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Monthly Review

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Monthly Review (MR) is a socialist political magazine founded in 1949. Its current editor is John Bellamy Foster. The economic analysis put out by the founding editors of the magazine is loosely referred to as "The Monthly Review School."[1][2] The classic exposition of this "school" of economics is laid out in the book, Monopoly Capital by magazine founders Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy. The book details a new stage of capitalism where the competitive markets analyzed by Karl Marx have given way to "monopoly capitalism," where competition loses its significance in driving capitalist development and crisis. This new stage is characterized by a "permanent stagnation" only given new life by sporadic innovations in technology.[3]

In their book, Baran and Sweezy seek to "correct" Marx's assumptions about the falling rate of profit and they erase surplus value from their work in favor of the concept of an "economic surplus."[4]

History[edit | edit source]

Monthly Review began publication in May 1949 in New York City and its first two editors were Paul M. Sweezy and Leo Huberman. Its first issue contained the article Why Socialism? by Albert Einstein. In 1952, MR released Hidden History of the Korean War by I. F. Stone.[5]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. Sam Williams (2010-02-28). "The Monthly Review School" A Critique of Crisis Theory. Retrieved 2023-07-05.
  2. “As I understand it, the Monthly Review school reckons that ‘competitive’ capitalism in the 19th century eventually morphed into ‘monopoly capitalism’.”

    Michael Roberts (2016-06-25). "John Bellamy Foster and Permanent Stagnation" The Next Recession. Retrieved 2023-07-05.
  3. John Bellamy Foster (2014-04). "The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism store page" Monthly Review. Retrieved 2023-07-05.
  4. “It should be noted that Baran and Sweezy, who reject the term "surplus value," use Joseph Phillips' comprehensive, economy-wide calculation of the "economic surplus" rising from 46.9 per cent of the GNP in 1929 to 56.1 per cent in 1963.”

    Victor Perlo (1976). The New Propaganda of Declining Profit Shares and Inadequate Investment, vol. 8. SAGE Publishing. doi: 10.1177/048661347600800305 [HUB]
  5. "About Monthly Review". Monthly Review. Archived from the original on 2022-06-15. Retrieved 2022-06-17.