2015 European Conference The Crisis of Europe - A Crisis for the Left?
The Platypus Affiliated Society is hosting its second ( annual ) European Conference in Frankfurt am Main from November 6-8
Platypus Review Reader Available Now
The Platypus Review Reader, 2007-2014 contains a selection of 50 articles distributed across ten headings: Marxism in the 20th century, the anti-war movement, the legacy of the New Left, Israel-Palestine, the election of Barack Obama, the economic crisis, art, the history of Marxism, Lenin, and the #Occupy Movement.
Platypus #79 is out!
Including an interview with Cedric Johnson, author of From Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics (2007); an article by Teo Velissaris on SYRIZA and the Left; and an article on Multitude and Populism from Spain to Latin America by Eduardo Frajman.
What is political party for the Left?
Transcript of the closing panel at the 7th annual Platypus Affiliated Society international convention in Chicago. Speakers: Chris Cutrone of Platypus, Mike Macnair, Adolph Reed, Jr., and Tom Riley
Recordings for the 2015 international convention now online
What is Political Party for the Left? An international panel series
What would it mean for the Left to take "political action" today?
The Platypus Review: Issue #79
International Events
September 9, 2015[09.24.2015] The Politics of Work - A Panel discussion at University of Illinois, Chicago0 comments
July 18, 2015London Platypus Reading Group, Autumn/Winter 2015"Whoever dares undertake to establish a people’s institutions must feel himself capable of changing, as it were, human nature, of transforming each individual, who by...1 comment
June 1, 2015So, 7.6.15, Linz: Teach-In "Das Kapital in der Geschichte"7. Juni, 15.00-17.30 Uhr. Altes Rathaus, Linz0 comments
The Platypus Review hopes to create and sustain a space for interrogating and clarifying positions and orientations currently represented on the Left, a space in which questions may be raised and discussions pursued that would not otherwise take place. As long as submissions exhibit a genuine commitment to this project, all kinds of content will be considered for publication.
Gregor Baszak of the Platypus Affiliated Society conducted an interview with Cedric Johnson, author of From Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics (2007). What follows is an edited transcript of their conversation.
[. . .]
A SPECTER IS HAUNTING THE LEFT lately: the specter of national sovereignty. If the ghosts of dominant powers in the past were expressing existing social trends—such as the “ghost of communism” over Europe—the ghosts of the Left, instead, seem to ignore these trends. The specter of communism was a real historical force, whereas the specter of national sovereignty appears irrelevant and obsolete.
[. . .]
Eduardo Frajman on Populism and Podemos
[. . .]
The Platypus Affiliated Society, established in December 2006, organizes reading groups, public fora, research and journalism
focused on problems and tasks inherited from the “Old” (1920s-30s), “New” (1960s-70s) and post-political (1980s-90s) Left
for the possibilities of emancipatory politics today.
In the face of the catastrophic past and present, the first task for the reconstitution of a Marxian Left as an emancipatory force is to recognize the reasons for the historical failure of Marxism and to clarify the necessity of a Marxian Left for the present and future. — If the Left is to change the world, it must first transform itself!
A story is told about Karl Marx’s collaborator and friend Friedrich Engels, who, in his youth, as a good Hegelian Idealist, sure about the purposeful, rational evolution of nature and of the place of human reason in it, became indignant when reading about a platypus, which he supposed to be a fraud perpetrated by English taxidermists. For Engels, the platypus made no sense in natural history.
An emancipated world in which the freedom of each would be a precondition for the freedom of all, achieved through social solidarity that provides “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need," whose vision motivated the historical Left, seems scarcely conceivable today.
Platypus is concerned with exploring the improbable but not impossible tasks and project of the reemergence of a critical Left with emancipatory social intent. We look forward to making a critical but vital contribution towards a possible “return to Marx” for the potential reinvigoration of the Left in coming years. We invite and welcome those who wish to share in and contribute to this project.
