István Mészáros' BEYOND LEVIATHAN (featuring John Bellamy Foster and Attila Melegh)

Includes archival audio tape from a talk István Mészáros gave at the Brecht Forum in 1997. These clips have barely been heard, by anyone other than those present that day in NYC -- until now. In MR CONVERSATIONS: BEYOND LEVIATHAN, Monthly Review Editor John Bellamy Foster, and Hungarian Sociologist Attila Melegh come together to discuss István Mészáros’ final work, "Beyond Leviathan." This is one of the few books in the last fifty years to return to one of the deepest and most radical notions at the roots of Marxian thought, that is - the nature of the State and the necessity of its eradication. *You can also see Foster speaking about some of Mészáros views on the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, here: https://youtu.be/wofC-ZUZtyk * * * * "BEYOND LEVIATHAN " EXCERPT: From John Bellamy Foster's 'Introduction' 'In contrast to all previous comprehensive theories of the state, István Mészáros’s theory was aimed at the withering away of the state as the command center of capital along with the eradication of capital viewed as an absolute necessity, since the question was ultimately one, as Marx had said, of “ruin or revolution.” The environmental and military cataclysms brought on by today’s Leviathan states are “bound to destroy humanity” eventually if an alternative mode of social metabolic reproduction is not developed. There is no choice for humanity, therefore, but to pursue a critique of the state aimed at a revolutionary praxis of going beyond Leviathan….' * * * * *Audio recording: Thank you to Irv Kurki for the recording of Mészáros at the Brecht Forum on April 3, 1997. *Music: Holló fekete álom, and Edesanyam, pieces of music from Makám ensemble, woven together. Thank you to Hungarian musician Krulik Zoltán for his beautiful compositions. * * * * Monthly Review magazine and Monthly Review Press have been leading publishers of left scholarship since 1949. The first issue of Monthly Review (May 1949) featured Albert Einstein's classic essay, "Why Socialism?" Our mission since then has been to offer readers a responsible platform for neglected and emerging scholarship grounded in critical analyses of capitalism, on a wide range of progressive issues. Monthly Review Press is an educational publisher, featuring a small and selected, but influential school of scholarly analysis which fills a demonstrable gap in the arena of socialist scholarship. Monthly Review’s distinctive contribution to the world of ideas has advanced an analysis that helps to explain the tendency of contemporary capitalism toward slow growth and stagnation, the growing environmental catastrophe, the continuing and deepening economic inequality between the rich and poor nations, and between the rich and poor everywhere.