New Articles and Features in the International Marxist-Humanist (December 2012)

1839

NEW ARTICLES AND FEATURES IN THE INTERNATIONAL MARXIST-HUMANIST (December 2012)

See: http://www.internationalmarxisthumanist.org/

***FEATURED ARTICLES:

U.S. Voters Repudiate Far Right, But Still Face Austerity Capitalism under Obama — by Kevin Anderson

Helen Macfarlane – The Radical Feminist Admired by Karl Marx — by Louise Yeoman (audio and print, originally from BBC radio)

Marxism and Religion: A Complete and Annotated Bibliography –- by Roland Boer

The On-Going Relevance of Marxist-Humanism –- by Sandra Rein

**** OTHER ARTICLES

Review of Peter Hudis, Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism –- by Dan Swain (originally published in Marx and Philosophy Review of Books)

***OTHER LANGUAGES

[Spanish] Los votantes estadounidenses repudian la extrema derecha, pero aún se enfrentan al capitalismo de austeridad bajo Obama — Kevin Anderson

[Croatian] Od globaln krize do prevladavanja kapitala –- Peter Hudis

***RECENT BOOKS OF INTEREST:

MARX’S CONCEPT OF THE ALTERNATIVE TO CAPITALISM – by Peter Hudis

Historical Materialism Series, Brill Academic Publishers, hardcover 2012, paperback 2013

[This is one of the best books I have read in the last 20 years. It is of paramount importance for the struggles ahead and humanity’s quest for release from the value-form of labour and our break-out into realms of freedom – Glenn Rikowski. For more on this book see:  https://rikowski.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/marxs-concept-of-the-alternative-to-capitalism-by-peter-hudis/]

Peter Hudis

MARX ON GENDER AND THE FAMILY: A CRITICAL STUDY – by Heather Brown

Historical Materialism Series, Brill Academic Publishers, hardcover 2012, paperback 2013

THE DUNAYEVSKAYA-MARCUSE-FROMM CORRESPONDENCE, 1954-1978: DIALOGUES ON HEGEL, MARX, AND CRITICAL THEORY — Edited by Kevin B. Anderson and Russell Rockwell, Lexington Books, paperback 2012

1839: THE CHARTIST INSURRECTION – By David Black and Chris Ford, Unkant Publishers, paperback 2012

[This is an exciting and well-crafted account of Chartism at its glorious peak. I have used the book and the related video it in my teaching. For more on here see: https://rikowski.wordpress.com/2012/05/26/promotional-film-for-1839-the-chartist-insurrection-by-david-black-and-chris-ford/ and https://rikowski.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/1839-the-chartist-insurrection/ — Glenn Rikowski]

The International Marxist-Humanist is the web publication of the International Marxist-Humanist Organization (IMHO). The IMHO aims to develop and project a viable vision of a truly new, human society that can give direction to today’s many liberation struggles, whether of labor, women, youth, or racial/ethnic and sexual minorities. It seeks to work out a unity of theory and practice, worker and intellectual, and philosophy and organization. We ground our ideas in the totality of Marx’s Marxism and Raya Dunayevskaya’s body of ideas and upon the unique philosophic contributions that have guided Marxist-Humanism since its founding in the 1950s.

Contact: arise@internationalmarxisthumanist.org

Also contact the above address or more information about our publication or our organization, or to learn about events in your geographical area (if available).

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Hegel Contra Sociology Reading Group

G.W.F. Hegel

HEGEL CONTRA SOCIOLGY READING GROUP

The Gillian Rose ‘Hegel Contra Sociology’ Reading Group will hold its first meeting at 7 p.m. on Wednesday 24 October at University College London (UCL), Foster Court Room 112, Gower Street (Tube: Russell Square or Goodge Street).

Map at: http://streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=529649&y=182184&z=0&sv=51.5237,-0.1326&st=7&mapp=map.srf

The group will meet every alternate Wednesdays, so subsequent readings for the rest of 2012 will take place on 7 Nov, 21 Nov, 5 Dec and 19 Dec.

All welcome

 

The controversial 235-page text, by Britain’s best Post-War philosopher, first published in 1981, has now been republished by Verso. Uniquely, Hegel Contra Sociology, in challenging the legacy of Neo-Kantianism and its impact on Marxism and sociology in general, provides a dense but concise overview of all of Hegel’s main works: the System of Ethical Life, the Philosophy of Right, Phenomenology of Spirit, the Aesthetics and the Science of Logic.

The first session (or two) will be on chapter one, ‘The Antinomies of Sociological Reason’.

Dave Black will lead off the discussion.

David Black, Convenor

 

**END**

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Glenn Rikowski’s MySpace Blog: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski/blog

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

New Articles and Features from U.S. Marxist-Humanists – June 2012

Raya Dunayevskaya

NEW ARTICLES AND FEATURES FROM U.S. MARXIST-HUMANISTS – JUNE 2012

http://www.usmarxisthumanists.org/  

JUNE 2012

SOME THOUGHTS ON THE WISCONSIN RECALL ELECTION – by D. Beltaigne

THE EUROPEAN CRISIS: REGRESSION AND RENEWAL – by David Black

ISRAEL AND IRAN: ENMITY FROM ABOVE, AMITY FROM BELOW – by Richard Abernethy

NEW PERSPECTIVES ON ROSA LUXEMBURG’S CRITIQUE OF GLOBAL CAPITALISM – by Peter Hudis

PERSIAN ‘CAPITAL’: HASSAN MORTAZAVI’S NEW TRANSLATION OF MARX’S CLASSIC WORK – by Frieda Afary

MARCUSE’S AND FROMM’S CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE SOCIALIST FEMINIST RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA: A NEW WINDOW ON CRITICAL THEORY – by Kevin Anderson

DISCUSSION ARTICLE: DEATH RATTLE OF THE AMERICAN MIND – by Peter McLaren

[VIDEO] 1839: THE CHARTIST INSURRECTION – by David Black and Chris Ford

[PERSIAN] ON ETHNICITY AND NON-WESTERN SOCIETIES: MARX AT THE MARGINS – by Yashar Dar al-Shafa

 

NEW BOOK:

1839: THE CHARTIST INSURRECTION – by David Black and Chris Ford (Unkannt Books)  

 

NEW BOOK:

THE DUNAYEVSKAYA-MARCUSE-FROMM CORRESPONDENCE, 1954-1978: DIALOGUES ON HEGEL, MARX, AND CRITICAL THEORY – edited by Kevin B. Anderson and Russell Rockwell (Lexington Books)

 

U.S.MARXIST-HUMANISTS IS PART OF THE INTERNATIONAL MARXIST-HUMANIST ORGANIZATION. The IMHO seeks to work out a unity of theory and practice, worker and intellectual, and philosophy and organization. We aim to develop and project a viable vision of a truly new, human society that can give direction to today’s many freedom struggles. We ground our ideas in the totality of Marx’s Marxism and Raya Dunayevskaya’s body of ideas and upon the unique philosophic contributions that have guided Marxist-Humanism since its founding in the 1950s.

 

AFFILIATES

U.S.Marxist-Humanists – http://www.usmarxisthumanists.org – arise@usmarxisthumanists.org  

The Hobgoblin Collective, UK– http://www.thehobgoblin.co.uk – hobgoblinlondon@aol.com

 

EVENTS IN YOUR AREA:

Please let us know if you would be interested in receiving information about Marxist-Humanist events in your city, region, or country.

 

**END**

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Raya Dunayevskaya: Biography of an Idea

Raya Dunayevskaya

RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA: BIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA

Marxist-Humanist Initiative is hosting a screening and discussion of a new documentary on the ideas of Raya Dunayevskaya this Thursday night in NYC. Details are below. 

Film and Discussion:– THURSDAY JUNE 28, 6:30 TO 9:00 P.M.

“RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA: BIOGRAPHY OF AN IDEA”: http://i45.tinypic.com/54d1rs.jpg

Marxist-Humanist Initiative will screen and discuss a new documentary film about the ideas of the philosopher, activist, and feminist who developed Marxist-Humanism over much of the last century.

This month marks the 25th anniversary of her death. The film’s title and content follow from Dunayevskaya’s declaration that her biography ‘is the biography of an idea’. 

Dunayevskaya was the author of Marxism and Freedom, from 1776 to Today; Philosophy and Revolution, from Hegel to Sartre and from Marx to Mao; Rosa Luxemburg, Women’s Liberation and Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution; American Civilization on Trial, Black Masses as Vanguard, and many other works. The film emphasizes how contemporary her ideas remain today. 

The film-maker will be present for the discussion by Skype.
 
At TRS Inc. Professional Suite, 44 East 32nd Street, 11th floor (bet. Madison and Park Aves.), Manhattan

Contribution requested but not required. 

For more information, visit MHI’s website, www.marxist-humanist-initiative. org

 

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

 

 

1839: The Chartist Insurrection

Chartism

1839: THE CHARTIST INSURRECTION

1839:  The Chartist Insurrection
David  Black and Chris Ford
(Unkant Publishing)

ISBN:  978-0-9568176-6-2
Published:  April 2012, 268pp

‘This book assists us greatly in understanding the potential for future challenges to the system’ — John McDonnell MP

‘In retrieving the suppressed history of the Chartist Insurrection, David Black and Chris Ford have produced a revolutionary handbook’ — Ben Watson

1839, the year after QueenVictoria’s coronation, saw a chain of events which brought Britain closer to revolution than at any time since the English Civil War – or any time since. The issue was the unjust and corrupt electoral system, in which only seven hundred thousand people were entitled to vote in a country of twenty-five million. Drawing on the accounts of the participants themselves – agitators, conspirators, idealists, journalists, informers, soldiers and  politicians – 1839 shows how Parliament’s rejection of the first Chartist petition for Universal Suffrage led to mass rioting, a failed general strike and insurrections in south Wales and northern England.

The events of 1839 are  presented not just as a battle of wills between the Chartists and the Government, but also as a battle of ideas between the radicals themselves on questions of democracy, social justice, and the ‘limits’ of peaceful protest.

Foreword by John McDonnell MP. Appendices include Julian Harney’s ‘The Tremendous Uprising’ and Edward Aveling’s memoir, ‘George Julian Harney: A Straggler of 1848’. Illustrated throughout.

David  Black  is author of ‘Acid: A New Secret  History of LSD’ and ‘Helen Macfarlane: A Feminist, Revolutionary Journalist and Philosopher in Mid-Nineteenth Century England’.

Chris  Ford’s works  include ‘The  Crossroads of the European Revolution: Ukrainian Social-Democrats and Communists  1917-1920’ (Critique, 2010), and Introduction to ‘Borotbism: A Chapter in the History of the  Ukrainian Revolution’ by Ivan Maistrenko.

See:
http://www.unkant.com/2012/04/dave-black-chris-ford-1839-chartist.html
http://www.amazon.co.uk/1839-Chartist-Insurrection-John-McDonnell/dp/095681767X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335198243&sr=8-1

Update 23rd May 2012:

Promotional Film for the Book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JydjP23QAVc

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Karl Marx and the Present Moment

Karl Marx

KARL MARX AND THE PRESENT MOMENT

Karl Marx and the Present Moment: Beyond ‘Resistance’ and Toward Human Emancipation

A talk and discussion: with Kevin B Anderson, author of Marx at the Margins

2 p.m. Saturday 14 April 2012 at The Lucas Arms, 245a Grays Inn Road, King’s Cross, London, WC1 (5 minutes from Kings Cross Tube)

MEETING SPONSORED BY THE HOBGOBLIN ONLINE

The Arab revolutions and the Occupy movement have placed both revolution and anti-capitalism at the forefront of global social consciousness. While many are again evoking Marx, the legacy of decades of postmodernism and postmodernized postcolonial thought has left us, at best, with a politics of resistance rather than one of full human emancipation. This talk will explore Marx’s thought in light of this legacy. It will be argued that his multidimensional dialectical vision encompassed both ‘totalities’ like capitalism and the specificities of nation, ethnicity, gender, and anti-colonial resistance. Moreover, his philosophical dialectic, rooted in Hegel, theorized precisely this type of ‘concrete totality.’ And finally, his critique of capital was accompanied by an always implicit — and sometimes explicit — vision of a radically humanist future beyond the exploitative, alienating, and reified world of the capital relation.

Kevin Anderson’s most recent books are Foucault and the Iranian Revolution; Gender and the Seductions of Islamism (with Janet Afary, 2005), Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western Societies (2010), and The Dunayevskaya-Marcuse-Fromm Correspondence, 1954-1978: Dialogues on Hegel, Marx, and Critical Theory (coedited with Russell Rockwell, 2012). He is also the author of Lenin, Hegel, and Western Marxism: A Critical Study (1995) and the coeditor (with Peter Hudis) of The Rosa Luxemburg Reader(2004).

The Hobgoblin: http://www.thehobgoblin.co.uk/

**END**

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

MySpace Profile: http://www.myspace.com/glennrikowski

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Kevin B. Anderson

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

New Articles and Features from U.S. Marxist-Humanists

Raya Dunayevskaya

NEW ARTICLES AND FEATURES FROM U.S. MARXIST-HUMANISTS

http://www.usmarxisthumanists.org/

FEBRUARY 2012

Richard Greeman, “Russia: the Return of the Revolution”

D. Beltaigne, “Why John Brown? Why Now?”

Richard Abernethy, “David Cameron’s Attack on Health and Safety”

Peter Hudis and Sasha Lilley, “Rosa Luxemburg’s Legacy” (audio)

Paulo Morel, “Discussion Article: Is Newt Gingrich an ‘Invented’ Idiot?”

David Black, “The Elusive ‘Threads of Historical Progress’: The Early Chartists and the Young Marx and Engels”

George Karavas, Dave Eden, Sandra Rein, and Kevin Anderson, “Review Symposium on Marx at the Margins”

Ayob Rahmani, “Interview with Kevin Anderson”

The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg, edited by Annelies Laschitza, George Adler, and Peter Hudis – Links to reviews in International Socialist Review and Rain Taxi Review of Books

Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western Societies, by Kevin Anderson – Links to reviews in Radical Philosophy Review and Workers’ Liberty

U.S. MARXIST-HUMANISTS IS PART OF THE INTERNATIONAL MARXIST-HUMANIST ORGANIZATION. The IMHO seeks to work out a unity of theory and practice, worker and intellectual, and philosophy and organization. We aim to develop and project a viable vision of a truly new, human society that can give direction to today’s many freedom struggles. We ground our ideas in the totality of Marx’s Marxism and Raya Dunayevskaya’s body of ideas and upon the unique philosophic contributions that have guided Marxist-Humanism since its founding in the 1950s.

AFFILIATES
U.S. Marxist-Humanists – http://www.usmarxisthumanists.org – arise@usmarxisthumanists.org
The Hobgoblin Collective, UK – http://www.thehobgoblin.co.uk  – hobgoblinlondon@aol.com

EVENTS IN YOUR AREA:
Please let us know if you would be interested in receiving information about Marxist-Humanist events in your city, region, or country.

 

**END**

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

‘Cheerful Sin’ – a song by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIbX5aKUjO8

‘The Lamb’ by William Blake – set to music by Victor Rikowski: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw3VloKBvZc

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

Exploding the Myths of Capitalism: U.S. Marxist-Humanists

Raya Dunayevskaya

EXPLODING THE MYTHS OF CAPITALISM: U.S. MARXIST-HUMANISTS

You are invited to attend a series of open discussions on…

Exploding the Myths of Capitalism

First & Third Wednesdays, March & April

6:30-9.00 pm

@ChicagoPublic Library,  Harold Washington L ibrary Center, 400 South State St.Chicago IL, Room 3N-6

Progressive change in the United States is severely hampered owing both to the failure of the left to project an alternative to capitalism and to the myths projected by the right regarding the nature of capitalism. On the other hand, Karl Marx projected an alternative socioeconomic system that comes into view in his writings in significant part in and through exploding the myths about capitalism. This series of five classes will explore the myths of capitalism through discussions of selected writings of Marx, and others.

Readings are available online or from U.S.M.H.  Online readings are available from U.S.M.H in pdf format for e-readers etc.

Sponsored by the U.S. Marxist-Humanists

Email: arise@usmarxisthumanists.org

www.usmarxisthumanists.org

Phone: 773-561-3454

 

Schedule andReadings

March 7th:  Myth #1: Capitalism is the Economic System most in Accord with Human Nature         

Contradictory concepts of human nature abound in the culture of capitalism. Human nature is said to be fundamentally greedy and selfish, or, contrariwise, cast in an image of perfection, or both. These concepts are used to justify social and economic policies that promote and protect capitalism, but this can only work if their historical origin in capitalism itself is obscured. This class will explore the concepts of human nature extant in capitalist societies and counterpose them to concepts drawn from the Marxist-Humanist tradition. The myth that capitalism is reflective of human nature will be exploded in a discussion of the following readings:

Readings:

Erich Fromm, Marx’s Concept of Man, pp. 24-43, “The Nature of Man” www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ch04.htm

Karl Marx, Grundrisse, “Introduction,” pp. 84-110 www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch01.htm

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Chapter 13: Of the Natural Conditions of Mankind as concerning their Felicity and Misery www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdf/hobblev1.pdf  and Chapter 17:  Of the Causes, Generation, and Definition of Commonwealth www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdf/hobblev2.pdf

Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach  www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm

 

Leading the discussion: Marilyn Nissim-Sabat, author, Neither Victim nor Survivor: Thinking Toward a New Humanity

 

March 21st:  Myth #2: Democracy is Compatible with Capitalism

The rhetoric of the candidates for the Republican nomination for president of theUS, as well as their opponents in the Democratic Party, makes it unequivocally clear that for them, and probably for the majority of Americans, capitalism is entirely conflated with ‘democracy.’ That is, the notion of the ‘free market,’ value production, and the drive to accumulate capital for its own sake have been superimposed on the meaning of democracy as a political system as if to say that only the economic system known as capitalism can facilitate democracy. This myth will be exploded in discussion of the following readings:

Readings:

Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto. www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/

Karl Marx, “Address to the Communist League of March, 1850.”

www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm

Raya Dunayevskaya, Marxism and Freedom, Chapter VI, The Paris Commune Deepens the content of Capital, pp. 92-102.

Raya Dunayevskaya, Rosa Luxemburg, Women’s Liberation and Marx’s Philosophy of Revolution: Marx’s Theory of Permanent Revolution.” 1843-83, pp. 158-163.

 

Leading the discussion: Anton Evelynov, student activist

 

April 4th: Myth #3: State Forms of ‘Socialism’ are Fundamentally Different from Capitalism

Proponents of capitalism, as well as many post-Marx Marxists, have attempted to identify “socialism” or “communism” with state control of the economy and a centralized state. However, theSoviet Unionas well as “Communist China” and the European welfare state represent not so much a departure from capitalism as a realization of it. This class will explore whether there is an alternative to either reducing a new society to state control of the economy, on one hand, or refraining from the need to seize state power as part of a revolutionary transformation, on the other. The myths regarding state forms of capitalism will be exploded in a discussion of the following readings:

Readings:

Raya Dunayevskaya, Marxism and Freedom, Chapter IV, “Worker, Intellectual, and the State,” pp. 69-77.

Raya Dunayevskaya, State Capitalism and Marx’s Humanism “Lenin vs Bukharin” pp. 10-18.  babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015071598158

“Build It Now”: An Interview with Michael A. Lebowitz radicalnotes.com/content/view/36/39/

John Holloway, Change the World without Seizing State Power, Chapter 2, “Beyond the State?” pp. 11-18.

libcom.org/library/chapter-2-beyond-state

 

Leading the discussion: Ali Reza, Iranian activist and member of Iranian Left Alliance Abroad.

 

April 18th: Myth #4: There is No Alternative to Capitalism

Proponents of capitalism as well as many critics of it have maintained that it is impossible to overcome such phenomena as commodity production, exchange value, alienated labor, and the existence of classes. This stance has within it all of the myths of capitalism, i.e., that capitalism reflects and honors ‘human nature’; that it is a form of democratic practice; and that it prevents the development of state control of the economy. It has also been claimed by many on the left that any effort to spell out the content of a new, post-capitalist society is at best useless and at worst harmful. The myth that there is no alternative to capitalism will be exploded in discussion of the following readings:

Readings:

Karl Marx, Critique of the Gotha Program . www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/index.htm

Raya Dunayevskaya, The Power of Negativity, “Presentation on the Dialectics of Organization and Philosophy,” pp. 3-14.

 

Leading the discussion: Peter Hudis, author of Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism

 

Wednesday May 2nd

May Day Celebration and discussion

 

U.S. Marxist Humanists would like to invite all participants in this class to continue the discussion in honor of May Day in a convivial setting, with food and drink. Venue to be announced

**END**

 

‘I believe in the afterlife.

It starts tomorrow,

When I go to work’

Cold Hands & Quarter Moon, ‘Human Herbs’ at: http://www.myspace.com/coldhandsmusic (recording) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7tUq0HjIk (live)

 

‘Human Herbs’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au-vyMtfDAs

‘Stagnant’ – a new remix and new video by Cold Hands & Quarter Moon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkP_Mi5ideo  

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Rikowski Point: http://rikowskipoint.blogspot.com

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Glenn Rikowski on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/glenn.rikowski

Global Upheaval: From Tahrir Square to Wall Street

Rosa Luxemburg

GLOBAL UPHEAVAL: FROM TAHRIR SQUARE TO WALL STREET

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2011
2:00-4:00 PM
Westside Pavilion, Community Room A
Corner of Pico and Westwood Boulevards, Los Angeles
Community Room A is on 3rd floor, behind food court
Free parking – first 3 hours

Speakers:

Mansoor M., Iranian cultural worker

Greg Burris, radical film critic just returned from the Middle East

Kevin Anderson, author of Marx at the Margins

The Arab revolutions of 2011 have helped to touch off a global upheaval against neoliberal capitalism and for democracy. This meeting will reflect upon the events of the past year and prospects for the future of the burgeoning anti-capitalist movement.

Sponsored by West Coast Marxist-Humanists, an affiliate of the International Marxist-Humanist Organization

More information: arise@usmarxisthumanists.org

http://www.usmarxisthumanists.org/

***************

NEW ARTICLES AND FEATURES FROM U.S. MARXIST-HUMANISTS

http://www.usmarxisthumanists.org/

NOVEMBER 2011

“‘Occupy Wall Street’ Goes Global”
November 7, 2011

Greg Burris, “Between Barbarisms: The Arab Spring, Marx, and the Idea 
of Revolution”

October 28, 2011
Richard Abernethy, “Red Rosa and the Arab Spring”

October 23, 2011
Dyne Suh, “Until We Are All Abolitionists: Marx on Slavery, Race, and Class”

October 22, 2011
Kevin Anderson, “On the Dialectics of Race and Class: Marx’s Civil War Writings, 150 Years Later”

October 21, 2011
Sam F., “Occupy Wall Street: The October 5 Demonstration”

October 9, 2011
Kevin Anderson, “Persian Translation of ‘Arab Revolutions at the Crossroads’”

October 8, 2011
Sam Friedman, “Two Poems on Occupy Wall Street”

October 7, 2011
International Marxist-Humanist Organization, “Greetings to the Iranian Left Alliance Abroad”

September 30, 2011
Peter Hudis, Jacqueline Rose, Chris Cutrone, and David Black,  “Did Rosa Luxemburg Take Back Her Critique of the Russian Revolution? — A Debate”

September 10, 2011
Yassin Ali Haj Saleh, “The Syrian ‘Common’: The Uprising of the Working Society

August 14, 2011
The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg, edited by Annelies Laschitza, George Adler, and Peter Hudis – Links to reviews in Jewish Review of Books and elsewhere

Marx at the Margins: On Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Non-Western Societies, by Kevin Anderson – Links to reviews in Political Studies Review and elsewhere

U.S. MARXIST-HUMANISTS IS PART OF THE INTERNATIONAL MARXIST-HUMANIST ORGANIZATION. The IMHO seeks to work out a unity of theory and practice, worker and intellectual, and philosophy and organization. We aim to develop and project a viable vision of a truly new, human society that can give direction to today’s many freedom struggles. We ground our ideas in the totality of Marx’s Marxism and Raya Dunayevskaya’s body of ideas and upon the unique philosophic contributions that have guided Marxist-Humanism since its founding in the 1950s.

AFFILIATES

U.S. Marxist-Humanists – http://www.usmarxisthumanists.org – arise@usmarxisthumanists.org

The Hobgoblin Collective, UK – http://www.thehobgoblin.co.uk – hobgoblinlondon@aol.com

***END***

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Online Publications at: http://www.flowideas.co.uk/?page=pub&sub=Online%20Publications%20Glenn%20Rikowski

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What Does Rosa Luxemburg Have to Say to Today’s Anti-Capitalist Movements?

Hobgoblin

WHAT DOES ROSA LUXEMBURG HAVE TO SAY TO TODAY’S ANTI-CAPITALIST MOVEMENTS?

PUBLIC MEETING

‘What Does Rosa Luxemburg Have to Say to Today’s Anti-Capitalist Movements?’

7.30 pm Thursday 10 November, Brockway Room, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL (5 mins Holborn Tube).

“[In the 1905 Russian Revolution] there fermented throughout the whole of the immense empire an uninterrupted economic strike of almost the entire proletariat against capital – a struggle which caught, on the one hand, all the petty bourgeois and liberal professions, commercial employees, technicians, actors and members of artistic professions – and on the other hand, penetrated to the domestic servants, the minor police officials and even to the stratum of the lumpenproletariat, and simultaneously surged from the towns to the country districts and even knocked at the iron gates of the military barracks.” — Rosa Luxemburg, ‘The Mass Strike’

Speaker: Peter Hudis, co-editor of ‘The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg’ (Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg Vol. I) 2011.

With comments by Kevin Anderson, author of ‘Marx at the Margins’, David Black, author of ‘The Philosophic Roots of Anti-Capitalism’, and Heather Brown, author of ‘Marx on Gender and the Family’

Sponsored by the International Marxist-Humanist Organization (www.usmarxisthumanists.org) and Hobgoblin Online (www.thehobgoblin.co.uk)

ALL WELCOME

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowidewas.co.uk

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Education and Social Change in Latin America

Sara Motta

Mike Cole

EDUCATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN LATIN AMERICA

A two day workshop organised in collaboration between:

MERD (Marxism and Education: Renewing Dialogues)
CSSGJ (Centre for the Study of Social and Global Justice, University of Nottingham)
CESJ (Centre for Education for Social Justice, Bishop Grosseteste University College, Lincoln)

To be held at the
University of Nottingham
1st – 2nd July 2011

The role of education is increasingly important in the construction of new forms of anti-capitalist politics in Latin America. This is evidenced by the centrality of popular education and other forms of struggle influenced by radical education philosophy and pedagogy, and by social movements in their construction of new forms of participatory politics and mass intellectuality. It is also evidenced in the creation of formal and informal educational programmes, practices and projects that develop varieties of critical pedagogy and popular education with both organised and non-organised marginalised and excluded communities.

Particularly, noticeable in this regard is the centrality of education in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the move towards 21st Century socialism. At the heart of the politicisation of education are the questions of whose knowledge counts in the process of social transformation and political change and if the ways in which such transformative knowledge is created impact upon the struggle to develop worlds beyond capitalism in the 21st century.

This workshop invites papers which develop theoretically grounded empirical analysis about the politicisation of education in the continent.

Key questions to be addressed are:

How is education politicised in contemporary anti-capitalist struggles?

How has neoliberalism closed down as well as opened up terrains of educational struggle?

What differences are there between the role of education in 20th century socialism and 21st century socialism?

How does Marxism shape such practices of radical pedagogy and how do such practices transform Marxism?

How does the focus on popular education in new forms of popular politics influence and reflect the type of politics developed?

What is the role of autonomous education in social movements in the construction of anti-capitalism?

What is the relationship between formal ‘progressive’ educational programmes and the politics of knowledge and education in informal community/social movement settings?

What can we (outside of the region) learn from Chavez’s concept of Venezuela as a ‘giant school’ and other radical pedagogies and educational practices in Latin America?

What is the role of popular educators within formal schooling in these processes?

Selected papers will be published in an edited collection with Palgrave Macmillan in their Marxism and Education Series.

Contact Sara Motta at sara.motta@nottingham.ac.uk and Mike Cole at mike.cole@bishopg.ac.uk  if you are interested in helping organise the workshop or would like any further information.

Please submit your paper proposal by March 1st 2011

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk

Volumizer: http://glennrikowski.blogspot.com

Lost Text

The Island

LOST TEXT

History Matters

THE ILLUSIONS OF ‘SOLIDARITY’ By David Brown

A ‘Lost Text’ from 1975 rediscovered: David Brown on the ‘Illusions’ of Maurice Brinton and Cornelius Castoriadis

Editorial notes by the Hobgoblin Collective:

Hobgoblin has published (online) for the first time a text, written in 1975 as a letter to the membership of the Solidarity group – also known as ‘Solidarity For Workers Power’. This group was founded in 1960 by Chris Pallis, an eminent neurologist who wrote under the name “Maurice Brinton,” and Ken Weller, a young shop steward working in the motor industry. The group, initially known as Socialism Reaffirmed, published a journal, Agitator, which after six issues was renamed Solidarity. Both Brinton and Weller had previously been members of Gerry Healy’s Socialist Labour League, founded amidst the mass defections from the Communist Party after the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. As Richard Abernethy put in an obituary for Chris Pallis in Hobgoblin in 2005:

“Solidarity punctured and deflated some favourite left-wing illusions. It recognised that there was no actually existing socialism, no worker’s states, in the world. Notwithstanding all differences between the Western capitalist bloc, the Eastern bloc ruled by Communist parties, and the Third World, the basic divide between rulers and ruled existed everywhere.”

The Solidarity group, despite never having much more than a hundred members, was influential, not least because Solidarity became the main conduit of the political theories of Cornelius Castoriadis aka Paul Cardan (1922-97), founder of Socialisme ou Barbarie in France.

The resignation statement by Solidarity member, David Brown, was written at a time (1975) when the group was in decline, facing splits and having to deal with the fact that Castoriadis/Cardan had, following the demise of Socialisme ou Barbarie in 1965, moved to the Right. Brown, was influenced by French ex-Bordigist, Jacques Camatte, some of whose writings he translated, by the Russian value-theorist, II Rubin, and by Karl Korsch, author of Marxism and Philosophy. According to Brown, Castoriadis and Solidarity shared with the traditional left a restricted understanding of Marx’s ideas, not recognising the liberatory core of Marx’s Capital, and taking the shortcoming of the traditional left as grounds for breaking with Marx. Brown argues that Castoriadis, Brinton and the Solidarity group misunderstood the cardinal term of the Marx’s critique of political economy – value. Brown writes:

“The attack on the labour theory of value is only a prelude to a more general attack on the materialist conception of history. By reducing the general conception of the mode of production to mean technology and the word ‘determine’ to mean the same as ‘cause’, a simple transformation of marxism into banality follows.” 

Castoriadis had argued that:

“The revolutionary movement… must become the place (the only place in contemporary society, outside the factory) where… individuals learn about collective life, run their own affairs and fulfill and develop themselves, working for a common objective in reciprocal recognition.”

Brown finds this position to be “entirely false,” and argues (following Jacques Camatte) that “all organisations are despotic” because, basing themselves on “critique of other organisations and individuals” they are “already” the conception of competitive capital.

Two of the editors of The Hobgoblin (Richard Abernethy and George Shaw) are former members of the Solidarity group. As Marxist-Humanists, we do not agree with a lot of the positions David Brown expressed in 1975. If the statement that “all organisations are despotic” means that all attempts to overcome atomization and individual isolation are doomed, then we certainly disagree, believing, as we do, in a philosophically-grounded alternative to capitalism – something Castoriadis, as a “positivist,” never even considered. Nor do we agree that “support for oppressed peoples” was part of the degeneration of Marxism (this in spite of Marx’s own statements on Ireland, Poland etc), or saying that people who voted Labour in 1974 “voted for capitalism.”

We are publishing this text not only because of its historical interest as a critique of a (dead) organization of the Left, once significant (and still influential “beyond the grave,” through the works of its theoreticians and the legacy of its activists) , but also because of the general theoretic questions it raises have, in the 21st century Left, not been surpassed.

TO READ THE TEXT IN FULL SEE THE LINKS BELOW

http://www.thehobgoblin.co.uk/2011_DAVID_BROWN_ON_CHRIS%20PALLIS_1.htm

http://www.thehobgoblin.co.uk/2011_DAVID_BROWN_ON_CHRIS%20PALLIS_2.htm

The Hobgoblin: http://www.thehobgoblin.co.uk/

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

The Flow of Ideas: http://www.flowideas.co.uk