Paul Sweezy and MR crew to thank....

[RadioRaheem84]

...for the style of argument leftists in the States have today?

Ever since I've subscribed to Monthly Review, I've noticed that the argumentative style and use of mainstream resources to derail the bourgoise press, seems a lot like the style of Chomsky, Parenti and other leftists out there.

What I mean by style is the way the writers of the magazine write as if Beltway Boys are reading it or as if it's the socialist alternative to The New Republic. It really was created, as Sweezy intended, to bring mainstream argumentative style to anti-capitalist criticism.

Whenever I read it, I tend to think that I am reading a mainstream mag that is actually pretty anti-establishment. Something I thought Dissent Magazine would've done but fails at.

Any thoughts?

[blake 3:17]

I'm a bit confused about you referring to MR being like a mainstream magazine. When I first came across I was puzzled by how scholastic it seemed. The format is pretty weird...

I'd see MR as a point of counter hegemony. So yes there are clear polemics directed at "The Establishment", but they also publish work that advances socialist ideas specifically for socialists.

It was in the Food issue of MR, from some time in 90s that I first came across a Marxist politics of food.

[RadioRaheem84]

I meant mainstream journal actually, not rag like Newsweek, sorry.

It reads like a very scholarly journal that you would find policy wonks reading but it actually advances socialism.

I read and hear countless left voices like Chomsky, parenti, and Sut Jhally take their ideas of the economy from the MR school.

[graymouser]

It would certainly explain the weaknesses of a lot of the "left voices" when it comes to the actual solution of capitalist problems through means of the working class. The MR school, from Monopoly Capital onward, has really been a bit third worldist (in the '60s sense, distinct from the bugfuck loony Maoist-Third Worldism) and tended to write off the struggles of the US working class to a significant degree. Instead they look to the dispossessed in underdeveloped countries, which has led to an exaggerated enthusiasm for what's been going on in Venezuela and Bolivia and so on. In US terms they can stray into Left-Keynesian territory by their emphasis on underconsumption and things like the "sales effort." This was seen pretty strongly in their response to the modern economic crisis. Also, Bob McChesney has been doing some interesting theoretical writing on the media but his actual effort around it, FreePress, is way too interested in lobbying as a means of change.

On the other hand, MR is doing phenomenally important work right now around the environment and pretty much everybody on the left should be reading everything John Bellamy Foster is writing right now. So I can't be too harsh on them, since I think that Foster's work transcends any of the economic work of Baran, Sweezy and so on. But they are something of a mixed bag, and unfortunately I do think they tend to fuel the tendencies toward left-Keynesianism and away from the working class as central.

[chegitz guevara]

On the other hand, MR is doing phenomenally important work right now around the environment and pretty much everybody on the left should be reading everything John Bellamy Foster is writing right now. So I can't be too harsh on them, since I think that Foster's work transcends any of the economic work of Baran, Sweezy and so on. But they are something of a mixed bag, and unfortunately I do think they tend to fuel the tendencies toward left-Keynesianism and away from the working class as central.

I cannot agree with this enough.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

Middle class leftist academics write for middle class leftist academics. What else is new?

It is a positive thing to see some folks waking up to this reality though.

[southernmissfan]

I cannot agree with this enough.

I'll agree as well. My reading of Foster has been admittedly limited but I truly admire the contribution of a Marxist approach to the environment. The destruction of the environment is clearly one of the significant long-term (and current!) issues facing the working class. Real, meaningful changes in our approach to the environment cannot exist without a complete overthrow of the current system. Likewise, long-term health, stability and well-being of the working class and the future system cannot exist without significant environmentalism. The two struggles are connected and dependent.

I have considered getting a subscription to MR, though like most others I don't really have 40 dollars laying around unused. And like most any sort of magazine/website/blog/other form of media, what I have read varies in quality. I appreciate the quality and the serious approach that they take, and in this regard they are superior to much of the other sources of leftist commentary. But as Nothing Human is Alien mentioned, it often does just come across as middle class leftist academics writing for middle class leftist academics, as if it is just another "scholarly" journal one might find in a university library.

[RadioRaheem84]

Middle class leftist academics write for middle class leftist academics. What else is new?

It is a positive thing to see some folks waking up to this reality though.

But that is what Sweezy wanted; an academic journal about Socialism that would be taken seriously. And for the most part it really is. Supposedly, MR is more popular outside the US among academics than in the US.

One story I've read was about how Japanese economists came to the US to meet important diplomats and the economists asked the US diplomats if they read MR, which puzzled the diplomats because they've never heard of it.

It's main mission is to keep anti-capitalism popular among academics.