Anarchism through Bakunin

A Marxist Assessment

Anarchism through Bakunin

 March 2, 2014  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

IN THE HISTORY OF THE LEFT, anarchism has always played a strange and more or less underground part. Anarchism was there at the beginning, it has been a permanent (if small) force throughout the major events and crises of the modern period, and it continues today as a significant body of thought and action. Yet in spite of its historical continuity, anarchism appears to have little historical development. While taking on the coloration of local events, the theory of anarchism propounded in the 19th century remains almost the same in our own times. [Read More]
Anarchism  Mikhail Bakunin 

The Politics of Work, Toronto

 January 28, 2014  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A panel event on held on Tuesday, 28 January 2014, at Hart House, University of Toronto. Sponsored by the Hart House Social Justice Committee. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists  L. Susan Brown - Author of Does Work Really Work Dave Bush - Rankandfile.ca Neil Fischer - Internationalist Perspective Sam Gindin - Greater Toronto Worker’s Assembly, coauthor of The Making of Global Capitalism [Read More]
Anarchism  Internationalist Perspective  Labour  Value  Marxism  Post-work 

Radical Ideology Today

Marxism and Anarchism

 January 17, 2014  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A panel event that took place in Aristotle University of Thessaloniki at 17 of December 2013, organized by the Thessaloniki chapter of the Platypus Affiliated Society. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Nikos Nikisianis: member of Network for Social and Political rights (participates in Syriza) Lia Gioka: activist and translator Tasos Sapounas: member of the communist marxist-leninist party of Greece Description It seems that there are still only two radical ideologies: Anarchism and Marxism. [Read More]
Anarchism  Ideology  Marxism  Political theory  Politics  Radical  SYRIZA 

On the Occasion of the First Complete Translation of Victor Serge's 'Memoirs of a Revolutionary'

A Book Chat with Richard Greeman

 May 8, 2013  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A book chat with Richard Greeman, translator of Victor Serge’s “Memoirs of a Revolutionary” and “Russia in Danger,” held on May 8 2013 at the New School. Video Recording Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Description Victor Serge (1890–1947) was an international revolutionary and writer. Originally an anarchist, he joined the Bolsheviks five months after arriving in Petrograd in January 1919 and later worked for the Comintern as a journalist, editor and translator. [Read More]
Anarchism  Marxism  Victor Serge 

1873--1973: The century of Marxism

The death of Marxism and the emergence of neo-liberalism and neo-anarchism

 June 7, 2012  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

AT THE 2012 PLATYPUS AFFILIATED SOCIETY’S (PAS) annual International Convention, held at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago March 30–April 1, Chris Cutrone, President of the PAS, delivered the following presentation, which has been edited for clarity. A full audio recording is available online by clicking the above link. IN THE TRADITION we established just two years ago, there is a Platypus President’s report, speaking to the historical moment. [Read More]
Anarchism  History  History of the Left  Vladimir Lenin  Karl Marx  Marxism  Stalinism  The Left  Theodor W. Adorno  Trotskyism 

Whence Anarchism?

The Historical Conjuncture of #Occupy

 March 31, 2012  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Panel held on March 31st, 2012 at the Fourth Annual Platypus International Convention, School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists John Slavin (Industrial Workers of the World, 4 Star Anarchist Organization) Daniel Dulce (Crimethinc) Kelvin Ho (Occupy Chicago) Sara Whitford (Formerly Occupy Chicago) Description #Occupy represents one of the most significant prospects and challenges for the Left in the past decade. [Read More]
Occupy  Platypus International Convention 2012  4 Star Anarchist Organization  Anarchism  Crimthinc  Industrial Workers of the World  IWW  Occupy  Occupy Chicago  Occupy wall street  OWS 

The movement as an end-in-itself?

The movement as an end-in-itself?

 January 31, 2012  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society  • Other languages: Ελληνικά

ON DECEMBER 16, 2011, Ross Wolfe interviewed David Graeber, Reader at Goldsmiths College in London, author of Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology (2004), and central figure in the early stages of the #Occupy Wall Street Movement. What follows is an edited transcript of the interview. Folk singer Tea Leigh at the #Occupy site Ross Wolfe: There are striking similarities between the #Occupy movement and the 1999 anti-WTO protests in Seattle. [Read More]
Anarchism  David Graeber  Occupy  Occupy Wall Street  Protest  neoliberalism 

Whither Marxism?

Why the occupation movement recalls Seattle 1999

 November 1, 2011  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE PRESENT OCCUPATION MOVEMENT expresses a return to the Left of the late 1990s, specifically the 1999 anti-World Trade Organization protests in Seattle. They both have taken place in the last year of a Democratic U.S. Presidential administration, been spearheaded by anarchism, had discontents with neoliberalism as their motivation, and been supported by the labor movement. This configuration of politics on the Left is the “leaderless” and “horizontal” movement celebrated by such writers as Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (Empire, Multitude, Commonwealth), John Holloway (Change the World without Taking Power), and others. [Read More]
Anarchism  Marxism  Occupy  Occupy Wall Street  Seattle  Globalisation 

Rethinking the New Left (Chicago, 11/9/10)

 November 9, 2010  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Public forum organised by the Platypus Affiliated Society on November 9th 2010 at the University of Chicago. Co-sponsored by The Global Voices Lecture Program of International House, with the support of the University of Chicago Student Activities Fund Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Mark Rudd Alan Spector Osha Neumann Tim Wohlforth Moderated by Spencer A. Leonard Description The memory of the 1960s, which has long kindled contestation and debate on the means and ends of freedom politics, is rapidly fading into the political unconscious. [Read More]
1960s  Anarchism  Marxism  Movement  New Left  Politics  SDS  Socialism 

Against dogmatic abstraction

A critique of Cindy Milstein on anarchism and Marxism

Against dogmatic abstraction

 July 1, 2010  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

AT THE LEFT FORUM 2010, held at Pace University in New York City in March, Cindy Milstein, director of the Institute for Anarchist Studies, spoke at a panel discussion on anarchism and Marxism, chaired by Andrej Grubacic, with fellow panelists Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Andrew Curley. The topic of Milstein’s talk was the prospect for the “synthesis of anarchism and Marxism” today.1 The relation between anarchism and Marxism is a long-standing and vexing problem, for their developments have been inextricably intertwined. [Read More]
Anarchism  Karl Marx  Marxism  Cindy Milstein