Tag: class-struggle

The Corpse Got Tenure: French Theory’s American Afterlife

Requiem for French Theory asks a question academia prefers to leave buried: how did a heterogeneous group of French thinkers become a unified radical canon in the United States? Monville and Rockhill trace the foundations, universities, publishers and Cold War institutions that helped make French Theory travel, but the deeper story is more dialectical than conspiracy. Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze and others confronted real contradictions and produced genuine insights even as their work was selectively reproduced, professionalized and detached from mass struggle. The lesson reaches Marxism itself: revolutionary theory needs more than correct ideas. It needs its own means of intellectual production.

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Iran Took Back Its History: The Revolution That Never Finished the Fight for Power

Robin Wright's "The Last Great Revolution" illustrates the paradox of the Iranian Revolution—a genuine transformation that sought to establish a sovereign state but left popular sovereignty incomplete. Wright captures Iran's tumultuous journey, showcasing revolutionary shifts in women’s rights, education, and national identity, yet she falls into the trap of imposing a Western liberal trajectory. The revolution is portrayed as a struggle—between religious and revolutionary authority—that still battles for legitimacy. Ultimately, rather than documenting a forgotten pathway to liberalism, Wright unveils a resilient revolutionary spirit combating imperial influences. This is not the story of a revolution retreating into the shadows, but one that persistently asserts its existence against predetermined narratives.

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History Against the Formula: August Nimtz, Cedric Robinson, and the Making of Revolutionary Universality

August Nimtz’s "Black Marxism: A Marxist Critique" challenges Cedric Robinson's assertion that Marxism and Black radicalism are distinct, arguing instead that Marx's historical materialism evolved through encounters with colonialism and Black liberation struggles. Nimtz argues that genuine internationalism requires oppressed groups to first forge autonomous political identities before uniting. Using Cuba as a case study, he shows how socialist transformation can materially alter racial dynamics yet acknowledges persistent inequalities. Ultimately, he posits that revolutionary potential arises not just from class position but from active struggle and organization, emphasizing that no class is born universally revolutionary and that political agency must be cultivated through history and struggle.

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Japan Can Shake the Dollar, but It Can’t Set the Rules: The Yen Inside the Dollar Machine

Reuters treats the yen’s violent swings as a market mystery, but the real story runs through the machinery of dollar-centered finance. Japan is a wealthy imperial-core creditor with enormous reserves and U.S. assets, yet its monetary choices remain constrained by U.S. rates, Treasury markets, imported energy, public debt, and capital flows. That dependence is reciprocal but unequal: Japanese instability can hurt Washington even as Tokyo adjusts inside a system it doesn’t command. And the costs travel downward. Workers win raises, then war-driven oil shocks, currency weakness, and inflation threaten to eat them away—turning monetary sovereignty into a class struggle over who pays.

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The Coup Didn’t Come From Nowhere: Niger, Base 101, and the Empire Inside the State

BBC framed Niger’s August 29 Base 101 uprising as a story about mutinous soldiers and a frightening weapons cache. The deeper record reveals something far more consequential: a fractured special-operations apparatus, credible evidence of Bazoum-linked and foreign contacts, an inherited Western security system, and a state still fighting to reclaim control over its military, uranium, and foreign relations. As France and the United States adapt to lost bases through smaller footprints, partner forces, and strategic networks, Niger is building alternative relationships through the AES, Russia, and Algeria. The coup didn’t come from nowhere—and neither did the empire trying to survive its retreat.

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The Empire Still Holds the Gates: Multipolarity Builds Roads Around Them

Multipolarity isn't a new empire but a complex web of power dynamics where countries strive for developmental autonomy without severing ties to imperial centers. Though emerging institutions like BRICS and SCO offer alternatives, they reveal a deeper truth: political independence doesn't guarantee economic sovereignty. The geopolitical landscape is increasingly messy; states are interconnected yet vulnerable. For every summits attended and partnerships forged, underlying dependencies remain unchallenged. The real question isn’t where countries sit on a world map; it’s who controls resources and technology within their borders. True liberation from exploitation lies not in diplomatic participation but in addressing internal inequalities and class power.

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Primacy Produced the Resistance: How the Atlantic Order Turned Russian Sovereignty Into a Threat

The Economist’s recent piece on Putin frames him as a cornered gangster, obscuring the complex geopolitical history that shapes the current conflict in Ukraine. It reduces a crisis rooted in thirty-five years of U.S.-led strategy, NATO expansion, and Russia's own capitalist evolution to Putin’s psychological profile. This overlooks how pre-existing economic and military pressures prepared the battlefield for escalation. By ignoring this context, the narrative becomes dangerously simplistic, presenting Russia's actions as mere reactions to outside threats, not as part of a larger historical clash of powers. The truth? This war is as much about systemic tensions as individual leaders.

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The Deed Stays in Caracas: How Washington Commands Oil It Doesn’t Own

Delcy Rodríguez's shocking pivot from anti-imperialist rhetoric to endorsing U.S. oil agreements is less a political betrayal and more an unveiling of Venezuela's fractured sovereignty. The narrative is explosive: as Washington tightens its grip, national ownership of oil assets becomes a hollow claim, with real power shifting to private capital and American influence. The illusion of control is shattered—Venezuelans are left to wrestle with a new reality where contracts dictate who profits from their resources. The stakes are high, as demands for transparency and public scrutiny grow louder; will the oil wealth truly benefit the people, or simply reinforce the power structures in play?

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We Built the Master: Marx and the World That Rules Its Makers

In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx discovers a contradiction that will haunt the whole development of his critique of capitalism: workers build an expanding world of wealth, machinery, knowledge and social power that returns to rule them as capital. This review follows that insight from wages and estranged labour through private property, colonial history, slavery, money, communism, Hegel and revolutionary humanism. It argues that the manuscripts are neither immature philosophy nor finished Marxism, but a breakthrough under pressure—one already forcing “Man” into history and asking the question that still matters: who controls humanity’s accumulated powers?

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The Collateral of Empire: Debt, Power, and the Future

America's staggering $81.9 trillion debt is more than just a number; it's a complex web of financial claims overshadowing the real economic landscape. The nation's ability to issue dollars grants it a unique power, allowing it to leverage future incomes to accommodate debt—while the average worker grapples with mortgages, credit cards, and student loans. This contradictory system—where public power fuels private finance—disguises the inequality at play. As lenders profit, households struggle, further entrenching societal divides. The U.S. isn’t just a massive debtor; it’s a realm where debt serves as both a lifeline and a constraint, revealing the capitalist dance between ownership and obligation.

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