Considerations on Bolshevism Before Stalinism
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsQuestions such as these are being discussed: Were the Bolsheviks inherently authoritarian? What was 'democratic centralism'? Is the Bolshevik type organization necessary for revolutionary change? What exactly was the role of the Bolsheviks in the revolution? What were the Soviets? How did the soviets come into being? Did soviets represent a higher form of democracy?
The Origins of Geopolitical Economy in Marx’s Remarks on Carey and Bastiat
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsIn recent years, geopolitical economy has become a term for the properly historical-materialist analysis of international affairs that can successfully comprehend the evolution of the capitalist world order down to the contemporary age of multi-polarity by placing the nation-state as centrally in the analysis of capitalism as class. This interpretation is embedded in Karl Marx’s thinking, though not fully developed there. Perhaps its clearest expression can be found in his fragmentary comments on the “Yankee” mercantilist economist, Henry Carey, in the final pages of the “Grundrisse”.
Capital, Volume 1
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsMarx’s scientific presentation of the laws of motion of capitalist development begins by analyzing the fundamental or elemental form which wealth takes in our society, the commodity. Understanding this form leads us to the most basic law that grounds social reproduction in societies under the domination of capital, the law of value. Therefore, our first task will be to break through the appearance and reveal the social content of the commodity form. This begins the unraveling of the why and how of what we necessarily, under the domination and exploitation of capital, experience every day in our lives.