The Spectre Still Haunting: Introducing the Revolutionary Politics of Marx and Engels
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsWeek of Events
Oppression and Resistance in New Chinese and Chinese-American Science Fiction
Oppression and Resistance in New Chinese and Chinese-American Science Fiction
Before Theodore W. Allen turned to his magnum opus, The Invention of the White Race, he drafted an essay "The Kernel and Meaning: A Contribution to a Proletarian Critique of U.S. Historiography." In it, he assessed how the industrial bourgeoisie successfully overturned plantation capital's rule while assuring its own ascendancy over the proletariat. Allen reviewed six commonly held explanations as to why, despite favorable objective conditions, the U.S. left and workers movements failed to establish socialism or even a permanent working-class party. Participants in this group will read and discuss the original, 160-page typescript of Allen's unpublished essay.
Commons, Commoning, Communism
Commons, Commoning, Communism
Before the advent of capitalism, much of humanity produced their immediate livelihoods on lands and with tools to which they either had rights of use or held as individual property. All that came to a violent end with what Marx preferred to call the "original expropriation" (often misleadingly termed "primitive accumulation"). This reading group will explore the historical roots and persistence of such crimes and the resistance they evoke by reading together Ian Angus's recently published The War Against the Commons, Peter Linebaugh's Stop Thief! and related texts.
The Spectre Still Haunting: Introducing the Revolutionary Politics of Marx and Engels
The Spectre Still Haunting: Introducing the Revolutionary Politics of Marx and Engels
An introductory reading group for those just getting acquainted with Marxist ideas, based on Marx and Engels' elegant and rousing classic The Manifesto of the Communist Party. We will be guided by China Miéville's thoughtful, provocative meditations on the Manifesto, A Spectre Haunting.
Theodore Allen’s ‘The Kernel and Meaning’: A Strategic Critique of U.S. Labor History
Theodore Allen’s ‘The Kernel and Meaning’: A Strategic Critique of U.S. Labor History
Before Theodore W. Allen turned to his magnum opus, The Invention of the White Race, he drafted an essay "The Kernel and Meaning: A Contribution to a Proletarian Critique of U.S. Historiography." In it, he assessed how the industrial bourgeoisie successfully overturned plantation capital's rule while assuring its own ascendancy over the proletariat. Allen reviewed six commonly held explanations as to why, despite favorable objective conditions, the U.S. left and workers movements failed to establish socialism or even a permanent working-class party. Participants in this group will read and discuss the original, 160-page typescript of Allen's unpublished essay.
Chile’s 9/11: Fifty Years of Literary Resistance
Chile’s 9/11: Fifty Years of Literary Resistance
September 2023 marks fifty years since the overthrow of Salvador Allende's socialist government on September 11, 1973. To honor the struggles and sufferings of the Chilean people, the MEP's Literature Group dedicates two eight-week series to Chilean writers active before, during, and since the Pinochet dictatorship.
Classical Political Economy and Marx’s Critique: Theories of Surplus-Value
Classical Political Economy and Marx’s Critique: Theories of Surplus-Value
Following up on the MEP's long-running and recently completed study group on Marx's Grundrisse, we will closely read and discuss extensive selections from Marx's Theories of Surplus Value (sometimes referred to as Volume 4 of Capital), supplemented by chapters from I.I. Rubin's History of Economic Thought.
Reading Marx’s Capital, Volume I (third series)
Reading Marx’s Capital, Volume I (third series)
Third series in our close reading and discussion of Marx's magnum opus, with Lisa Maya Knauer and other facilitators from the MEP's Capital Studies Group. This series covers parts 5 through 8 of Capital I, on wages, the accumulation of capital, and the so-called primitive accumulation.