notes on Lukács

 March 9, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

I am writing with some brief, partial notes from our discussion at UChicago at yesterday’s (Sun. 3/8/09) reading group, on several essays from György Lukács’s 1923 book History and Class Consciousness. I want to emphasize and discuss in particular a couple of passages, from the (original, 1922) Preface, and the essay “What is Orthodox Marxism?” (1919). Specifically, I wish to discuss Lukács’s use of categories, “materialist dialectics,” and his meaning of Marxism as a “method,” which might otherwise prove confusing or tricky. [Read More]
Chris Cutrone  Discussion  György Lukács  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel  Hegelian  Karl Korsch  Vladimir Lenin  Karl Marx  Marxism  Theodor W. Adorno  Walter Benjamin 

notes on Spartacists on Lenin and the vanguard party

 March 1, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

I am writing with some notes and suggestions for discussion on the Spartacist League pamphlet on “Lenin and the vanguard party” (1978): http://www.bolshevik.org/Pamphlets/LeninVanguard/LVP%200.htm I’d like to quote at length from Spartacist founder James Robertson’s 1973 speech “In Defense of Democratic Centralism” that is included in the pamphlet as supplemental material (and is edited in the pamphlet but given in its entirety on-line): http://www.bolshevik.org/Pamphlets/LeninVanguard/LVP%20Robertson%20to%20Spartacus-BL.htm “What we are dealing with in the period from the founding of Iskra to the founding of the Bolshevik Party in 1912 is the transformation of the Bolshevik faction from a revolutionary social-democratic into an embryonic communist organization. [Read More]
Chris Cutrone  Discussion  History  Vladimir Lenin  Marxism  the Left 

notes on Lenin, What is to be done?---Platypus "neo-Leninism?"

 February 23, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

I am writing with some notes and suggestions on Lenin’s What is to be done? (1902). I’d like to start with a quotation from Lenin’s first footnote, in the chapter “Dogmatism and Freedom of Criticism:” At the present time (as is now evident), the English Fabians, the French Ministerialists, the German Bernsteinians, and the Russian Critics all belong to the same family, all extol each other, learn from each other, and together take up arms against “dogmatic” Marxism. [Read More]
Chris Cutrone  Discussion  Karl Korsch  Vladimir Lenin  Marxism  organization  Politics  Rosa Luxemburg  the Left 

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 

University of Chicago Marxist reading group Winter-Spring 2009

University of Chicago Marxist reading group Winter-Spring 2009

 January 11, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Platypus chapter at University of Chicago[ meets Sundays at][ **] [ Reynolds Club 5706 S. University Ave.] [ **2nd floor South Lounge 2-5PM**] [For more information contact mtorre3@artic.edu] [ **] [PDF of 2008-2009 scheduled readings ### [[January 25, 2009]] [What is “revolutionary leadership?”] [· Cliff Slaughter, “What is Revolutionary Leadership?” (1960)] [· Rosa Luxemburg, “The Crisis of German Social Democracy” Part 1 (1915) [PDF]] [ ] [ ] [ []] [Read More]
Cliff Slaughter  J.P. Nettl  Karl Korsch  leadership  Vladimir Lenin  Marxism  Reading group  Rosa Luxemburg  Leon Trotsky  University of Chicago 

SAIC reading group Spring 2009

SAIC reading group Spring 2009

 January 11, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Platypus chapter at SAIC[ meets Sundays at] 112 S. Michigan Ave. Room 707 @ 1-4pm [contact: ian.morrison.a@gmail.com if you are not SAIC affiliated] [PDF of 2008-2009 scheduled readings ### [[January 25, 2009]] [What is “revolutionary leadership?”] [· Cliff Slaughter, “What is Revolutionary Leadership?” (1960)] [· Rosa Luxemburg, “The Crisis of German Social Democracy” Part 1 (1915) [PDF]] [ ] [ ] [ []] [[[February 1, 2009]]] [ ] [[Revolutionary Marxism (1)]] [Read More]
J.P. Nettl  Vladimir Lenin  Marxism  Reading group  Rosa Luxemburg  SAIC 

Capital in history

The need for a Marxian philosophy of history of the Left

 October 1, 2008  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society  • Other languages: Deutsch, Español, Ελληνικά

The following is a talk given at the Marxist-Humanist Committee public forum on The Crisis in Marxist Thought, hosted by the Platypus Affiliated Society in Chicago on Friday, July 25th, 2008. I want to speak about the meaning of history for any purportedly Marxian Left. We in Platypus focus on the history of the Left because we think that the narrative one tells about this history is in fact one’s theory of the present. [Read More]
1789  1930s  1960s  19th Century  Bourgeois  Capital  Capitalism  Class consciousness  Crisis  Degeneration  Domination  Friedrich Engels  Freedom  French Revolution  György Lukács  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel  History  History of the Left  Industrial Revolution  Karl Korsch  Vladimir Lenin  Marxism  Marxist-Hummanist Committee  Modern  Moishe Postone  Politics  Proletariat  Regression  Revolt of the Third Estate  Rosa Luxemburg  The Left  Theodor W. Adorno  Leon Trotsky  Walter Benjamin 

Ba'athism and the history of the Left in Iraq

Violence and politics

 March 1, 2008  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

SINCE THE 1960s the saturation of brutality and violence in Iraq has caused considerable confusion among Leftists in regards to both its political meaning and causes. One cannot fully understand the character of Saddam Hussein’s Arab Ba’ath Socialist Party without taking into account that it achieved political power by systematically killing off the Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) and quelling other political dissent with acts of extreme cruelty. The eight year battle of attrition instigated by Hussein, known as the Iran-Iraq War, caused over half a million Iraqi deaths, and the ethnic cleansing campaigns directed against the Kurds resulted in countless more. [Read More]
ANSWER  Anti-Americanism  Anti-war  Ba'athism  Hadi Saleh  Hanna Batatu  History of the Left  Ian Morrison  Ideology  Imperialism  Iraq  Iraqi Communist Party  Kanan Makiya  Vladimir Lenin  Nationalism  Politics  Racism  Ramsey Clark  Reactionary  Regression  Republic of Fear  Saddam Hussein  Unions  US Labor Against the War  Violence  War 

Interview: Ernesto Laclau

 December 1, 2007  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

CONFRONTING THE CONFUSION and fragmentation that wrought progressive politics in recent decades, Ernesto Laclau’s work attempts to theorize the path to the construction of a radical democratic politics. Drawing on Gramsci’s concept of hegemony to devise his own theory by that name, Laclau describes the processes of social articulation that creates popular political identities. By redefining democratic politics as the construction of hegemony, Laclau reminds political actors of the work necessary to construct the plurality of democratic structures vital to any emancipatory political project. [Read More]
1930s  Anti-globalization  Capitalism  Co-optation  Commodity form  Communist party  Culture  De-radicalization  Democratic  Economics  Emancipation  Emancipatory  Equivalential  Ernesto Laclau  Feminism  Freedom  Hegemony  History  Identity  Industrial  Institutionalization  Italy  Labor  Vladimir Lenin  Karl Marx  Marxism  Movements  Participation  Particularity  Plurality  Politics  Popular  Production  Progressive  Proletarian  Radical  Reification  Revolution  Surplus value  Theory  Union  Universality  Workers  Working class  WWII 

The Left is dead! Long live the Left!

Vicissitudes of historical consciousness and possibilities for emancipatory social politics today

 November 1, 2007  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society  • Other languages: Ελληνικά

The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. —Karl Marx, The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (1852) The theorist who intervenes in practical controversies nowadays discovers on a regular basis and to his shame that whatever ideas he might contribute were expressed long ago – and usually better the first time around. —Theodor W. Adorno, “Sexual Taboos and the Law Today” (1963) [Read More]
19th Century  /20th Century  capitalism  consciousness  counterrevolution  crisis  Vladimir Lenin  Critical Theory  defeat  depoliticization  emancipation  György Lukács  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel  History  History of the Left  humanity  ideology  Imperialism  Industrial Revolution  Iraq  Karl Korsch  liberalism  Marxism  Karl Marx  Moishe Postone  Negative Dialectics  New Left  Friedrich Nietzsche  opportunism  Philosophy  Political economy  Politics postmodernism  Revolution  Robert Pippin  Rosa Luxemburg  Social Democracy  Social Democratic Party of Germany  SPD  Socialism  society  Stalinism  Theodor W. Adorno  utopianism  Walter Benjamin  war