PRAGOTI

The transition from capitalism to socialism is the most difficult problem of socialist theory and practice. To add to this the question of ecology might therefore be seen as unnecessarily complicating an already intractable issue. I shall argue here, however, that the human relation to nature lies at the heart of the transition to socialism..... Writes John Bellamy Foster.

Courtesy: Monthly Review

The United States is unique today among major states in the degree of its reliance on military spending, and its determination to stand astride the world, militarily as well as economically. No other country in the post–Second World War world has been so globally destructive or inflicted so many war fatalities. Since 2001, acknowledged U.S. national defense spending has increased by almost 60 percent in real dollar terms to a level in 2007 of $553 billion. This is higher than at any point since the Second World War (though lower than previous decades as a percentage of GDP).

Foster, Holleman and McChesney (Courtesy: Monthly Review) offer an incisive assessment of an imperialist state that supports its global position and social order through $1 trillion a year in military spending, most likely far exceeding that of all the other countries in the world put together, unleashing untold destruction on the world, while faced with intractable problems of inequality, economic stagnation, financial crisis, poverty, waste, and environmental decline.

The rise in overt militarism and imperialism at the outset of the twenty-first century can plausibly be attributed largely to attempts by the dominant interests of the world economy to gain control over diminishing world oil supplies.

To commemorate the 190th birth anniversary of Karl Marx, Pragoti team presents a series of articles on different aspects of Marxism and the development of capitalism from a Marxist perspective. In this article, John Bellamy Foster puts forward an incisive assesment of the financialization of capital and the current global crisis.