The end of the Gilded Age

Discontents of the Second Industrial Revolution today

The end of the Gilded Age

 December 2, 2017  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE ACCOUNT OF HISTORY is the theory of the present: How did we get here; and what tasks remain from the past – that however appear to be “new” today? As Adorno put it, “the new is the old in distress.”1 This is true of capitalism and its crisis now. The present crisis is a crisis of the world system of capitalism that emerged in the 20th century, a crisis of the capitalist world created by the Second Industrial Revolution at the end of the 19th century – in fits and starts (such as the two World Wars and the Cold War) but nonetheless consistently and inexorably. [Read More]
Gilded Age  History  Capitalism  Theodor W. Adorno 

Horkheimer in 1943 on party and class

 January 12, 2016  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Without a socialist party, there is no class struggle, only rackets HORKHEIMER’S REMARKABLE ESSAY “On the sociology of class relations” (1943)1 is continuous with Adorno’s contemporaneous “Reflections on class theory” (1942) as well as his own “The authoritarian state” (1940/42), which similarly mark the transformation of Marx and Engels’s famous injunction in the Communist Manifesto that “history is the history of class struggles.” All of these writings were inspired by Walter Benjamin’s “On the concept of history” (AKA “Theses on the philosophy of history,” 1940), which registered history’s fundamental crisis. [Read More]
/20th Century  Capitalism  Communist party  Critical theory  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel  History  Vladimir Lenin  Liberalism  Karl Marx  Marxism  Max Horkheimer  Political party  Socialism  Socialist  Socioeconomic  SYRIZA  Theodor W. Adorno  Walter Benjamin 

On Anarchism and Marxism

In response to Price and Swenson

On Anarchism and Marxism

 May 6, 2014  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

IN RESPONSE TO THE CRITIQUES of Wayne Price and Liam Swenson to my piece on anarchism in The Platypus Review #65,1 I will reiterate what I consider the major differences between Marxist revolutionary theory and anarchism in general. I say in general because I see nothing to be gained by dealing with the great variety of differences within anarchism itself presented by these critiques. In fact their great variety proves the very fleeting and vacillating nature of the anarchist project. [Read More]
Anarchism  History  History of the Left  Vladimir Lenin  Marxism  Occupy  Revolution 

Freedom in the Anthropocene, Toronto

 January 15, 2014  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A moderated panel discussion hosted by the Platypus Affiliated Society on the interrelation of capital, history and ecology, held at York University on January 15, 2014. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Jordan Briggs, International Bolshevik Tendency Michelle Mawhinney, Political Science, York University Raymond Rogers, Environmental Studies, York University Description The Dutch atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen recently characterized the period marked by the start of the industrial revolution in the 18th century to the present as a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. [Read More]
Anthropocene  Capital  Ecology  History  International Bolshevik Tendency 

For liberty and union

For liberty and union

 February 1, 2013  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

SPENCER A. LEONARD interviewed noted Civil War historian James McPherson, author of the classic Battle Cry of Freedom (1988), to discuss the new Lincoln biopic by Steven Spielberg and the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. The interview was broadcast on January 29, 2013 on the radio show Radical Minds on WHPK – FM (88.5 FM) Chicago. What follows is an edited transcript of their conversation. Spencer A. Leonard: 150 years ago, on January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued his famous Emancipation Proclamation. [Read More]
History  James McPherson  Abraham Lincoln 

Teach-in: Does Marxism Really Matter?

 September 20, 2012  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A teach-in with [Pac Pobric], assistant editor of the Platypus Review, contributing editor, 491, contributor, On-Verge, held on September 20, 2011, at New York University. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Description In the mid-19th century, Marx and Engels famously observed in the Communist Manifesto that a specter was haunting Europe: the specter of Communism. 160 years later, it is Marxism itself that haunts us. [Read More]
Capital  History  Marxism  NYU  Relevance 

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 

A cry of protest before accommodation?

The dialectic of emancipation and domination

A cry of protest before accommodation?

 December 1, 2011  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

HOW ARE WE TO REGARD the history of revolutions? Why do revolutions appear to fail to achieve their goals? What does this say about consciousness of social change? One common misunderstanding of Marx (against which, however, many counter-arguments have been made) is with respect to the supposed “logic of history” in capital. The notion of a “historical logic” is problematic, in that there may be assumed an underlying historical logic that Marx, as a social scientist, is supposed to have discovered. [Read More]
History  History of the Left  Marxism  Revolution 

Capital in History

Marxism and the Modern Philosophy of Freedom

 August 16, 2011  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

A presentation by Platypus member Chris Cutrone on August 16, 2011, at Communist University, which took place from August 17th to August 20, 2011, at Goldsmiths, University of London. Video Credit: Communist Party of Great Britain. Video Recording Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element What is progress if not the absolute elaboration of humanity’s creative dispositions… unmeasured by any previously established yardstick[,] an end in itself… the absolute movement of becoming? [Read More]
Becoming  Bourgeois  Capital  Capitalism  Freedom  Grundrisse  History  Karl Marx  Marxism  Proletarian 

The Decline of the Left in the 20th Century: Toward a Theory of Historical Regression

Questions and Answers

 November 17, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society  • Other languages: Ελληνικά

ON APRIL 18, 2009, the Platypus Affiliated Society conducted the following panel discussion at the Left Forum Conference at Pace University in New York City. The panel was organized around four significant moments in the progressive separation of theory and practice over the course of the 20th century: 2001 (Spencer A. Leonard), 1968 (Atiya Khan), 1933 (Richard Rubin), and 1917 (Chris Cutrone). The following is an edited transcript of the Q & A session that followed. [Read More]
Left Forum  History