Marxism

Does Marxism Even Matter? New York

A Teach-in on the Communist Manifesto

October 6, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

A teach-in led by Platypus Affiliated Society Member Jamie Keesling on October 6, 2011, at the New School. 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. In the 21st century, it seems that the Left abandoned Marxism as a path to freedom. [Read More]

Does Marxism Even Matter? A Teach-in on the Communist Manifesto, Halifax

September 27, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

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. In the 21st century, it seems that the Left abandoned Marxism as a path to freedom. But Marx critically intervened in his own moment and emboldened leftists to challenge society; is the Left not tasked with this today? [Read More]

Communist Manifesto Karl Marx Marxism

Marx's Critique of Political Economy

Proletarian Socialism Continuing the Bourgeois Revolution?

August 19, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

A presentation by Platypus member Spencer A. Leonard on August 19, 2011, at Communist University, which took place from August 17th to August 20, 2011, at Goldsmiths, University of London.

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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

On "The Marxism of Rosa Luxemburg"

August 5, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

AT THE MARXIST LITERARY GROUP’S Institute on Culture and Society 2011, held on June 20–24, 2011 at the Institute for the Humanities, University of Illinois at Chicago, Platypus members Chris Cutrone, Greg Gabrellas, and Ian Morrison organized a panel on “The Marxism of Second International Radicalism: Lenin, Luxemburg, and Trotsky.” The original description of the event reads: “The legacy of revolution 1917–19 in Russia, Germany, Hungary and Italy is concentrated above all in the historical figures Vladimir Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg and Leon Trotsky, leaders of the Left in the Second International (1889-1914) – what they called ‘revolutionary social democracy’ – in the period preceding the crisis of war, revolution, counterrevolution and civil war in World War I and its aftermath. [Read More]

Marxism Rosa Luxemburg

Trotsky's Marxism

July 1, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

At the 2011 Left Forum, held at Pace University in NYC between March 18–21, Platypus hosted a conversation on “Trotsky’s Marxism.” Panelists Ian Morrison (Platypus), Susan Williams (Freedom Socialist Party), and Jason Wright (International Bolshevik Tendency) were asked to address, “What was Trotsky’s contribution to revolutionary Marxism? At one level, the answer is clear. Above even his significance as organizer of the October insurrection and leader of the Red Army during the Russian Civil War, what makes Trotsky a major figure in the history of Marxism is his status as the leader of the Left Opposition and, later, his founding of the Fourth International. [Read More]

Marxism Leon Trotsky

The Marxism of Second International Radicalism

Lenin, Luxemburg, and Trotsky

June 22, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Panel held at the Marxist Literary Group Summer 2011 Institute on Culture and Society at the Institute for the Humanities, University of Illinois at Chicago on June 22, 2011 Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Chris Cutrone, Lenin Greg Gabrellas, Luxemburg Ian Morrison, Trotsky Moderated by Spencer A. Leonard. Description The legacy of revolution 1917-19 in Russia, Germany, Hungary and Italy is concentrated above all in the historical figures Vladimir Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg and Leon Trotsky, leaders of the Left in the Second International (1889-1914)—what they called “revolutionary social democracy” – in the period preceding the crisis of war, revolution, counterrevolution and civil war in World War I and its aftermath. [Read More]

Vladimir Lenin Leninism Leon Trotsky Karl Marx Marxism Rosa Luxemburg

Marxism and the Bourgeois Revolution

June 20, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

Panel held at the Marxist Literary Group Summer 2011 Institute on Culture and Society at the Institute for the Humanities, University of Illinois at Chicago on June 20, 2011. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Spencer A. Leonard, “Marx’s critique of political economy: Proletarian socialism continuing the bourgeois revolution?” Pamela Nogales, “Marx on the U.S. Civil War as the 2 American Revolution” Jeremy Cohan, “Lukács on Marx’s Hegelianism and the dialectic of Marxism” [Read More]

Bourgeois Bourgeois revolution Karl Marx Marxism Marxist Literary Group

Lenin's liberalism

June 1, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society • Other languages: Ελληνικά

At the 2011 Left Forum, held at Pace University in NYC between March 18-21 , Platypus hosted a conversation on “Lenin’s Marxism.” Panelists Chris Cutrone of Platypus, Paul LeBlanc of the International Socialist Organization, and Lars T. Lih, the author of Lenin Reconsidered: “What is to be Done” in Context were asked to address, “What was distinctive about Vladimir Lenin’s Marxism? What was its relationship to the other forms of Marxism and Marxists of his era? [Read More]

Karl Korsch Vladimir Lenin Liberalism Marxism Theodor W. Adorno

After Hegel

June 1, 2011 | The Platypus Affiliated Society

ON MARCH 14, 2011, Omair Hussain publicly interviewed Robert Pippin, on behalf of Platypus, at an event titled On the Possibility of What Isn’t at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Robert Pippin is a professor on the Committee on Social Thought and in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chicago, and the author of numerous works on Kant, Hegel, and Nietzsche. What follows is an edited transcript of the interview. [Read More]

Art Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Immanuel Kant Karl Marx Marxism Robert Pippin Enlightenment Theodor W. Adorno