Marx’s Grundrisse: Last two weeks until spring term
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
Rubbish Belongs to the Poor
Rubbish. Waste. Trash. Whatever term you choose to describe the things we throw away, the connotations are the same; of something dirty, useless and incontrovertibly 'bad'. But does such a dismissive rendering mask a more nuanced reality? In RUBBISH BELONGS TO THE POOR Patrick O'Hare journeys to the heart of Uruguay’s waste disposal system in order to reconceptualize rubbish as a 21st century commons, at risk of enclosure.
The Invention of the White Race
In 1972, after over 30 years of activism in the labor and communist movements, Allen shared the following strategic insight with a new generation of revolutionaries: “The most vulnerable point at which a decisive blow can be struck against bourgeois rule in the United States is white supremacy. White supremacy is both the keystone (in the arch) and the Achilles heel of U.S. bourgeois democracy, the historic form of bourgeois rule in the US. It is a vulnerable point because it is a historically developed and unresolvable internal contradiction of US bourgeois democracy. It is the decisive vulnerable point because – as history has repeatedly proved – the basic class contradictions in bourgeois democracy can never fully mature until and unless the anti-proletarian nature of white supremacy has been completely established in the minds of the proletarian masses.”
Allen spent the next 20 years researching the primary sources and writing his magnum opus.
Animals and Capitalism: Reading and Reflecting on ‘Porkopolis’
The main reading for these sessions will be Alex Blanchette’s PORKOPOLIS: AMERICAN ANIMALITY, STANDARDIZED LIFE, AND THE FACTORY FARM, with supplemental texts on nonhuman animal work in the history of capitalism, Marxism and animal liberation, biological reproduction in animal agriculture, and related topics.
Never-Ending War!: Novels on Conflict, Resistance and Resilience
“Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.” – Neil Gaiman
The Marxist Education Project Lit reading group revisits some literary classics along with contemporary novels that are prescient and compelling –challenging us to think about our understanding of history and how we will confront the present moment.
Marx’s Grundrisse: Last two weeks until spring term
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
After the Pandemic: Rebuilding the Medicare for All Movement
The Covid crisis drove home both the absurdity of linking healthcare to employment and the importance of treating healthcare as a decommodified public good. But the politics of the emerging post pandemic period are not conducive to big, transformative initiatives like Medicare for All.
Socialist Register 2022 — Polarization and Socialism: The Direction Forward
It is a truism that electoral politics and political identity in the USA and Europe today are polarized to a degree unknown since the 1930s. It is a commonplace among the pundits of the ruling class that somehow “both sides” must return to “moderate” common sense to avoid a violent rupture of our society. They seldom question the underlying causes of this polarization, let alone whether it is rooted in the very nature of late capitalism.
This is not the case with the contributors to the 58th volume of Socialist Register. From different perspectives, they ask us to think about the deep social contradictions exposed by increasing polarization of the most economically developed societies along lines of wealth, race, gender, nation-state, and region. Members of this class meet once each month for four months to discuss selected articles from SR 58 with editor Greg Albo, joined by various authors organized around the following themes on one Sunday a month from March 20 through May 115, 2022. The recording of the February 20 session is available by writing to info@marxedproject.org
Global Political Struggles of the Working Class
The Double Consciousness of Capital with author DAVID HARVEY
Social Sources of Political Polarization in Russia with authors ILYA MATVEEV and OLEG ZHURAVLEV
The Far Right, Corporate Power, and Social Struggles in Brazil with authors VIRGINIA FONTES, ANA GARCIA and REJANE HOEVELER
The Invention of the White Race
In 1972, after over 30 years of activism in the labor and communist movements, Allen shared the following strategic insight with a new generation of revolutionaries: “The most vulnerable point at which a decisive blow can be struck against bourgeois rule in the United States is white supremacy. White supremacy is both the keystone (in the arch) and the Achilles heel of U.S. bourgeois democracy, the historic form of bourgeois rule in the US. It is a vulnerable point because it is a historically developed and unresolvable internal contradiction of US bourgeois democracy. It is the decisive vulnerable point because – as history has repeatedly proved – the basic class contradictions in bourgeois democracy can never fully mature until and unless the anti-proletarian nature of white supremacy has been completely established in the minds of the proletarian masses.”
Allen spent the next 20 years researching the primary sources and writing his magnum opus.
Animals and Capitalism: Reading and Reflecting on ‘Porkopolis’
The main reading for these sessions will be Alex Blanchette’s PORKOPOLIS: AMERICAN ANIMALITY, STANDARDIZED LIFE, AND THE FACTORY FARM, with supplemental texts on nonhuman animal work in the history of capitalism, Marxism and animal liberation, biological reproduction in animal agriculture, and related topics.
Never-Ending War!: Novels on Conflict, Resistance and Resilience
“Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.” – Neil Gaiman
The Marxist Education Project Lit reading group revisits some literary classics along with contemporary novels that are prescient and compelling –challenging us to think about our understanding of history and how we will confront the present moment.
The Solutions are Already Here with author Peter Gelderloos
Across the world, grassroots networks of local communities are working to realize their visions of an alternative revolutionary response to planetary destruction, often pitted against the new megaprojects promoted by greenwashed alternative energy infrastructures and the neocolonialist, technocratic policies that are the forerunners of the Green New Deal.
Gelderloos interviews food sovereignty activists in Venezuela, Indigenous communities reforesting their lands in Brazil and anarchists fighting biofuel plantations in Indonesia, looking at the battles that have cancelled airports, stopped pipelines, and helped the most marginalized to fight borders and environmental racism, to transform their cities, to win a dignified survival.
The Invention of the White Race
In 1972, after over 30 years of activism in the labor and communist movements, Allen shared the following strategic insight with a new generation of revolutionaries: “The most vulnerable point at which a decisive blow can be struck against bourgeois rule in the United States is white supremacy. White supremacy is both the keystone (in the arch) and the Achilles heel of U.S. bourgeois democracy, the historic form of bourgeois rule in the US. It is a vulnerable point because it is a historically developed and unresolvable internal contradiction of US bourgeois democracy. It is the decisive vulnerable point because – as history has repeatedly proved – the basic class contradictions in bourgeois democracy can never fully mature until and unless the anti-proletarian nature of white supremacy has been completely established in the minds of the proletarian masses.”
Allen spent the next 20 years researching the primary sources and writing his magnum opus.
Animals and Capitalism: Reading and Reflecting on ‘Porkopolis’
The main reading for these sessions will be Alex Blanchette’s PORKOPOLIS: AMERICAN ANIMALITY, STANDARDIZED LIFE, AND THE FACTORY FARM, with supplemental texts on nonhuman animal work in the history of capitalism, Marxism and animal liberation, biological reproduction in animal agriculture, and related topics.