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ALTERNATIVES TO CAPITALISM, WHICH HAD LONG BEEN DORMANT after the collapse of the Soviet Union, are now everywhere enjoying a resurgence. Extinction rebellions, black blocs and cooperatives everywhere are on the ascent, resisting neoliberal attacks on the poor with as much vigor as they resist those on the environment. Congresswoman and social media darling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders are not the only members of the American public to openly debate the merits of socialism. [Read More]

WHEN CAPITALISM IS IDENTIFIED AS THE PRIMARY ILL facing society, the search for a time for it to be undone, exceeded or simply left behind, is inevitable. Shoshana Zuboff’s recent book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (2019) contains many standout ideas, but one underlying anxiety is the search for an end, or exit, to capitalism. Nowhere is this clearer than when she writes: Surveillance capital creates a world of ‘no exit’ with profound implications for the human future at this new frontier of power. [Read More]

On October 2, 2019, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a panel discussion, Freedom in the Anthropocene, at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Speaking at the event were Ashik Siddique (Democratic Socialists of America), Ethan Wright (Zero Hour), Mike Golash (Progressive Labor Party), and Wyatt Verlen (Platypus Affiliated Society). The panel was moderated by Ethan Linehan. What follows is an edited transcript of the conversation. Complete audio of the event can be found online. [Read More]

On September 26, 2019, Matt Cavagrotti and Spencer A. Leonard of the Platypus Affiliated Society conducted an interview via email with Dan La Botz, a longtime labor union activist and the author of A Troublemaker’s Handbook: How to Fight Back Where You Work — And Win! *(1991), *Rank-and-File Rebellion: Teamsters for a Democratic Union (1991), and What Went Wrong? the Nicaraguan Revolution: A Marxist Analysis (2016). What follows is a transcript of their exchange. [Read More]