_Seasons
The Circulation of Capital: Volume II of Marx’s Capital
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsA weekly study group covering Marx's Capital, Volume II, The Process of Circulation of Capital. In this volume, Marx addresses the question: How can the reproduction of society as a whole take place, if there is no conscious social planning that ensures that all needs are met, in the necessary proportions, such that life can persist and the capitalist relations of production be sustained? We discover the answer, but we also learn of new contradictions and sources of crisis inherent to capitalist society.
A Prime Competitor: Understanding Amazon’s Market Power
Recording available on YouTubeStephen Maher and Scott Aquanno present an innovative analysis of Amazon's market power, drawing on major themes from Marx's Capital, volume 2. In a recent contribution published by Canada's Socialist Project, they challenge understandings of "monopoly" common in mainstream economics as well as among sections of the left.
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.
Hegel’s ‘Science of Logic’ – An Epilogue and a Prologue
Hegel for Radicals concludes the current series with a nine-week course co-hosted by Alex Steinberg and Matthew Strauss. We are reading the Introduction and Preliminary Concepts from Hegel’s Encyclopedia Logic, sometimes called “The Shorter Logic.” This material can stand alone as an Introduction to Hegel’s magnum opus, The Science of Logic. But for those who have already studied the Science of Logic with us this can serve as completion of the Circle of the dialectic.
Translating ‘Capital’ for the 21st Century
Recording available on YouTubeThe appearance of a new English-language edition of Marx's Capital, Volume I, translated and edited by Paul Reitter and Paul North, has been a momentous occasion. Join a conversation with Reitter, North, and noted Marx scholar Michael Heinrich on the challenges of translating Marx for 21st century readers, the weaknesses and strengths of earlier translations, and the ways the new edition can help us understand Marx's analyses of capital and value.
Marx Miniseries: The ‘Resultate’
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsThe MEP's Capital Studies Group presents a miniseries on the chapter Marx omitted from published editions of Capital. Titled "Results of the Immediate Process of Production" and often referred to by the German 'Resultate', this long chapter can be read as a bridge between volumes 1 and 2 of Capital.
Reading Gramsci for Today’s Movements
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsAn ongoing study group on the Prison Notebooks and other works of Antonio Gramsci. We explore Gramsci's themes and concepts, including state-civil society relations, historical bloc, hegemony, spontaneity, strategy and tactic, and language. We follow Gramsci’s philological method, addressing such areas as linguistics, cinema, critical theory, literature, journalism, comics, animation, plastic arts, mass media and Machiavellian political studies.
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.
Bertolt Brecht’s Anti-Capitalist Aesthetics
Recording available on YouTubeAnthony Squiers presents an overview of Brecht’s revolutionary Marxist aesthetic and examine its usefulness as a weapon in today's struggles.
‘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.'
‘The Late Marx’s Revolutionary Roads’ with author Kevin Anderson
Recording available on YouTubeKevin Anderson presents his newly published book, 'The Late Marx's Revolutionary Roads,' based on systematic analysis of Karl Marx’s "Ethnological Notebooks" and related Marx texts from his final years, 1869-1883.
State of Emergency in US Higher Education
Recording available on YouTubeAlan Wald presents an overview of the state of emergency in higher education in the United States that recalls earlier eras of extreme political repression, such as McCarthyism in the 1950s. Students, faculty, and staff at US colleges and universities who stand up for Palestinian human rights and stopping the genocide in Gaza are being threatened with deportation and punished by the administrations.
Trump, the State, and Global Capital
Recording available on YouTubeLooking at the early weeks of the Trump regime through a Marxists lens presents a major challenge, but who better to meet it than Steve Maher and Clara Mattei, whose historical analyses of finance capital and the capitalist state have garnered well-deserved praise. Join us as we engage Steve and Clara in an open-ended conversation aimed at bringing some clarity to the burgeoning chaos that is shaking up U.S. and global capitalism and the imperialist state system.
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.