BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Marxist Education Project - ECPv6.15.20//NONSGML v1.0//EN
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN
METHOD:PUBLISH
X-WR-CALNAME:Marxist Education Project
X-ORIGINAL-URL:https://marxedproject.org
X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Marxist Education Project
REFRESH-INTERVAL;VALUE=DURATION:PT1H
X-Robots-Tag:noindex
X-PUBLISHED-TTL:PT1H
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/New_York
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20220313T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20221106T060000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20230312T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20231105T060000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20240310T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20241103T060000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:EDT
DTSTART:20250309T070000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:EST
DTSTART:20251102T060000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/Halifax
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0300
TZNAME:ADT
DTSTART:20200308T060000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0300
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:AST
DTSTART:20201101T050000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0300
TZNAME:ADT
DTSTART:20210314T060000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0300
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:AST
DTSTART:20211107T050000
END:STANDARD
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0400
TZOFFSETTO:-0300
TZNAME:ADT
DTSTART:20220313T060000
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0300
TZOFFSETTO:-0400
TZNAME:AST
DTSTART:20221106T050000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20241126T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20241126T143000
DTSTAMP:20260501T005831
CREATED:20240829T205940Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250221T170750Z
UID:10008311-1732626000-1732631400@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:AI versus Labor: Luddism and Beyond
DESCRIPTION:Weekly sessions on Tuesdays at 1 pm through December 2024 \nIs 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. In eight weekly sessions we will read\, discuss\, and critique two recent works: Breaking Things at Work: The Luddites Are Right About Why You Hate Your Job\, by Gavin Mueller; and The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence\, by Matteo Pasquinelli. Both are available in paper and eBook format from the publisher\, Verso Books. Additional reading selections will be provided in PDF format. \nFacilitated by Fred Murphy. Fred has led numerous study groups on ecosocialism\, science and technology\, the history of capitalism\, and Latin American politics at the Marxist Education Project since 2015. He studied and taught historical sociology at the New School for Social Research. \nThere is no fee for this eight-week online reading group – RSVP below if you wish to attend and we will send you the Zoom link. A suggested donation of $50 or whatever amount you can afford is welcome and appreciated.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/ai-versus-labor-luddism-and-beyond/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Accumulation of Capital,Alienation,Artificial Intelligence AI,automation,Capital Studies,Capital vs. Labor,Class,Class and Gender,Fall24,featured,Gender,History,Labor History,Labor Process,Multi-session Classes,Political Economy,Precarity,Reading Group,Science and Technology,Solidarity,Women
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/WebImageLarge.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20240429T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20240429T160000
DTSTAMP:20260501T005831
CREATED:20240411T150300Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240422T145958Z
UID:10007981-1714406400-1714406400@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Reading Science Fiction Politically - Spring 2024 Season
DESCRIPTION:The Science and Visionary Fiction reading group meets weekly to read and discuss science\, visionary and speculative fiction that bears on politics\, the environment\, and the struggle for a better future for all. We focus on the concept of visionary fiction\, emerging from Octavia Butler’s writings and beautifully articulated ten years ago by Walidah Imarisha\, “To Build a Future Without Police and Prisons\, We Have to Imagine It First.”  \nWhile far from earthbound\, and while not immune from reexamining the past or imagining\, we do so to stay with the present\, and with paths forward that do need new envisioning and imagining. \nThis year\, our selections have explored how artificial and nonhuman intelligence heighten both contradictions and possibilities. In the best of contemporary science fiction (and science fiction-adjacent) writing\, conflicts over these issues illustrate the larger dimensions of social conflict today. \nTo start the spring season\, we will read Ray Nayler’s 2022 novel\, The Mountain in the Sea. Nayler’s novel encompasses these themes–nonhuman (octopus) intelligence\, artificial intelligence\, climate justice and capitalist disregard for the earth\, all in intensely human terms. \nJoin in now to help select the additional titles to add to our current list. \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/scienceandvisionaryfictionspring24/
CATEGORIES:Artificial Intelligence AI,Science Fiction
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/octopus_by_alienoffspring_dcmim52-fullview.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20230429T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20230429T160000
DTSTAMP:20260501T005831
CREATED:20230405T190956Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230501T192944Z
UID:10006594-1682776800-1682784000@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Worn Out: Retail Workers vs. Digital Surveillance
DESCRIPTION:A video of this April 29\, 2023\, event is available on the MEP’s YouTube channel. \nWith Author Madison Van Oort\nBeneath the success of fast fashion\, a grimmer story is told by Madison Van Oort in Worn Out: How Retailers Surveil and Exploit Workers in the Digital Age and How Workers Are Fighting Back. Going undercover in two of the world’s largest fast fashion stores in New York City\, she observed firsthand how data and surveillance shape the lives of the people who do the actual producing and selling. Van Oort’s interviews with dozens of front line workers and labor activists show how workers are fighting back\, and her research exposes the exploitative reality of retail labor as digital tools lubricate the shift toward just-in-time retail by collecting real-time data on not only customer behavior but also worker performance. Automated scheduling platforms\, biometric time clocks\, and cashier metrics increase these workers’ already heightened insecurity. One of the first ethnographies of this “thriving” industry\, Worn Out pulls open the curtain between production and consumption and reveals the real cost of fast fashion. \nMadison Van Oort is a researcher based in Minneapolis. She received her PhD from the University of Minnesota in 2018\, and her academic writing has appeared in the journals Critical Sociology\, Ethnography\, and Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society as well as the anthology Captivating Technology: Race\, Carceral Technoscience\, and Liberatory Imagination in Everyday Life. Worn Out is her first book. \nWorn Out is available from the publisher\, MIT Press.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/worn-out/
LOCATION:Recording available on YouTube
CATEGORIES:Alienation,Artificial Intelligence AI,automation,Capital vs. Labor,Class,Classes/Events,Labor Organizing,Labor Process,Organizing,Precarity,Science and Technology,Seminars and Talks,Solidarity,Women
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/fast-fashion2.png
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20211116T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20211116T200000
DTSTAMP:20260501T005831
CREATED:20211030T033341Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211030T033341Z
UID:10007007-1637085600-1637092800@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:The Warehouse: Workers and Robots at Amazon with Alessandro Delfanti
DESCRIPTION:“Delfanti has done here what more critics of Amazon should — listen carefully to the people whose work makes the corporation function. Those of us fighting for a better future than Amazon’s dystopia have much to learn from this book”.  — Dania Rajendra\, Inaugural Director\, Athena Coalition \n‘Work hard\, have fun\, make history’ proclaims the slogan on the walls of Amazon’s warehouses. This cheerful message hides a reality of digital surveillance\, aggressive anti-union tactics and disciplinary layoffs. Reminiscent of the tumult of early industrial capitalism\, the hundreds of thousands of workers who help Amazon fulfil consumers’ desire are part of an experiment in changing the way we all work. \nIn this book\, Alessandro Delfanti takes readers inside Amazon’s warehouses to show how technological advancements and managerial techniques subdue the workers rather than empower them\, as seen in the sensors that track workers’ every movement around the floor and algorithmic systems that re-route orders to circumvent worker sabotage. He looks at new technologies including robotic arms trained by humans and augmented reality goggles\, showing that their aim is to standardize\, measure and discipline human work rather than replace it. \nDespite its innovation\, Amazon will always need living labor’s flexibility and low cost. And as the warehouse is increasingly automated\, worker discontent increases. Striking under the banner “we are not robots”\, employees have shown that they are acutely aware of such contradictions. The only question remains: how long will it be until Amazon’s empire collapses? \nALESSANDRO DELFANTI teaches Digital Media at the University of Toronto. He is the author of Biohackers: The Politics of Open Science (Pluto\, 2013). \nAll events are sliding scale—choose the level at which you choose to contribute to The Marxist Education Project. No one is denied admission to any event or class because of an inability to pay. Send an email to info@marxedproject.org to obtain an entry url to any. event or class presented by The Marxist Education Project.
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/the-warehouse-workers-and-robots-at-amazon-with-alessandro-delfanti/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Accumulation of Capital,Artificial Intelligence AI,automation,Capital Studies,Capital vs. Labor,Class,Classes/Events,Emancipation,Fordism,Globalization,Labor History,Labor Organizing,Labor Process,Marx,Organizing,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Warehouse1SM.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Halifax:20210823T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Halifax:20210823T180000
DTSTAMP:20260501T005831
CREATED:20210728T025147Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210825T150253Z
UID:10006988-1629734400-1629741600@marxedproject.org
SUMMARY:Augmented Exploitation: Artificial Intelligence\, Automation\, Work and Changes in the Labor Process
DESCRIPTION:A 6 Week Close-Reading and Discussion series \nConducted with the Capital Studies Group\nIn the Introduction to Augmented Exploitation\, co-editors Phoebe Moore and Jamie Woodcock point up two main problems with how automation and artificial intelligence are being discussed as the end of the first quarter of the 21st century draws near. Number one is the claim that Al is changing the labor process in new and unprecedented ways. But capitalists have always introduced machines in order to increase the amount of what each worker can produce in a given period of time. This is where the second problem comes in—either a certain process will be automated\, or it will not—a binary that focuses on machines and not on the workers who operate them. Rather than the prospects of automation and interpretive learning replacing workers\, we need rather to see that these are augmentations of the labor process. \n  \nAugmented Exploitation is divided into three areas: Making It\, Faking It\, and Breaking It. Going beyond platform work and the gig economy\, the authors explore emerging forms of algorithmic governance and Al-augmented apps that collect data about workers and consumers in innovative ways\, but also to to keep wages and worker representation under control. The contributors to Augmented Exploitation show that workers are not taking these dramatic changes lying down; they present case studies of new and exciting forms of resistance that are springing up across the globe. Join us to learn more of the reality of the impact of Artificial Intelligence (Al) on workers’ lives. \nDuring these six sessions we will also review several articles from this year’s Socialist Register\, Beyond Digital Capitalism: New Ways of Living. In particular\, we will discuss “The Time of Our Lives”\, Bryan Palmer’s essay on capital and temporality\, and Larry Lohmann’s essay on “Interpretive Learning”. Time\, always a frontier of class struggle\, pushed by automation and other digital management controls that are ever-present today\, is now at the forefront of contentious labor-capital relations. Lohmann stresses a number of challenges that interpretation machines have presented to movement organizing and in response argues that it is important to understand the continuities between industrial-era and digital-era value-creation rather than to only focus on the differences. He also emphasizes that the contradiction between living and dead labor that Marx identified not only persists in today’s digital economy\, but also remains fundamental both to understanding crisis and to identifying possibilities for radical political change. \n The CAPITAL STUDIES GROUP has been meeting on Saturdays for more than four years. There are now several groups studying the two volumes of Capital along with an active Grundrisse reading group. We are students\, activists and teachers who have dedicated ourselves to facilitating broad study of current issues of life and work during this late globalized stage of capitalist development in addition to the work we continue to do around Karl Marx’s Capital. \nFor residents of the US and Puerto Rico\, when you purchase the book along with registering for the class there is a $10 savings. This price includes shipping via USPS Media Mail. \n  \n 
URL:https://marxedproject.org/event/augmented-exploitation-artificial-intelligence-automation-work-and-changes-in-the-labor-process/
LOCATION:Online Event – Zoom Meeting
CATEGORIES:Accumulation of Capital,Artificial Intelligence AI,automation,Capital vs. Labor,Class,Classes/Events,Fordism,Globalization,Labor Process,Marx's Capital,Multi-session Classes,Political Economy,Science and Method,Science and Technology,Seminars and Talks
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://marxedproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/AugumentedExpSocMedia.jpg
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR