Marxist sociology blog post on the communitarian revolutionary subject

The American Sociological Association published a short article by David Barkin and me that synthesizes our recent article in Monthly Review on David's concept of the communitarian revolutionary subject. In our age of profound social-ecological crises, the communitarian revolutionary subject is already proceeding to develop radically new social-ecological metabolic configurations. From my perspective, the key challenge here remains moving from individual projects to the sort of mass movement needed to bring about systemic transformation. Otherwise, I fear the radical alternatives being pursued by the revolutionary communitarian subject may be isolated or crushed by the combined forces of capital and the state. The post can be found on the Marxist sociology blog. The original article that David and I wrote for Monthly Review is also publicly avccessible on the MR website.

Solidarity rises up to greet the caravan in Mexico

Afsaneh Moradian, Bea Abbott, Héctor A. Rivera and Brian Napoletano report from Mexico and the U.S. on the progress of the migrant caravan through Mexico — and on the inspiring displays of solidarity at every stop that set an example for activists in the U.S. — for Socialist Worker.

Members of the caravan in Mapastepec, Chiapas on October 25. Photo by José Manuel Mojica Vélez.

The founding of Science for the People-Mexico

I recently had the honor of helping to translate the declaration announcing the founding of Science for the People-Mexico, which was just published today in Socialist Worker. Two key issues that the Mexico branch of SftP formed around are concerns regarding the way science has been bent to the service of ongoing capital accumulation and the attacks and inaction on climate science.

Half-Earth: A biodiversity ‘solution’ that solves nothing

Variants of the half-Earth biodiversity conservation initiative, recently popularized by E.O. Wilson, have increasingly been gaining acceptance among conservationists. While the boldness of their proposal is commendable, placing half the Earth in protected areas only addresses the immediate causes of the biodiversity crisis, and even this conflicts with the land-use mandates of capital. As I argue in a recent article in Climate & Capitalism, ecological Marxism does not reject protected areas, but more fundamentally points out the need for a co-revolutionary struggle against alienation.

Mexico’s students today and the spirit of ’68

Together with Héctor Agredano Rivera, I translated an analysis by Edgard Sánchez Ramírez of the Partido Revolucionario de Trabajadores on the student mobilizations that emerged in response to a recent incident on the UNAM campus in Mexico City that was just published by Socialist Worker.

The crisis of the Mexican regime and the 2018 elections

A statement of the Partido Revolucionario de Trabajadores (Revolutionary Workers' Party) on the Mexican elections of 1 July 2018 that I translated into English together with Héctor Agredano River and Fernando Estañol Tecuatl  was just published by MRonline. The article outlines a revolutionary perspective on these historic elections and what they mean for the Mexican Left.

Ecological Marxism vs. environmental neo-Malthusianism

A short piece I wrote for Climate & Capitalism on this age-old debate between Marxism and populationism was just published. It offers a brief overview of the Marxist critique of Malthus's original argument and their contemporary Green permutations. The main thesis is that this ideology misrepresents social and ecological problems, and thereby promotes solutions that exacerbate the underlying contradictions of which these problems are symptoms