January 2022
Marx’s Grundrisse: Winter 21/22 Session
“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
Find out more »After Wampum, the Evolution of Money in Colonial America
A TALK WITH PETER FAY We will travel back in time to colonial New England and New York to closely examine Marx’s views on money at the periphery of the British empire. Scarcity of British currency forced many commodities toward the role of “universal equivalent”: Indian corn, tobacco, pieces of eight. But it was colonial thirst for luxury commodities like beaver pelts that finally drove an explosive growth in the one money-commodity facilitating that trade: wampum.
Find out more »March 2022
Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation
The event marks the publication of “Karl Marx’s on Alienation,” edited by Marcello Musto. This is an essential volume. The introduction written by Marcello provides a guide to the concept of alienation prior to Marx, Marx's essential thought and writings over three periods of his working life. This brief quote from Volume Three of CAPITAL is one of many presented and discussed: “The realm of freedom really begins only where labor determined by necessity and external expediency ends; it lies by its very nature beyond the sphere of material production proper. Just as the savage must wrestle with nature to satisfy his needs, to maintain and reproduce his life, so must civilized man, and he must do so in all forms of society and under all possible modes of production. This realm of natural necessity expands with his development, because his needs do too; but the productive forces to satisfy these expand at the same time. Freedom, in this sphere, can consist only in this, that socialized man, the associated producers, govern the human metabolism with nature in a rational way, bringing it under their collective control instead of being dominated by it as a blind power; accomplishing it with the least expenditure of energy and in conditions most worthy and appropriate for their human nature. But this always remains a realm of necessity. The true realm of freedom, the development of human powers as an end in itself, begins beyond it, though it can only flourish with this realm of necessity as its basis. The reduction of the working day is the basic prerequisite.” —Karl Marx
Come join Michael Hardt and Marcello Musto as they discuss with each other and those present from this essential volume for study—and practice.