Ideology

Revolutionary politics and thought

September 5, 2014 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

No coarser insult, no baser defamation, can be thrown against the workers than the remark, ‘Theoretical controversies are for the intellectuals’ —Rosa Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution (1900) Since there can be no talk of an independent ideology formulated by the working masses themselves in the process of their movement the only choice is – either bourgeois or socialist ideology… This does not mean, of course, that the workers have no part in creating such an ideology. [Read More]

C. Wright Mills Democracy Environmentalism French Revolution Hannah Arendt Ideology Jacobin Karl Marx Vladimir Lenin Leon Trotsky Organization Political party Praxis Revolution Rosa Luxemburg Theory and practice Thomas jefferson

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

Forging a Left in Iran

Possibilities and difficulties

April 25, 2010 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Recording of a teach-in on labor, human rights and prospects for a Left in Iran with Ervand Abrahamian, on May 2nd, 2010, in New York City. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Description The Platypus Affiliated Society, in collaboration with United for Iran, Amnesty International and the Network of Iranian Unions (NILU) has organized a teach-in on Iran for May 2nd, from 1-5pm at the Tisch Hall, 40 W. [Read More]

Green Movement ideology Iran NYC Praxis Public forum Teach-in Waging Nonviolence

Book review: Karl Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy

September 3, 2009 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

[Marx wrote,] “[Humanity] always sets itself only such problems as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely it will always be found that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or are at least understood to be in the process of emergence.”1 This dictum is not affected by the fact that a problem which supersedes present relations may have been formulated in an anterior epoch. [Read More]

my letter to The Nation on "Re-Imagining Socialism"

April 1, 2009 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

The following letter that I wrote will be published in The Nation. I wrote in response to the article “Rising to the Occasion” (published elsewhere as “The ’S’ Word”) by Barbara Ehrenreich (author of Nickel and Dimed) and Bill Fletcher, Jr. (spokesperson for the Maoist Freedom Road Socialist Organization and co-founder of Progressives for Obama), and forum of articles in reply, under the title “Re-Imagining Socialism,” by Robert Pollin, Tariq Ali, Immanuel Wallerstein, Rebecca Solnit, Christian Parenti, Doug Henwood, Mike Davis, Michael Albert, et al. [Read More]

/20th Century Discussion ideology Marxism Politics Revolution Socialism

excerpt from Trotsky

March 16, 2009 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

From Leon Trotsky (1879-1940), Results and Prospects (1906), VII. The Pre-Requisites of Socialism: http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1931/tpr/rp07.htm “Undoubtedly, the concentration of production, the development of technique and the growth of consciousness among the masses are essential pre-requisites for socialism. But these processes take place simultaneously, and not only give an impetus to each other, but also retard and limit each other. Each of these processes at a higher level demands a certain development of another process at a lower level. [Read More]

Chris Cutrone Discussion emancipation ideology Karl Marx Marxism Revolution Socialism Leon Trotsky

notes on Feb. 15 reading Korsch "Marxism and Philosophy" (1923)

February 15, 2009 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

‘[Humanity] always sets itself only such problems as it can solve; since, looking at the matter more closely it will always be found that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or are at least understood to be in the process of emergence’ [Marx, Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)]. This dictum is not affected by the fact that a problem which supersedes present relations may have been formulated in an anterior epoch. [Read More]

/20th Century Chris Cutrone crisis critical theory Discussion History ideology Karl Korsch Vladimir Lenin Karl Marx Marxism Philosophy Platypus Revolution Rosa Luxemburg Socialism vulgar Marxism

Red-baiting and ideology

The new SDS

December 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

TO THE EDITORS OF THE PLATYPUS REVIEW: I am not now, nor have I ever been, either a Maoist or sympathetic to Maoism. I am also not a member of SDS. I was outraged however, by the blatant red-baiting of Rachel Haut in a recent Platypus Review Interview and disturbed that it seems to have gone unchallenged by PR. Rachel Haut was quoted as saying: “To say that the Maoists can be part of the ideological debate would mean to condone them being in this organization, which is something I don’t do. [Read More]

Anarchism Anti-intellectualism Democracy Exchanges Ideology Laurie Rojas Maoism Marxism New SDS Organization Politics Protest Red-baiting Revolution Richard Rubin Stalinism The Left Student Left

Five questions to the student Left

October 1, 2008 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

AN INTERVIEW WITH SDS MEMBER Rachel Haut published in the September issue of this publication provoked widespread comment in radical circles.1 We welcome the discussion but worry that it remains ensconced within the sterile jargon and petty antinomies of the actually-existing-Left. More fundamental questions exist than, say, the position of sectarian groups within the SDS – questions that unsettle the comfortable assumptions of radical politics. There’s a temptation to think such of questioning as an irrelevant, academic obstruction to real action. [Read More]

Anti-war Capitalism Class Identity Ideology Imperialism Movement New SDS Organization Politics Racism Radicals Reflections Society Students Transformation

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