Political Economy
Events
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Reading Marx’s Capital Volume I
FeaturedOnline Event - Zoom MeetingParticipants in this class are closely reading and discussing Volume I of Karl Marx’s 'Capital, A Critique of Political Economy.' At present we are reading Part Seven, "The Process of Accumulation of Capital."
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Studies in Marx’s Capital
Online Event - Zoom MeetingFollowing up on the MEP's long-running study group on Karl Marx's Grundrisse, we have been reading closely and discussing Marx's 'Theories of Surplus Value' and related works. At present we are completing a study of capitalist landholding and ground rent. Future readings may include Soren Mau's 'Mute Compulsion' and Beverley Best's 'The Automatic Fetish.'
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The Circulation of Capital: Volume II of Marx’s Capital
Online Event - Zoom MeetingA 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.
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A Prime Competitor: Understanding Amazon’s Market Power
FeaturedRecording 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.
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AI versus Labor: Luddism and Beyond
Online Event - Zoom MeetingReading Group8 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.
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Translating ‘Capital’ for the 21st Century
FeaturedRecording 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.
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Marx Miniseries: The ‘Resultate’
FeaturedOnline Event - Zoom MeetingReading GroupThe 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.
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Reading Capital in an Age of Climate Change
FeaturedRecording available on YouTubeMatt Huber highlights the relevance to the climate crisis of key concepts from Marx's 'Capital' such as value, the hidden abode of production, surplus-value, the accumulation of capital, primitive accumulation, and the expropriation of the expropriators.
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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.
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‘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.
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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.
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Marx’s Capital Volume 1: A Short Course for Today
Online Event - Zoom MeetingReading GroupHave 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.
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‘Roses for Gramsci’ with Andy Merrifield
Recording available on YouTubeAuthor Andy Merrifield presents 'Roses for Gramsci,' a remarkable personal journey through the life and writings of the great Sardinian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci.
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Through the Lens of Spectacle: Panel 1, Oversight
Recording available on YouTube“The spectacle is the bad dream of modern society in chains, expressing nothing more than its wish for sleep,” Guy Debord declared in The Society of the Spectacle (1967): it is “a permanent opium war.” A half-century later, the specter of the spectacle continues to haunt Marxist cultural studies. In two linked panels, the Yale Working Group on Globalization and Culture proposes to track “the worldwide division of spectacular tasks” from lens manufacture to retail logistics, stadiums to camptowns, polar expeditions to spring festivals, as well as revolutionary specters in novels and borders, assassinations and squares.
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Through the Lens of Spectacle: Panel 2, Witness
Recording available on YouTube“The spectacle is the bad dream of modern society in chains, expressing nothing more than its wish for sleep,” Guy Debord declared in The Society of the Spectacle (1967): it is “a permanent opium war.” A half-century later, the specter of the spectacle continues to haunt Marxist cultural studies. In two linked panels, the Yale Working Group on Globalization and Culture proposes to track “the worldwide division of spectacular tasks” from lens manufacture to retail logistics, stadiums to camptowns, polar expeditions to spring festivals, as well as revolutionary specters in novels and borders, assassinations and squares.
Free