Why Socialism?

 By: Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein is the world-famous physicist. This article was originally published in the first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949). It was subsequently published in May 1998 to commemorate the first issue of MR‘s fiftieth year.—The Editors 

Is it advisable for one who is not an expert on economic and social issues to express views on the subject of socialism? I believe for a number of reasons that it is.

Let us first consider the question from the point of view of scientific knowledge. It might appear that there are no essential methodological differences between astronomy and economics: scientists in both fields attempt to discover laws of general acceptability for a circumscribed group of phenomena in order to make the interconnection of these phenomena as clearly understandable as possible. But in reality such methodological differences do exist. The discovery of general laws in the field of economics is made difficult by the circumstance that observed economic phenomena are often affected by many factors which are very hard to evaluate separately. In addition, the experience which has accumulated since the beginning of the so-called civilized period of human history has—as is well known—been largely influenced and limited by causes which are by no means exclusively economic in nature. For example, most of the major states of history owed their existence to conquest. The conquering peoples established themselves, legally and economically, as the privileged class of the conquered country. They seized for themselves a monopoly of the land ownership and appointed a priesthood from among their own ranks. The priests, in control of education, made the class division of society into a permanent institution and created a system of values by which the people were thenceforth, to a large extent unconsciously, guided in their social behavior.

Biden Should Remove Cuba from the Infamous State Sponsors of Terrorism List

 By: Medea Benjamin and Natasha Lycia Ora Bannab

July 28, 2022

As the Cuban government celebrates the July 26 Day of the National Rebellion–a public holiday commemorating the 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks that is considered the precursor to the 1959 revolution–U.S. groups are calling on the Biden administration to stop its cruel sanctions that are creating such hardship for the Cuban people. In particular, they are pushing President Biden to take Cuba off the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Being on this list subjects Cuba to a series of devastating international financial restrictions. It is illegal for U.S. banks to process transactions to Cuba, but U.S. sanctions also have an unlawful extraterritorial reach.  Fearful of getting in the crosshairs of U.S. regulations, most Western banks have also stopped processing transactions involving Cuba or have implemented new layers of compliance. This has hampered everything from imports to humanitarian aid to development assistance, and has sparked a new European campaign to challenge their banks’ compliance with U.S. sanctions.

Dangerous Times

We are living in a dangerous world. The world by itself is not dangerous. It becomes dangerous by some people living in it. Those who can push a button that annihilates existence as we know it, and those who have the power to destroy the environment for profit, are the same, a few, and in power.

When the United States government gained access to nuclear power, tested it in Hiroshima and Nagasake and as a result, killed and injured near half of the population of those cities. Of course, the casualties of nuclear bombs continue through the generations to this day. On the other hand, environmental depredation of the current years are wake up calls to those who seek profits for a few corporations, over humanity at large.

As Faith Flags in U.S. Government, Many Voters Want to Upend the System

Reid J. Epstein

July 13, 2022

Desire for structural changes cuts across both parties, a Times/Siena College poll found, but for starkly different reasons. Even Democrats now question if the government is a force for good.

Biden, Lapid Sign Joint US-Israel Declaration Against Iran

Dave DeCamp

July 14, 2022

The declaration says the US will use all of its 'national power' to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid on Thursday signed a joint declaration in Jerusalem on Thursday that included strong language against Iran.

The document, officially called the Jerusalem US-Israel Strategic Partnership Joint Declaration, says the US would use all of its “national power” to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.

Imperial Detritus

Andrew J. Bacewich

July 12, 2022

“The American Century Is Over.” So claims the July 2022 cover of Harper’s Magazine, adding an all-too-pertinent question: “What’s Next?”

What, indeed? Eighty years after the United States embarked upon the Great Crusade of World War II, a generation after it laid claim to the status of sole superpower following the fall of the Berlin Wall and two decades after the Global War on Terror was to remove any lingering doubts about who calls the shots on Planet Earth, the question could hardly be more timely.

“Empire Burlesque,” Daniel Bessner’s Harper’s cover story, provides a useful, if preliminary, answer to a question most members of our political class, preoccupied with other matters, would prefer to ignore. Yet the title of the essay contains a touch of genius, capturing as it does in a single concise phrase the essence of the American Century in its waning days.

Ukraine Could Tear Europe Apart

Doug Bandow

July 7, 2022

Last week the U.S. and Europe loudly proclaimed their everlasting support for Ukraine at both the G7 meeting and NATO summit. So far money and arms continue to flow to Kiev.

However, just as Ukraine’s backers were pleasantly surprised at that nation’s stout defense against Russian aggression, they are increasingly discomfited by the failure of sanctions to wreck Moscow’s economy. The push to end Russian energy exports has proved especially counterproductive, slowing European economies while raising both global energy prices and Moscow’s export earnings.

Ukraine Is the Latest Neocon Disaster

Jeffrey Sachs

June 27, 2022

The war in Ukraine is the culmination of a 30-year project of the American neoconservative movement.  The Biden Administration is packed with the same neocons who championed the US wars of choice in Serbia (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Syria (2011), Libya (2011), and who did so much to provoke Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  The neocon track record is one of unmitigated disaster, yet Biden has staffed his team with neocons.  As a result, Biden is steering Ukraine, the US, and the European Union towards yet another geopolitical debacle. If Europe has any insight, it will separate itself from these US foreign policy debacles.

Whitewashing the Murder of Shireen Abu Akleh

Daniel Larison

July 8, 2022

Ensuring that client governments can do whatever they want with impunity matters more to Washington than the lives of American citizens and residents.

Gideon Levy condemns the State Department’s whitewashing of the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh:

"It’s difficult to imagine a more clumsy, unprofessional, ridiculous and even insulting mobilization in the service of Israeli propaganda. Once again it has been proven that America is willing to do anything, absolutely anything, to protect its precious darling; to conceal all its crimes, to make itself an object of ridicule, to disregard moral, legal and professional standards – all to cover up for Israel. America is telling Israel: Keep on killing journalists, as far as we’re concerned it’s fine. We will always say you didn’t mean to, that tragic circumstances killed Abu Akleh and not soldiers in the Duvdevan counterterrorism unit."

Candidate to Lead Israeli Military Wants to Ramp Up Assassinations of IRGC Leaders

Dave DeCamp

July 6, 2022

One of the leading candidates to take over as the chief of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has called for Israel to step up assassinations of leaders of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

IDF Maj. Gen. Eyal Zamir made the case in a 74-page paper for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a pro-Israel American think tank based in Washington. He said the assassinations were necessary to stop Iran from further entrenching itself in Syria.

The Constitution and forever prisoners

By: Judge Andrew P. Napolitano

July 4, 2022

When Thomas Jefferson wrote to his friend, neighbor and colleague, James Madison, his view that the basis of government must be to preserve liberty rather than order, the War of Revolution against Great Britain had been won, the Articles of Confederation were in place and Madison was beginning to prepare for his pivotal role in the drafting of the Constitution.

Ukraine is the latest neocon disaster

 Jeffrey Sachs

June 27, 2022

The war in Ukraine is the culmination of a 30-year project of the American neoconservative movement. The Biden Administration is packed with the same neocons who championed the US wars of choice in Serbia (1999), Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Syria (2011), Libya (2011), and who did so much to provoke Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The neocon track record is one of unmitigated disaster, yet Biden has staffed his team with neocons. As a result, Biden is steering Ukraine, the US, and the European Union towards yet another geopolitical debacle. If Europe has any insight, it will separate itself from these US foreign policy debacles.

Washington’s Sanctions War Kneecaps the West, Not Russia

 David Stockman

June 28, 2022

Washington’s cowardly proxy war against Russia reached a new level of absurdity over the weekend.

To wit, the G-7 knuckleheads declared an embargo on imports of Russia-sourced gold and forced Russia into technical default on its foreign debts by forbidding US companies from collecting the payments which Russian debtors had deposited in their accounts at non-sanctioned Russia banks.

In a word, ordinary commerce has become so weaponized by Washington that the world’s oldest money can no longer be freely exchanged on international markets. At the same time, interest payments made in good faith by Russian borrowers have been effectively seized and frozen in place by the US government.

 

And yet, where are the free enterprise Republicans?

The Media Celebrated Julian Assange and is Now Too Afraid to Defend Him

 By: Patrick Cockburn

June 27, 2022

It has become easier over the last month for governments to kill or imprison journalists whom they want to silence. But the most sinister aspect of this assault on freedom of speech is that it is facing such limited resistance from the very media that is under attack.

US intelligence agencies concluded in a report declassified by President Joe Biden that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had ordered the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. Biden began by treating him as a pariah, but is now reversing this policy in the run-up to his visit to Saudi Arabia next month which is aimed at persuading MBS to pump more crude to replace Russian exports and bring down the oil price.

In other words, the murderers of Khashoggi have got what they wanted and shown with grisly brutality that no Saudi dissident journalist is safe, a precedent that will be taken to heart in Turkey, where MBS has been visiting this week. All is now forgiven by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, newly allied to Saudi Arabia, while the trial in absentia of the 26 alleged murderers of Khashoggi had already been transferred from Ankara to Riyadh.

 

US Held Secret Meeting With Israel, Arab Military Chiefs on Iran

Jason Ditz

6/26/2022

At the Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh, the US held secret meetings in March with top military figures from Israel and the various Arab states in the Middle East. The focus, as ever, was on Iran.

Explain It to Me, Please

Explain It to Me, Please: If you want a war with Iran, Russia, China and Venezuela tell me why and how it would benefit Americans

 Phillip Giraldi

June 22, 2022

 

استقرار یک رهبریِ مردمی در ایران

چهل و اندی سال پیش، ایرانیان به پا خواستند تا خود را از یک دیکتاتوری وابسته و اجنبی پرست رها کنند. تاریخ ایران گواه بسیاری از این جنبش‌ها است، که همیشه در منطقه پرچم‌دار بوده است. آنچه که همواره ایرانیان را متحد کرده است تا جنبش‌های عظیمی بر ضد حاکمان ادمکش داشته باشند یک عزم ملی بوده است. رژیم فعلی نیز با همه دندان تیز نشان دادن‌ها و سفاکی، کاملا شکننده است.

امردم ایران هیچگاه طرفدار رژیم آخوندی نبودند، و شقاوت شوک آور این رژیم تنها نیروئی است که توانسته است آنرا بیش از چهار دهه در ایران پایدار نگاه دارد. جالب اینجاست که رژیم در برقراری وابستگی مجدد به غرب، آنچنان که در زمان شاه مرسوم بود، تلاش می‌کند، که البته چون در طول بقایش شعار آن مرگ بر آمریکا بوده است، جرات عنوان آنرا با صراحت ندارد. ولی سخنان عمال رژیم، در جبهه‌های راست و چپ، کاملا و به وضوح نمایان‌گر آن هستند.

Next 100 Days of Ukraine War

M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

JUNE 13, 2022

The New York-based Council on Foreign Relations held a videoconference on May 31 titled Russia’s War in Ukraine: How does it end? The president of the think tank Richard Haas chaired the panel of distinguished participants — Stephen Hadley, Prof. Charles Kupchan, Alina Polyakova and Lt. Gen. (Retd) Stephen Twitty. It was a great discussion dominated by the liberal internationalist stream that has so far guided President Biden’s national security team, which wants to help Ukraine fight a long war against Russia. 

Why It’s Hard To Take America’s Word on the Summit of the Americas

Ted Snider

June 16, 2022

President Biden has made the battle between autocracy and democracy a theme of his presidency. He invoked that theme again last week to explain to Latin America and the world why Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua were cut from the list of nations invited to the US hosted Summit of the Americas. The State Department explained that "It’s the president’s decision, but I think the president has been very clear about the presence of countries that by their actions do not respect democracy – they will not receive invitations."

But by Biden’s actions, it is difficult to take the US at its word that the Summit snubs were about democracy.

Why Russian intellectuals are hardening support for war in Ukraine

Anatol Lieven

June 6, 2022

Dr. Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center until the Russian government closed it in April, was for many years one of the most important pragmatic Russian voices in support of cooperation with the West and the “westernization” of Russia. He was one of the few Russian figures still to retain some of Gorbachev’s hopes for a “common European home.” (I should say that I have known Dr Trenin since I was a British journalist in Moscow in the 1990s, and I was his colleague at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace between 2000 and 2004).