Science and Technology
Grundrisse
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsIn the Grundrisse Marx arguably bridges his early writings on philosophy and Hegel, and the writing and revisions of Capital that dominated much of the rest of his life. We will undertake a close, word by word reading of the text with a view to understanding the concepts that evolve within it. This first term will begin with the chapter on money.
Augmented Exploitation: Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Work and Changes in the Labor Process
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsIn 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. Also discussed will be two of the many vital essays from this year's Socialist Register—Beyond Digital Capitalism: New Ways of Living.
Capital, Volume II: The Process of Circulation of Capital
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsWe will begin our study of Volume II study by situating this volume in relation to the historical process of development of capitalist society which is premised on its specific social form of societal re-production, the production of capital. To do so we will study the closing sections of the Penguin edition of Volume I, specifically, Part VIII: "So-called Primitive Accumulation" and the “Appendix: Results of the Immediate Process of Production”.
Join us as we journey through this movement from the imaginary concrete to the abstract concrete to the real concrete. Come and challenge your way of thinking and understanding the world as it appears to you and begin to identify some of what needs to be overcome and done to bring about a better world.
Clipped Coins and Civilizing Money: George Caffentzis on John Locke and David Hume
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsGeorge Caffentzis makes both an intervention in the field of monetary philosophy and into Marxist conceptions of the relation between philosophy and capitalist development. Clipped Coins and Civilizing Money have just been released by Pluto Press. George will be joined in discussion with Peter Linebaugh and Carl Wennerlind
Studies in the Works of Antonio Gramsci with Piruz Alemi
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsThis 10-week session has four sessions remaining which feature a close reading of Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks. We will look to connect cultures and their human rights struggles. We will also explore those who influenced Gramsci, particularly Marx, but also Machiavelli and Croce. This seminar is accessible to people at all levels of familiarity with Gramsci’s work, including those just beginning their studies of Gramsci. Join at any time.
Studies in the Works of Antonio Gramsci with Piruz Alemi
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsThis 10-week session has four sessions remaining which feature a close reading of Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks. We will look to connect cultures and their human rights struggles. We will also explore those who influenced Gramsci, particularly Marx, but also Machiavelli and Croce. This seminar is accessible to people at all levels of familiarity with Gramsci’s work, including those just beginning their studies of Gramsci. Join at any time.
Studies in the Works of Antonio Gramsci with Piruz Alemi
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsThis 10-week session has four sessions remaining which feature a close reading of Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks. We will look to connect cultures and their human rights struggles. We will also explore those who influenced Gramsci, particularly Marx, but also Machiavelli and Croce. This seminar is accessible to people at all levels of familiarity with Gramsci’s work, including those just beginning their studies of Gramsci. Join at any time.
Ecosocialism in the Shadow of Covid
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsWe will read and discuss three books: The Corona Crash (Verso), by Grace Blakeley, details how the pandemic is ushering in a new era in which the corporate economy collapses into the arms of the state, and behemoths like Amazon and Netflix balloon in profit and power. White Skin, Black Fuel (Verso), by Andreas Malm and the Zetkin Collective, takes a comprehensive look at how extreme-right currents are responding to ecological crises with with authoritarian and xenophobic proposals while remaining ardent supporters of fossil capital – black fuels to support white supremacy. And A People’s Green New Deal (Pluto), by Max Ajl, engages critically with various Green New Deal proposals and sketches out a radical alternative committed to degrowth, anti-imperialism and agro-ecology.
Grundrisse: The Chapter on Money (The first two notebooks)
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participants“Forces of production and social relations - two different sides of the development of the social individual - appear to capital as mere means, and are merely means for it to produce on its limited foundation. In fact, however, they are the material conditions to blow this foundation sky-high...” —Karl Marx, The Grundrisse
Ecosocialism in the Shadow of Covid
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsWe will read and discuss three books: The Corona Crash (Verso), by Grace Blakeley, details how the pandemic is ushering in a new era in which the corporate economy collapses into the arms of the state, and behemoths like Amazon and Netflix balloon in profit and power. White Skin, Black Fuel (Verso), by Andreas Malm and the Zetkin Collective, takes a comprehensive look at how extreme-right currents are responding to ecological crises with with authoritarian and xenophobic proposals while remaining ardent supporters of fossil capital – black fuels to support white supremacy. And A People’s Green New Deal (Pluto), by Max Ajl, engages critically with various Green New Deal proposals and sketches out a radical alternative committed to degrowth, anti-imperialism and agro-ecology.
Disputing the Deluge with Darko Suvin joined by Editor Hugh O’Connell and special guests
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsDarko Suvin’s writings from the early 2000s investigate the function of literary genres and reconsider the relationship between science fiction and fantasy, the essays collected here highlight the value of science fiction for grappling with the key events and transformations of recent years. Suvin’s interrogations show how speculative fiction has responded to 9/11, the global war on terror, the 2008economic collapse, and the rise of conservative populism, along with contemporary critical utopian analyses of the Capitalocene, the climate crisis,COVID19, and the decline of democracy. This collection allows new generations of students and scholars to engage directly with his work and its continuing importance and timeliness.
Rethinking Alternatives with Marx: Economy, Ecology and Migration
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsThe dual aim of this collective volume is to contribute to a new critical discussion on Marx’s critique of political economy and to develop a deeper analysis of certain questions, like ecology and migration, to which relatively little attention has been paid until recently.
Book Special Redux! Marx Dead and Alive: Reading Capital in Precarious Times
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsThis is for ordering the book only. Andy has an upcoming talk on Sunday, January 23. We are offering this important book for $12.00 inclusive of postage (US and Puerto Rico only), until one week after Andy's presentation on Henri Lefebvre and Louis Althusser.
A People’s History of Detroit
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsMark Jay and Philip Conklin outline the complex sociopolitical dynamics underlying major events in Detroit's past, from the rise of Fordism and the formation of labor unions, to deindustrialization and the city's recent bankruptcy. They demonstrate that Detroit's history is not a tale of two cities—one of wealth and development and another racked by poverty and racial violence; rather it is the story of a single Detroit that operates according to capitalism's mandates.
The Necessity of Social Control by István Mészáros
Online: Zoom link will be provided to registered participantsDuring these remaining eight sessions we will do an ongoing close reading of Mészáros’ The Necessity of Social Control (Monthly Review Press). This read in order to better understand the fundamental contradictions of capitalism, the forms of domination and exploitation inherent in its logic, historical efforts to develop an alternative economy and society, and the challenge of sustainable development and substantive equality. We aim to develop our own knowledge of the necessary conditions for emancipation and discuss the relevance of the text for our lives today.