Overview of all pages with the authors #The Platypus Historians Group

Friedrich Hayek and the legacy of Milton Friedman: Neo-liberalism and the question of freedom

In part, a response to Naomi Klein

November 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

The following was prepared for presentation at the University of Chicago teach-in on “Who was Milton Friedman and what is his legacy?” Tuesday, October 14th, 2008. A GOOD APPROACH TO THE TOPIC of Milton Friedman and his legacy today can be made indirectly, by reference to Friedman’s intellectual predecessor and mentor, Friedrich Hayek. It has been our point of departure in Platypus to regard the present as being conditioned by the undigested, and therefore problematic, legacies of at least two generations of failure on the “Left”: the 1960s-70s “New” Left, and the “Old” Left of the 1920s-30s. [Read More]

Finance capital

Why financial capitalism is no more "fictitious" than any other kind

October 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

WITH THE PRESENT FINANCIAL MELT-DOWN in the U.S. throwing the global economy into question, many on the “Left” are wondering again about the nature of capitalism. While many will be tempted to jump on the bandwagon of the “bailout” being floated by the Bush administration and the Congressional Democrats (including Obama), others will protest the “bailing out” of Wall Street. The rhetoric of “Wall Street vs. Main Street,” between “hardworking America” and the “financial fat cats,” however, belies a more fundamental truth: the two are indissolubly linked and are in fact two sides of the same coin of capitalism. [Read More]

Authoritarianism Bailout Bill Clinton Capitalism Crisis Economics Financial Freedom Friedrich Hayek Humanity Ideology Industrial John Kenneth Galbraith Karl Polanyi Karl Marx Marxism Milton Friedman Modern Neo-liberalism Organization Production Reforms Reification Socialism Society The Left The Platypus Historians Group

The dead Left: Trotskyism

September 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

One cannot separate the ability to know the world from the ability to change it, and our capacity to change the world is on a very small scale compared to the heroic days of the Communist International. —James Robertson, founder of the Spartacist League (U.S.), “In Defense of Democratic Centralism” (1973) Zombies and Sectarians WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO SAY, as Platypus does, that “the Left is Dead? [Read More]

History of the Left Trotskyism Leon Trotsky

Requiem for the 60s

Response to a boycott of discussion of "40 years of 1968"

May 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE PLATYPUS AFFILIATED SOCIETY in Chicago, in coordination with several chapters of the new Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in Chicago (at the University of Chicago, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Columbia College, Chicago) organized a public forum on “40 years of 1968: the problematic drama of the past in the present,” scheduled for the evening of Thursday, May 8 downtown at the School of the Art Institute. [Read More]

1960s /20th Century History of the Left

Introduction to the history of the Left

Changes in the meaning of class struggles

March 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Why do we need a “history of the Left?” PLATYPUS DIFFERS FROM OTHER TENDENCIES and organizations on the Left to the extent that we find it necessary and desirable to reexamine the history of the Left to help understand problems on the Left in the present. For focusing on the history of the Left and its problems, Platypus has been accused by a variety of Marxists of obscuring the “fundamental social divide” of the “class struggle” of the “proletariat” vs. [Read More]

History of the Left History

The Failure of Pakistan

A Concise History of the Left

February 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE PRESENT-DAY CRISIS IN PAKISTAN resists adequate historicisation in pithy news headlines. Yet its concrete expressions include the autocratic state-of-emergency imposed by General Musharraf; the violent rise of Islamic fundamentalism, first in the anarchic north-west, but increasingly also in the cities; the over-dependence on economic as well as military assistance from the U.S.; the massive expansion of the army into civilian sectors, especially commerce; and the ever growing socioeconomic disparities – in short: the failure of Pakistan. [Read More]

History of the Left Pakistan

A Prelude to the History of the Left

November 1, 2007 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE PLATYPUS HISTORIANS GROUP is a collective of members of Platypus who are researchers into the history of the Left. We will be publishing this series on the History of the Left under this collective authorship to indicate the collaborative nature of our research and the questions it raises. Each article under this byline will be written by one or several members of this collective, but with contributions and review by as many others of this group as possible and appropriate to the topics essayed. [Read More]

1789 1917 1960s 1968 Capitalism Defeat Enlightenment History of the Left Humanity Marxism Movements Ronald Reagan Sectarianism Socialism Stalinism The Platypus Historians Group Trotskyism