Week of Events
Sunday, October 15, 2023
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October 15, 2023 -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.
Monday, October 16, 2023
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October 16, 2023 -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 Participants in this group will read and discuss the original, 160-page typescript of Allen's unpublished essay.
Tuesday, October 17, 2023
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October 17, 2023 -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.
Wednesday, October 18, 2023
No events on this day.
Thursday, October 19, 2023
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October 19, 2023 -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.
Friday, October 20, 2023
No events on this day.
Saturday, October 21, 2023
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October 21, 2023 -What Do We Need Bosses For? with Pete Dolack
What Do We Need Bosses For? with Pete Dolack
Pete Dolack's latest book, What Do We Need Bosses For?: Toward Economic Democracy, analyzes past and present efforts to establish systems of economic democracy on a national or society-wide basis. In this context the book dissects the mounting inequalities of capitalism and discusses theoretical ideas as to how we might organize a better world.