Platypus Review Reader, 2007-2014

Edited by Spencer A. Leonard

The Platypus Review Reader, 2007-2014 contains a selection of 50 articles distributed across ten headings: Marxism in the 20th century, the anti-war movement, the legacy of the New Left, Israel-Palestine, the election of Barack Obama, the economic crisis, art, the history of Marxism, Lenin, and the #Occupy Movement.

The Reader documents a central expression of the Platypus Affiliated Society’s project of clearing the obstacles to the formation of a new Left. In its pages, whether in edited forum transcripts, interviews, or articles, the speakers, interviewees, and authors seek in collaboration with the Platypus Review editors to explore the suggestion in the paper’s Statement of Purpose to the effect that “What exists today is built upon the desiccated remains of what was once possible.” The aim is not to lament, much less decry, the ruin, but instead to make conscious the discontinuity with what was (“the death of the Left”). Doing so requires recognizing what the Left that once existed was, so that the prospect of its reemergence (in necessarily much altered form) can begin at least to be contemplated (and felt as a need).

The Platypus Review expresses a desire to “bury the dead,” or, better, to actively assist in letting the dead bury themselves. Its aim is not to denigrate, much less stifle, any movement or campaign, however modest, but to see that the rites be performed that death demands if there is to be any possibility of its enabling a future regeneration of actual leftist politics. The Review sought to do this by performing the function of curation. As this was expressed in the Statement of Purpose, the dead weight of the Left, so palpable in the anti-war movement, could not “be cast off by sheer will, by simply ‘carrying on the fight.’” Rather, it “must be addressed and itself made an object of critique.” We could not ourselves – whether by study and reflection or by experience (and further reflection)—attain perspectives superior to those we nevertheless seek to resituate as objects of critique and appropriation for a new generation. As we rather hopefully put it in our editorial statement, “To make sense of the present, we find it necessary to disentangle the vast accumulation of positions on the Left and to evaluate their saliency for the possible reconstitution of emancipatory politics in the present.” What we faced on the Left, we felt, was in fact a “vast accumulation of positions,” and this demanded that we evolve a strategic orientation and an activity based not so much in the “positions” themselves as to their manner of “accumulation.” This was the aspiration of the PR from its earliest inception. It is an enterprise upon which it embarked in its first issue with what appears, in retrospect, an uncanny self-awareness, one that perhaps no other post-New Left moment could have afforded and, certainly, a self-awareness that none other did.

616 pages 6.7” 1.4” X 9.5” 2.6 lbs.

Introduction

Acknowledgements

Statement of purpose of the Platypus Review

Marxism in the 20th century

The decline of the Left in the 20th century: Toward a theory of historical regression Benjamin Blumberg, Chris Cutrone, Atiya Khan, Spencer A. Leonard, and Richard Rubin
Learning from the Communist Movement of the 20th century: A response to Richard Rubin Grover Furr

The anti-war movement

Imperialism: What is it? Why should we be against it? Kevin Anderson, Chris Cutrone, Nick Kreitman, Danny Postel, and Adam Turl
The 3 Rs – Reform, revolution, and “resistance”: The problematic forms of “anti-capitalism” today Michael Albert, Chris Cutrone, Stephen Duncombe, and Brian Holmes
Going it alone: Christopher Hitchens and the death of the Left Spencer A. Leonard

The legacy of the New Left

To the victor, the spoils: Review of Artforum’s May 2008 issue “May ‘68” Benjamin Blumberg
Book Review: Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks Sunit Singh
You don’t need a Marxist to know which way the wind blows: An interview with Mark Rudd Spencer A. Leonard and Atiya Khan
Chinoiserie: A critique of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA’s “New Synthesis” Chris Cutrone
Up in the air: The legacy of the New Communist Movement: An interview with Max Elbaum Spencer A. Leonard
Which way forward for sexual liberation? Kenyon Farrow, Greg Gabrellas, Gary Mucciaroni, and Sherry Wolf
Emancipation in the heart of darkness: An interview with Juliet Mitchell Sunit Singh
“These petrified relations must be forced to dance”: An interview with Dick Howard Douglas La Rocca and Spencer A. Leonard

Israel-Palestine

Which way forward for Palestinian liberation? Hussein Ibish and Joel Kovel with Richard Rubin
Communism and Israel Initiative Sozialistisches Forum
German psycho: A reply to the Initiative Sozialistisches Forum Felix Baum
Marxism and Israel: Left perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict Alan Goodman and Richard Rubin

The election of Barack Obama

Progress or regress? The future of the Left under Obama Chris Cutrone, Stephen Duncombe, Pat Korte, Charles Post, and Paul Street
Black politics in the age of Obama Cedric Johnson and Mel Rothenberg

The economic crisis

Living Marxism James Heartfield
Why the U.S. stimulus package is bound to fail David Harvey
Symptomology: Historical transformations in social-political context Chris Cutrone
Resurrecting the 30s: A response to David Harvey and James Heartfield Ian Morrison
Letter from Greece: Brief notes on revolt and crisis in Greece and the Greek situation Thodoris Velissaris
Radical interpretations of the present crisis David Graeber, Saul Newman, Hillel Ticktin, and James Woudhuysen
The politics of work Stanley Aronowitz, Robert Pollin, and Jason Wright

Art

Is the funeral for the wrong corpse? An interview with Hal Foster Omair Hussain and Bret Schneider
“I can’t go on, I’ll go on”: A response to “Questionnaire on ‘The Contemporary’” in October and “What is Contemporary Art?” in e-flux Chris Mansour
After Hegel: An interview with Robert Pippin Omair Hussain

The history of Marxism

Marx after Marxism: An interview with Moishe Postone Benjamin Blumberg and Pam C. Nogales C.
Capital in history: The need for a Marxian philosophy of history of the Left Chris Cutrone
An unmet challenge: Race and the Left in America Benjamin Blumberg
Against dogmatic abstraction: A critique of Cindy Milstein on anarchism and Marxism Chris Cutrone
The Marxist hypothesis: A response to Alain Badiou’s “communist hypothesis” Chris Cutrone
Overcoming bourgeois right: An interview with Mel Rothenberg Spencer A. Leonard
The politics of Critical Theory Nicholas Brown, Chris Cutrone, Andrew Feenberg, and Richard Westerman
Subject, class, and the Hegelian legacy in critical social theory Timothy Hall
The elusive “threads of historical progress”: The early Chartists and the young Marx and Engels David Black
Marx and Wertkritik Elmar Flatschart, Jamie Merchant, and Alan Milchman

Lenin

Lenin’s liberalism Chris Cutrone
October 1921: Lenin looks back Lars T. Lih
Lenin’s legacy today Tamas Krausz
Lenin’s politics: A rejoinder to David Adam on Lenin’s liberalism Chris Cutrone
Lenin and the Marxist Left after #Occupy Ben Lewis and Tom Riley with Chris Cutrone
The relevance of Lenin today Chris Cutrone

The #Occupy Movement

A cry of protest before accommodation? The dialectic of emancipation and domination Chris Cutrone
The #Occupy movement, a renascent Left, and Marxism today: An interview with Slavoj Žižek Haseeb Ahmed with Chris Cutrone
The movement as an end-in-itself? An interview with David Graeber Ross Wolfe
What is the #Occupy Movement? A roundtable discussion Hannah Appel, Jeremy Cohan, Erik Van Deventer, Brian Dominick, and Nathan Schneider

Epilogue

Class consciousness (from a Marxist perspective) today Chris Cutrone

Appendices

I What is a Platypus? On Surviving the Extinction of the Left
II A Short History of the Left
III Statement of Purpose of the Platypus Affiliated Society
IV The Platypus Synthesis Ian Morrison, Richard Rubin, and Chris Cutrone