Thoughts on the Monthly Review?

[Deicide]

The Monthly Review was attractive to people who were leaving the Communist Party and other sectarian groups. It was and is Marxist, but did not hew to the party line or get into sectarian struggles.

What it says on the tin: what are your thoughts and opinions on the Monthly Review?

[ed miliband]

the intro to 'reading capital politically' by harry cleaver provides a good critique of the "marxism" pushed by the monthly review crowd:

http://libcom.org/library/reading-capital-politically-cleaver-intro

it's a bit long and complicated, but i'll try and sum up cleaver's argument. paul sweezy, the founder of monthly review, rejected marx's theory of value and was heavily indebted to keynes, to the extent that marx was "reduced to supplying the rhetoric and the moral background" of sweezy's work. for sweezy, "working class" only referred to industrial wage workers, who sweezy believed had been bought off by capital in the post-war period. as such, class struggle was rejected in favour of identity politics, "third world" struggles, student politics, etc.

i haven't really done it justice but there ya go.