History
Karl Marx and the Birth of Modern Society
Recording available on YouTubeA video of this March 26, 2024, event is available on the MEP's YouTube channel. Michael Heinrich presents his biography-in-progress of Karl Marx, which has already gained glowing reviews from Marxist scholars the world over. In the first volume published in English by Monthly Review Press, Karl Marx and the Birth of Modern Society, Heinrich ... Read more
Trotsky in New York Walking Tour
Socialists and Immigrants in the Lower East Side Join Alex Steinberg for a historical walking tour of Lower Manhattan as we explore some of the places where Leon Trotsky visited and worked during his nine week stay in New York in early 1917. We will explore the culture of the radicalized immigrant communities of Yiddish-speaking ... Read more
David McNally: Marx and Colonialism
Recording available on YouTubeDavid McNally joins our 10th anniversary celebration of the MEP with a keynote talk on "Marx and Colonialism: The End of Capital and the Beginning of a Journey."
Book Talk: On the History of Capitalist ‘Reforms’
Recording available on YouTubeGiampaolo Conte presents 'A History of Capitalist Transformation: A Critique of Liberal-Capitalist Reforms', just published by Routledge. Conte's historical research demonstrates that the chief purpose of such reforms has been to integrate semi-peripheral states into the capitalist world-economy.
AI versus Labor: Luddism and Beyond
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participants8 weekly sessions starting Oct 1. Is Artificial Intelligence (AI, sic) really the dire threat to the future of humanity as even some of its proponents claim, or is it a more mundane and familiar threat to working people who face loss of their livelihoods and/or further speed-up and alienation? The entire history of industrial capitalism is punctuated by recurring waves of automation to reduce labor costs and turnover time, each time provoking strong resistance by the affected workforce. This reading group will probe the history both of AI and computer technology specifically and of working-class resistance to capitalist automation in general.
LA Is Burning with Dennis Broe
Recording available on YouTubeDennis Broe examines the history of LA wildfires to shed light on the ingrained power, the structural class and racial imbalances, and the wanton devastation of a city organized not for its people but for its elites.
‘Citizen Marx’ with author Bruno Leipold
Recording available on YouTubeWhat better time than the present moment to revisit Karl Marx’s commitment to the democratic republic as a necessary (if not sufficient) step on the path to human freedom? Author Bruno Leipold presents his recently published 'Citizen Marx: Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx's Social and Political Thought.'
Marx’s Capital Volume 1: A Short Course for Today
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsHave you always wanted to study Marx’s Capital, Vol 1, and hesitated because of the time commitment to read the entire volume from start to finish? Join us for a 12-week study group covering key sections of the book.
60 Years Since the April Revolution in Santo Domingo
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsJoin us on May 3 for a panel to commemorate the 6oth anniversary of the April Revolution in Santo Domingo and discuss its political implications, the role of working-class Afro-Dominicans, women, LGBTQ people, Haitian internationalist fighters, socialists, writers and artists as well as the worldwide international solidarity movement that ensued in the face of imperialist onslaught.
Karl Marx and Republicanism: Reading ‘Citizen Marx’
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsWhat better time than the present moment to revisit Karl Marx’s commitment to the democratic republic as a necessary (if not sufficient) step on the path to human freedom? Over five weekly meetings we will read and discuss Bruno Leipold’s recently published Citizen Marx: Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx's Social and Political Thought.
‘Roses for Gramsci’ with Andy Merrifield
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsAuthor Andy Merrifield presents 'Roses for Gramsci,' a remarkable personal journey through the life and writings of the great Sardinian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci.
Reading Marx’s Capital, Volume III
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsA weekly study group covering Marx's Capital, Volume III, The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole. This work integrates and completes Marx's analysis, enabling us to understand and make sense of how the phenomena we see occurring on the surface of society are related to the underlying system of capitalism.
Darkest Los Angeles
Institute for the Radical Imagination NY, United StatesDennis Broe leads a group reading of his five Los Angeles novels set in the film-noir period of the late 1940s and early 1950s. The contradictions we will unearth in that postwar period, the period of crime films that visually documented this seedy reality, have never been resolved, only continually papered over, and so they resound today.
Adam Smith and ‘The Wealth of Nations’
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsAdam Smith deals with such issues as the so-called labor-theory of value, the equalization of the rate of profit, and the determination of commodity prices in important ways that anticipate Marx or require the corrections Marx provides. So, in this group, we will dive headlong into Smith's opus, The Wealth of Nations.
Hegel for Radicals: The Phenomenology of Spirit
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsOver 16 Saturdays, beginning March 8, we will read and discuss one of the most influential books of all time, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. This massive retelling of humanity defies traditional divisions between history, philosophy, comedy, and tragedy.