As the U.S. approaches its 250th anniversary and in the same year, the current US President respectively imprisons and kills the heads of Venezuela and Iran in a clear attempt to control access to their oil supplies, we already find ourselves mired in another imperialist war in the Middle East that is very likely to veer towards World War III. Einstein’s perspective links alienation and nuclear annihilation, capitalism to the devastating possibility of omnicide — the destruction of all human life on earth.
Einstein’s prescient article “Why Socialism?”, first published by Monthly Review in its inaugural 1949 issue, has to say the least, been circulating for some time. Yet it has never been more relevant than today.
Monthly Review Magazine
republished the article online in 2009, making the article even more widely available.
Monthly Review Press
‘ recent reprint,
‘Albert Einstein’s “Why Socialism?”‘
stands out, however, for the extremely enlightening and thorough introduction written by magazine editor, John Bellamy Foster.
In defiance of those who would like to, not only re-write history, but erase the future, please help us get this book out to as wide an audience as possible.
In the Public Eye
One of the many places you can find this classic essay, which just happens to be more relevant now than perhaps at any time in history.
Pictured here at Labyrinth in Princeton.
GPEnewsdocs, with Lynn Fries:
In the last segment of an interview series on ecology and materialism conducted by journalist Lynn Fries, John Bellamy Foster reflects on the enduring relevance of Einstein’s “Why Socialism?”. Marx’s foundations of ecological materialism are blended with the work of natural scientists and the Greek philosopher Epicurus. Socialism, as a transformational project whose intellectual birthplace is materialism, had to be forcefully defended by Albert Einstein, the preeminent scientist of the 20th century. Bellamy Foster, discussing his Introduction to Einstein’s essay, explains the importance of Einstein’s contribution in the postwar context and into the present.
Read more
here
, and
watch here.
A note: Almost as soon as Fries released the Einstein piece, it made the rounds, circulating to such outlets as
Naked Capitalism,
The Analysis
, and the like.
REVIEWS
For
Green Socialist
,
Vol 114, by
Bryn Glover
:
“Mention the name Albert Einstein in any modern context and the most likely images it will provoke would be of a wild-haired old man, and his famous equation, E=mc2. It may also conjure cartoon caricatures of such a person advertising an energy supply company. Given the real man’s unwavering dedication to international socialism, the likelihood of his actually allowing his name to promote a capitalist enterprise is extremely remote…. …Einstein strongly supported the founding of the journal, Monthly Review, and was persuaded by a mutual friend of one of the founding editors, Leo Huberman, to contribute an article. Einstein’s short piece was not given any special prominence….”
For
Marx & Philosophy Review of Books
, by
David C. Perlman
:
“In the current era in which anti-science ideology, disinformation and ‘the destruction of reason’ are again increasingly being utilized as key components of a broader anti-materialism which reinforces a transition from neoliberalism to neofascism in response to crises of capitalism,