is Population Crucial for Degrowth?

Most proponents of degrowth tend to avoid the population factor, many of them fearful of being perceived as Malthusian. This is not the case. However, in the context of a genuinely democratic ethos, we must incorporate population degrowth into the core of any degrowth imaginary, as we are the preeminent source of our planet's unsustainable consumption. If people become aware of the existential danger we face, we expect that many will choose to embark on a transition that includes gradual population degrowth as a key driver of our trajectory. If the majority refuses, that is always their right. In such a case, we will have to face the consequences of significantly reducing the chances of achieving a safe and just transition-ecologically safe for all species and socially just for people, especially in the Global South-to avoid the obvious existential threat we face. –– Álvaro J. de Regil

Africa boasts examples of ecological resilience

Despite its low pollution levels, the black continent is much more committed to ecological transition than many other territories tied to their old patterns of industrial production. Despite its low pollution levels, the black continent is much more committed to ecological transition than many other territories tied to their old patterns of industrial production. — Johari Gautier Carmona

Where We Mine: Resource Politics in Latin America

As the drive to expand renewable energy capacity speeds up, there is a rush for lithium and other materials around the world. What will the expansion of rare earth mining in Latin America mean for the indigenous communities and workers who have historically borne the harms of extractivism? Thea Riofrancos, author of Resource Radicals (Duke University Press, 2020), explains how the energy transition in the Global North risks being anything but just without structural changes to supply chains and the governance of extractive industries. –– Annabelle Dawson – Thea Riofrancos

There will be no ecological transition without a social and labour transition

At present, hardly anyone doubts the need for an ecological transition. Environmental denialism, although it exists, seems to be in retreat in the face of overwhelming evidence of the negative effects of our way of life on nature. The energy model must be changed. But even more urgent is a transformation that addresses the limitation of wealth, consumption and the necessary sharing of labour. –– Vicente López

Trees and the ‘Net-Zero‘ Emissions Hoax

The trees of the forest, a natural paradise of complex plant engineering under the deception of 'net zero' emissions in the Amazon. The irreconcilable contradictions of capital. — Nubia Barrera Silva

Decent Living Standards: Material Prerequisites for Human Wellbeing

A normative basis to develop minimum wage and reference budgets, and to assess the environmental impacts—such as climate change—of eradicating poverty. — Narasimha D. Rao and Jihoon Min

Urban Green Commons for Socially Sustainable Cities and Communities

In these times of global pandemics and climate crisis, social sustainability has become a crucial issue within various sectors and disciplines. This article aims to broaden debates on social sustainability in general, and in relation to community work within professional social work in particular. Through an interdisciplinary craft approach - with a focus on the commons - we aim to build a holistic view of urban social sustainability, remixing arguments and examples concerning social sustainability with environmental and spatial dimensions to develop an urban green commons. –– Stephan Barthel, Johan Colding, Anne Sofie Hiswåls, Peder Thalén and Päivi Turunen

On energy transitions and ecological transition

A notable editorial in Nature, in March 2022, vindicates the 1972 study The Limits to Growth (the first of the reports to the Club of Rome) and notes that "although there is now a consensus on the irreversible effects of human activities on the environment, researchers disagree on solutions, especially if these involve slowing economic growth. This disagreement prevents action. It is time for researchers to put an end to their debate. The world needs them to focus on the larger goals of halting catastrophic environmental destruction and improving well-being". The Nature editorial goes on to argue that the debate today, having accepted the existence of biophysical limits to growth, centres on two main positions, green growth versus degrowth, and that they should make an effort to dialogue with each other. –– Jorge Riechmann

Note on the Limits To Growth

Capitalist growth must stop. But “Any human activity that does not require a large flow of irreplaceable resources or produce severe environmental degradation might continue to grow indefinitely”. The general message of The Limits to Growth is not to be faulted, namely that humanity, if it is to save itself, must enter “a period of great transition,” the “transition from growth to...a desirable, sustainable state of global equilibrium”. — The Editors of Monthly Review

Marx’s Critique of Enlightenment Humanism: A Revolutionary Ecological Perspective

Marx’s materialist perspective was ecological from inception: humanalienation from nature was simply the other side of the coin of the alienation of labor. Marx’s analysis was thus unique in offering a higher synthesis envisioning the reconciliation of humanism and naturalism, humanity and nature. — John Bellamy Foster

Two Scenarios for Sustainable Welfare: A Framework for an Eco-Social Contract

More nation states are now committing to zero net carbon by 2050 at the latest, which is encouraging, but none have faced up to the transformation of economies, societies and lives that this will entail. This article considers two scenarios for a fair transition to net zero, concentrating only on climate change, and discusses the implications for contemporary ‘welfare states’. The first is the Green New Deal framework coupled with a ‘social guarantee’. I argue that expanded public provision of essential goods and services would be a necessary component of this strategy. The second scenario goes further to counteract runaway private consumption by building a sufficiency economy with ceilings to income, wealth and consumption. This would require a further extension of state capacities and welfare state interventions. The article provides a framework for comparing and developing these two very different approaches. –– Ian Gough

The irrelevance of animals

So-called "laboratory meat" is simultaneously generating great expectations and concerns. The huge investment and research efforts of economically powerful private initiatives have uncovered an important economic niche waiting to be exploited. The promoters of the market for laboratory meat or meat derived from vegetable products have seen in their ethical and ecological foundations the great lever that will mobilise consumers on a massive scale towards their products. The growth in supply and speculation around these products responds, among other factors, to two very different pressures: on the one hand, the climatic behaviour of meat production. On the other hand, the growing pressure from animal and vegan groups on the living and dying conditions of the animals that are raised for their consumption. –– Pedro M. Herrera

Human well-being and climate change mitigation

Well-being approaches that focus on capabilities and human needs are better suited to inform climate change mitigation research than hedonistic or happiness approaches. — William F. Lamb and Julia K. Steinberger

Anthropocene, Capitalocene, and Other “-Cenes”

Why a Correct Understanding of Marx’s Theory of Value Is Necessary to Leave the Planetary Crisis. Why a Correct Understanding of Marx’s Theory of Value Is Necessary to Leave the Planetary Crisis. — Carles Soriano

The Fishing Revolution and the Origins of Capitalism

Historians “have grossly underestimated the historical economic significance of the fish trade, which may have been equal to the much more famed rush to exploit the silver mines of the Incas.” The Fish Revolution was “a major event in the history of resource extraction and consumption…[which] permanently changed human and animal life in the North Atlantic region.” He adds that “the wider seafood market was transformed in the process, and the marine expansion of humans across the North Atlantic was conditioned by significant climatic and environmental parameters. The Fish Revolution is one of the clearest early examples of how humans can affect marine life on our planet and of how marine life can in return influence and become, in essence, a part of a globalising human world.” –– Ian Angus

The United States of War

Between 1980 and 2020, two U.S. wars and sanctions in Iraq and the U.S. war in Afghanistan killed more than two million people. Washington’s proxy wars in Angola, Mozambique, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Syria resulted in roughly nine million deaths. U.S. military interventions, support for client states and rebels, and related famines in Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Nigeria cost the lives of another five million people. The U.S. Empire’s role in the collapse of most socialist regimes [including the imposition of economic shock therapy] made it partly responsible for well over seven million deaths. “Imperialism,” Magdoff wrote in 1969, “necessarily involves militarism. Indeed, they are twins that have fed on each other in the past, as they do now.” To combat the spread of militarism and war throughout the globe today, it is necessary to confront the imperialist world system centred in Washington. –– The Editors of Monthly Review

Vegan capitalism: food multinationals and BlackRock

After seducing the population with the "wonders" of veganism, transnational meat producers and investors are presenting themselves as substitutes for the vegan diet. — Gustavo Duch

Paradise Lost? — The iron cage of consumerism

To resist economic growth is to court economic and social collapse. To pursue it relentlessly is to endanger the ecosystems on which we depend for long-term survival. Our systematic failure to address existential anxiety robs society of meaning and blinds us to the suffering of others; to persistent poverty; to the extinction of species; to the health of global ecosystems. With this think piece, Tim Jackson adds to an eclectic set of essays, published in honour of Wolfgang Sachs. — Tim Jackson

Ten Questions About Marx—More Than Twenty Years After Marx’s Ecology

Roberto Andrés: I have long wanted to interview you about a book that was decisive in my intellectual formation: Marx’s Ecology. This book was published in 2000 in English and immediately translated into Spanish and inaugurated what has become known as second generation ecosocialism, which recognises the ecological conception of Karl Marx, unlike the previous generation. However, in the more than twenty years since, Marx’s Ecology not only opened a wide debate but was also the object of multiple criticisms (it could not be otherwise). –– John Bellamy Foster: I am of course pleased to provide answers to your questions with respect to Marx and my book Marx’s Ecology two decades after its publication. My views have remained generally the same, though they naturally have been refined over the years. Nevertheless, I am glad to offer some clarifications. ––John Bellamy Foster and Roberto Andrés

News What Every Child Should Know About Marx's Theory of Value

The law of value works in mysterious ways. For some Marxists, it underlies everything we need to know about capitalism. But, just as Karl Marx claimed he was not a Marxist, so too might he have said, “that’s not my law of value.”

It Is All about the Allocation of Labour

Every child knows that any nation that stopped working, not for a year, but let us say, just for a few weeks, would perish. And every child knows, too, that the amounts of products corresponding to the differing amounts of needs demand differing and quantitatively determined amounts of society’s aggregate labour.

—Karl Marx

Every child in Marx’s day might have heard about Robinson Crusoe. That child might have heard that on his island Robinson had to work if he was not to perish, that he had “needs to satisfy.” To this end, Robinson had to “perform useful labours of various kinds”: he made means of production (tools), and he hunted and fished for immediate consumption. These were diverse functions, but all were “only different modes of human labour,” his labour. From experience, he developed Robinson’s Rule: “Necessity itself compels him to divide his time with precision between his different functions.” Thus, he learned that the amount of time spent on each activity depended upon its difficulty—that is, how much labour was necessary to achieve the desired effect. Given his needs, he learned how to allocate his labour in order to survive.

As it was for Crusoe, so it is for society. Every society must allocate its aggregate labour in such a way as to obtain the amounts of products corresponding to the differing amounts of its needs. As Marx commented, “In so far as society wants to satisfy its needs, and have an article produced for this purpose, it has to pay for it.… It buys them with a certain quantity of the labour-time that it has at its disposal.” It must allocate “differing and quantitatively determined” amounts of labour to the production of goods and services for direct consumption and a similarly determined quantity of labour for the production and reproduction of means of production.

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Research and analysis to provoke public awareness and critical thinking

We contribute to the liberalisation of the democratic instituions of society, for they have been captured by the owners of the market. They work in tandem with their market agents, who, posing as public servants, are entrenched in the halls of government. The political class has betrayed its public mandate and instead operates to impose a marketocratic state to maximise the shareholder value of the institutional investors of international financial markets. They own the global corporations and think they own the world on behalf of their very private interest.

Our spheres of action: true democracy – true sustainability – living wage – basic income – inequality – ecological footprint – degrowth – global warming –human development – corporate accountability – civil, political, economic, social, cultural and environmental rights, responsible consumption, sustainable autonomous citizen cells...

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Parting from an ethos of true democracy and true sustainability, We, the citizenry, work to advance the paradigm whose only purpose is to go in pursuit of the welfare of People and Planet and NOT the market.

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Textile Sweatshops in the US
Textile Sweatshops in the US
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The End of Seasons?

Extreme temperatures and events such as Hurricane Daniel tell us we are approaching a point of no return. There is a good chance that in 2023, we will exceed the 1.5°C limit [and we have exceeded it].
 

We take such pride in our enormous technical advances that we have formed a kind of dogma: technology will always come to the rescue of progress. But we hardly want to face an increasingly evident feeling. This locomotive of history we are travelling in is more like a bullet train, and it is going so fast that there are hardly any stations left for nature and all of us on it to stop at. We are already feeling it: in our sweaty skin, in the tropical sleepless nights that go on forever, in the crop failures that drive up the cost of living, in the fires, floods, hurricanes and hailstorms that are getting stronger and more frequent. And this is only the beginning. We have stepped so far on the gas that the atmosphere is becoming unbreathable, and the fourseasons are already looking like two. The bullet train is taking on an increasingly perverse double meaning.

More wood. More coal. More oil. More minerals, even if there are not enough to go around. More and faster. More progress and, of course, more growth. Always. To infinity. Consequently, anomalies and extreme phenomena are also increasing. And now September is already another month of summer. And October is on its way to becoming one, too.

The climate situation on the planet is anything but ordinary...

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The Left and the Imperial Mode of Living

NEW PROGRESSIVISM IN IBERIAN AMERICA AND EUROPE

The question of freedom is crucial for an emancipatory strategy and an emancipatory project. Andreas Novy (2018) emphasises that the imperial mode of living is not only related to material well-being; its appeal also lies in the fact that it enables, or at least promises, individual freedom rights and a "self-determined way of living within a society of competition" (ibid.: 54), i.e. the absence of paternalism and the promise of individuality and autonomy in their particular way of life. At the same time, the imperial mode of living breaks with the universal norm of equality based on human rights; it represents freedom tantamount to not touching one's way of life and sacrosanct consumption. This aspect has not been sufficiently elucidated in our work, which is more focused on social structures and the practices and routines of everyday life. The current rediscovery of Karl Polanyi in critical debates has to do with this challenge for the left: What does it mean to act and live responsibly in a society characterised by the systematic production of irresponsibility? (Brie, 2018) A relevant political question is: How can we maintain individuality without living at the expense of others? (Novy, 2018).

Our approach to the imperial mode of living has to be read as a contribution to progressive struggles and the search for substantial alternatives, as an analytical-political background for understanding why a fundamental emancipatory socio-ecological transformation is needed, and why, against the background of historical and current experiences, a deeper reflection on strategies is required.

We place ourselves in the tradition of revolutionary realpolitik (Rosa Luxemburg) and radical reformism (Joachim Hirsch), insisting that a counter-hegemonic project of radical transformation has to develop through concrete change and struggles that take place on different levels. We insist that, apart from explicit politicalcontradictory consciousness andeveryday life are inescapableand social struggles, the actions of human beings in points of view for radical transformation. Often, this leads to changes that are not very spectacular but acquire their relevance on a collective level, both socially and politically, as social movements or within existing organisations.

First and foremost, radical transformation does not come about through existing political and economic institutions but through different conflicts that actors fighting for emancipation fight and win against the defenders of the status quo.

 

 

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Why do materialistic values undermine flow experiences? The role of self-regulatory resources

Research has shown that the possession of materialistic values can lead individuals to be less likely to experience flow, an important component of well-being. Flow describes a state of total immersion in an optimally challenging activity. It requires effort to achieve, as individuals must acquire the necessary skills to effectively engage with a challenging task and choose to dedicate all of their attention to it. Once in flow, individuals may experience a lack of boundaries between themselves and the action they are performing and temporarily lose awareness of time and their everyday worries. Flow experiences are intrinsically rewarding. Flow experiences have long been considered as beneficial for wellbeing, having been linked to greater self-confidence, higher life satisfaction and greater positive affect, amongst others.

Despite the beneficial nature of flow, emerging evidence is suggesting that individuals holding strong materialistic values are less able to have these experiences. Individuals with strong materialistic values hold firm beliefs concerning the importance of acquiring material goods to achieve happiness and status. It has been demonstrated that highly materialistic students in the US and India felt more alienated (separated from own experience) during their work, leisure, and personal relationships, compared to their less materialistic counterparts.

Difficulties in experiencing flow may have detrimental effects for the wellbeing of more materialistic individuals. Indeed, strong materialistic values have been negatively linked to many facets of personal wellbeing such as self-esteem, life satisfaction and positive affect. In this research we test several hypotheses concerning the potential mediating factors in this relationship.

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The New Cold War Washington Consensus

On April 27, 2023, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan gave a speech on “Renewing American Economic Leadership” at the Brookings Institution. Sullivan’s talk was unusual and attracted widespread attention for at least three reasons. First, what was being announced was a fundamental shift away from the previous “Washington Consensus” associated with neoliberal globalisation and its replacement by what Sullivan called a “New Washington Consensus” organised around the de facto U.S. New Cold War against China. The purported China threat was used to justify economic sanctions against rival states, and government supply-side subsidies to corporations in a militarised industrial policy. Second, such a major departure in overall U.S. economic policy was issued not by the president or by a top economic official, but by the U.S. National Security Adviser, evidence of the primacy of New Cold War thinking. Third, to justify Washington’s new stance,Sullivan laid out a number of “challenges” or crises facing the United States, including economic stagnation, deindustrialization, climate change, growing inequality, and waning U.S. hegemony.

In presenting the New Cold War strategy, Sullivan insists that all of this is simply necessary to compete effectively with China, both economically and strategically, and that “we are not looking for confrontation or conflict.” However, such declarations of benign intent are contradicted by the sheer aggressiveness of Washington with respect to Taiwan. The Biden administration has repeatedly sent military vessels and aircraft through the Taiwan Strait, which the People’s Republic of China under the One China policy—agreed to by the United States along with 180 other countries—recognises as its territory, although the island is under an autonomous government. Sullivan’s National Security Council is a nest of China hawks, most of whom have written books and articles on confronting Beijing and all of whom speak of bellicose competition with, if not all-out warfare on, China.

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 Transitioning to Geocratia — the
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Frederick Engels: The First Marxist?

As activists ponder how much we can draw from the first volume of Karl Marx’s Capital, a little more than 150 years after its publication, we should reflect also on how much we owe to Marx’s comrade of forty years, Frederick Engels (1820–95). Without his mental, moral, and material support, Marx might well never have completed even that volume, which Engels revised for its third (1883) and fourth (1890) German editions. He also had to edit the second and third volumes, which Marx had been too ill to complete, guiding them to publication in 1885 and 1894. In the meantime, he oversaw an English translation of the first volume (1886–87.

From the respectful attention that Engels gave to Marx’s discoveries, no less than from his own extensions of them in tune with fresh actualities, we learn how to better interpret both evidence and concepts for guiding change toward the communist ideals that Engels had absorbed before meeting Marx in 1844.74 Furthermore, the roles that Engels filled as organiser, economist, and polemicist in the development of Western labor movements illumine how we can best honor his memory and his contributions to Capital. In the words of one biographer, Engels “wanted no monument other than the coming socialist revolution.”

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If Climate Policy Isn’t Social, It Fails

An interview...

Economic anthropologist Jason Hickel is a prominent advocate of degrowth: the theory that, if we wish to secure our wellbeing and the health of the planet, we must abandon our capitalist obsession with economic growth. His premise is clear: if we acknowledge the seriousness of the climate crisis, we must also accept the need to radically transform our economies. Here is the interview.

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Why strike action is climate action

Striking pushes against the core capitalist dynamics also responsible for global warming, CUSP researcher Simon Mair writes. Reducing fossil fuel use will not happen without a major shift in the centres of power. Strike action is one way to build towards these shifts, and in this way can be a precursor to stronger climate action.


Taking strike action is difficult. Some difficulties are obvious: sacrificing my pay as a lecturer creates immediate financial difficulties. Other difficulties are more hidden, like the pervasive anxiety of a strike day as emails roll in.

Strike-breaking colleagues remind me about pressing deadlines and students ask about class, marks, supervisions. I feel guilty for letting them down. Again, there is the threat of financial instability: will Ibe punished for papers I haven’t written, the student work I haven’t marked, the grants I haven’t submitted?

This is all compounded by the sense that when I stop working I stop contributing in some small way to action on environmental issues which, for me, is the point of my academic career. My research aims to support efforts to build a different, more sustainable, economic system. Through my teaching I aim to help my students build the critical capacities and technical skills they need to support an ecological transition.

Not doing the work can leave me feeling that I’m letting down activists and others on the coalface of climate action in order to support narrower concerns around wages, working conditions and pensions. As Extinction Rebellion founder Roger Hallam recently tweeted: “Why are lecturers not going on strike to stop their outrageous flying to conferences rather than protecting their pensions?”

I share this because I think these feelings are common. Many academics, healthcare workers and others feel a sense of vocation in their work. We do it for money, but for other reasons too. Our work is a way to contribute to the societies we hope to live in.

But I don’t think these feelings should stop us from taking industrial action. Hallam is mistaken when he pits industrial action over wages against climate action. Climate change is a systemic problem and I argue that strike action goes some way to addressing core systemic drivers of climate change.

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The Transnational Capture and Pillage of Central America

Massive invasion of transnational corporations, a multifaceted and tragic toll on the Central American Dry Corridor Region


Honduras, a geopolitical enclave of the Central American Dry Corridor, has reproduced and extended the original and irreconcilable contradiction between ultra-liberal police-military capitalism and the small Garifuna, indigenous and peasant properties settled on fertile land, where abundant fresh water provides livelihoods and food security, with a domino effect on the other countries of the isthmus. The destructive eco-environmental effects of agro-industrial, mining and hydroelectric corporations, tourism projects, maritime infrastructure, and the implementation of employment and economic development zones (EEDZ) or model cities have unleashed cascades of conflicts, endless arbitrariness and attacks on human rights and nature.

Conflicting transboundary waters due to acid mine surface and subsoil drainage ecological fractures in protected areas and Tela Bay have altered the environmental balance of a large part of the Atlantic coast. The dual meteorological character alternates a period of intense droughts with torrential rains, floods, hurricanes, landslides and even volcanic eruptions with a global impact on the collapse of the climate. The disruption of rain-fed agricultural cycles and the loss of staple grain harvests have affected more than a million families, throwing hundreds of people into the migratory void, leaving behind their way of life and the raison d'être of their existence.

Central America is located in the Northern Hemisphere of thetorrid zone, part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. It is a natural bridge between the Americas, the Caribbean Sea to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Its biogeography is spread overeleven ecoregions of freshwater, mountains and volcanoes in the Ring of Fire. In this paper, Honduras is the geopolitical epicentre of the Central American Dry Corridor (hereafter CDC).Activist Bertha Cáceres highlights Honduras' geopolitical position in the concentration of capital from the most promising sectors of the Global North and its subsequent expansion to the rest of the CDC countries. The massive invasion of corporate capital demanded from the outset the complete militarisation of Honduras, extended to the other neighbouring CDC countries as a strategy of occupation and indiscriminate domination of natural capital and the creation of model cities.

I.A.

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