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You are here: The Platypus Affiliated Society/Platypus introductory Marxist reading group - Fall 2020 and Winter 2021

Platypus introductory Marxist reading group - Fall 2020 and Winter 2021

Every Sunday

5:00pm to 7:00pm

Online via Zoom

Find us on Facebook! facebook.com/groups/PAS.GMU/

Find us on Twitter! @Platypus_GMU

Find us on Mason360! mason360.gmu.edu/pas/home/

Contact us with platypus.metrodc@gmail.com


I. What is the Left? – What is Marxism?

• required / + recommended reading


Find a copy of the Marx and Engels readings from Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (Norton 2nd ed., 1978)


Week A. Introduction: Capital in History | Aug. 2, 2020

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 himself is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole, from which, in a sense, the individual receives his life and his being, of substituting a limited and mental existence for the physical and independent existence. He has to take from man his own powers, and give him in exchange alien powers which he cannot employ without the help of other men.

-- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract (1762)

• Max Horkheimer"The Little Man and the Philosophy of Freedom" (1926–31)

• four epigraphs on modern history and freedom by James Miller (on Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 2000), Louis Menand (on Marx and Engels, 2003), Karl Marx (on "becoming", from the Grundrisse, 1857–58), and Peter Preuss (on Nietzsche, 1980)

• Chris Cutrone"Capital in History" (2008)

• Cutrone"The Marxist Hypothesis" (2010)

• Cutrone“Class Consciousness (from a Marxist Persective) Today”

+ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (1908)

+ Robert Pippin, "On Critical Theory" (2004)

+ G.M. Tamas, "Telling the Truth about Class" [HTML] (2007)

Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

Capital in history timeline and chart of terms

Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 


Week B. 1960s New Left I. Neo-Marxism | Aug. 9, 2020

• Martin Nicolaus“The Unknown Marx” (1968)

• Moishe Postone“Necessity, Labor, and Time” (1978)

• Theodor Adorno“Late Capitalism or Industrial Society?” (a.k.a. “Is Marx Obsolete?”) (1968)

Commodity form chart of terms

Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

Organic composition of capital chart of terms

+ Postone, â€śInterview: Marx after Marxism” (2008)

+ Postone, â€śHistory and Helplessness: Mass Mobilization and Contemporary Forms of Anticapitalism” (2006)

+ Postone, â€śTheorizing the Contemporary World: Brenner, Arrighi, Harvey” (2006)


Week C. 1960s New Left II: Gender and Sexuality | Aug. 16, 2020

The situation of women is different from that of any other social group. This is because they are not one of a number of isolable units, but half a totality: the human species. Women are essential and irreplaceable; they cannot therefore be exploited in the same way as other social groups can. They are fundamental to the human condition, yet in their economic, social and political roles, they are marginal. It is precisely this combination — fundamental and marginal at one and the same time — that has been fatal to them. — Juliet Mitchell, "Women: The longest revolution" (1966)

• Juliet Mitchell“Women: The Longest Revolution” (1966)

• Clara Zetkin and Vladimir Lenin“An interview on the woman question” (1920)

• Theodor Adorno“Sexual taboos and the law today” (1963)

• John D’Emilio“Capitalism and gay identity” (1983)

Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 


Week D. 1960s New Left III. Anti-black Racism in the U.S. | Aug. 23, 2020

As a social party we receive the Negro and all other races upon absolutely equal terms. We are the party of the working class, the whole working class, and we will not suffer ourselves to be divided by any specious appeal to race prejudice; and if we should be coaxed or driven from the straight road we will be lost in the wilderness and ought to perish there, for we shall no longer be a Socialist party. — Eugene Debs, "The Negro in the Class Struggle" (1903)

• Richard Fraser“Two Lectures on the Black Question in America and Revolutionary Integrationism” (1953)

• James Robertson and Shirley Stoute“For Black Trotskyism” (1963)

• Adolph Reed“Black Particularity Reconsidered” (1979)

+ Eugene Debs, "The Negro in the Class Struggle" (1903) 

+ Debs, "The Negro and His Nemesis" (1904)

+ Spartacist League, â€śBlack and Red: Class Struggle Road to Negro Freedom” (1966)

+ Bayard Rustin, â€śThe Failure of Black Separatism” (1970)

+ Reed, â€śPaths to Critical Theory” (1984)

Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 


Week E. Frankfurt School precursors | Aug. 30, 2020

• Wilhelm Reich“Ideology as Material Power” (1933/46)

• Siegfried Kracauer“The Mass Ornament” (1927)

+ Kracauer, â€śPhotography” (1927)

Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 


six weeks on radical bourgeois thought...

"The genius of Marx consists precisely in his having furnished answers to questions already raised by the foremost minds of mankind. His teachings emerged as the direct and immediate continuation of the teachings of the greatest representatives of philosophy, political economy, and socialism...[Marxism] is the legitimate successor to the best that man produced [in] German philosophy, English political economy, and French socialism." --- Vladimir Lenin, "Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism" (1913)

Week F. radical bourgeois philosophy I. Rousseau: Crossroads of Society | Sep. 6, 2020

"To be radical is to go to the root of the matter. For man, however, the root is man himself."

— Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1843)

"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 himself is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole, from which, in a sense, the individual receives his life and his being, of substituting a limited and mental existence for the physical and independent existence. He has to take from man his own powers, and give him in exchange alien powers which he cannot employ without the help of other men."

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, On the Social Contract (1762)

• Max Horkheimer"The Little Man and the Philosophy of Freedom" (1926–31)

• four epigraphs on modern history and freedom by James Miller (on Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 2000), Louis Menand (on Marx and Engels, 2003), Karl Marx (on "becoming", from the Grundrisse, 1857–58), and Peter Preuss (on Nietzsche, 1980)

• Jean-Jacques RousseauDiscourse on the Origin of Inequality (1754) PDFs of preferred translation (5 parts): [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

• Rousseauselection from On the Social Contract (1762)

+ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (1908)

+ Robert Pippin, "On Critical Theory" (2004)

Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms


Week G. radical bourgeois philosophy II. Adam Smith: On the Wealth of Nations| Sep. 12, 2020

• Adam Smith, selections from The Wealth of Nations

Volume I [PDF]
Introduction and Plan of the Work


Book I: Of the Causes of Improvement…
I.1. Of the Division of Labor
I.2. Of the Principle which gives Occasion to the Division of Labour
I.3. That the Division of Labour is Limited by the Extent of the Market
I.4. Of the Origin and Use of Money
I.5 Of the Real and Nominal Price of Commodities
I.6. Of the Component Parts of the Price of Commodities
I.7. Of the Natural and Market Price of Commodities
I.8. Of the Wages of Labour
I.9. Of the Profits of Stock


Book III: Of the different Progress of Opulence in different Nations
III.1. Of the Natural Progress of Opulence
III.2. Of the Discouragement of Agriculture in the Ancient State of Europe after the Fall of the Roman Empire
III.3. Of the Rise and Progress of Cities and Towns, after the Fall of the Roman Empire
III.4. How the Commerce of the Towns Contributed to the Improvement of the Country


Week H. radical bourgeois philosophy II. Adam Smith: On the Wealth of Nations| Sep. 20, 2020

• Adam Smith, selections from The Wealth of Nations

Volume II [PDF]
IV.7, Of Colonies
V.1. Of the Expenses of the Sovereign or Commonwealth


Week I. radical bourgeois philosophy IV. What is the Third Estate? | Sep. 27, 2020

• AbbĂ© Emmanuel Joseph SieyèsWhat is the Third Estate? (1789)

+ Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees (1732)


Week J. radical bourgeois philosophy V. Kant and Constant: Bourgeois Society | Oct. 3, 2020

• Immanuel Kant"Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View" (1784)

• Kant,  "What is Enlightenment?" (1784)

• Benjamin Constant"The Liberty of the Ancients Compared with That of the Moderns" (1819)

Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms


Week K. radical bourgeois philosophy VI. Hegel: Freedom in History | Oct. 11, 2020

• G.W.F. HegelIntroduction to the Philosophy of History (1831) [HTML] [PDF pp. 14-128] [Audiobook]

Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms


Ten weeks on Marx's Marxism...


Week 1. What is the Left? I. Capital in History | Oct. 18, 2020

• Max Horkheimer"The Little Man and the Philosophy of Freedom" (1926–31)

• four epigraphs on modern history and freedom by James Miller (on Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 2000), Louis Menand (on Marx and Engels, 2003), Karl Marx (on "becoming", from the Grundrisse, 1857–58), and Peter Preuss (on Nietzsche, 1980)

• Chris Cutrone"Capital in History" (2008)

• Cutrone"The Marxist Hypothesis" (2010)

• Cutrone“Class Consciousness (from a Marxist Perspective) Today”

Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

Capital in history timeline and chart of terms

Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

+ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (1908)

+ Robert Pippin, "On Critical Theory" (2004)

+ G.M. Tamas, "Telling the Truth about Class" [HTML] (2007)


Week 2. What is the Left? II. Utopia and Critique | Oct. 25, 2020

• Leszek Kolakowski“The Concept of the Left” (1968)

• MarxTo Make the World Philosophical (from Marx's dissertation, 1839–41), pp. 9–11

• MarxFor the Ruthless Criticism of Everything Existing (letter to Arnold Ruge, September 1843), pp. 12–15

• Max Horkheimerselections from Dämmerung (1926–31)

• Adorno, “Imaginative Excesses” (1944–47)

• Herbert Marcuse"Note on Dialectics" (1960) 

Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms


Week 3. What is Marxism? I. What is Socialism?| Nov. 1, 2020

• Marxselections from Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts (1844), pp. 70–101

• Marx, selection from The Poverty of Philosophy (1847)

• Marx and Friedrich Engelsselections from the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848), pp. 469-500

Commodity form chart of terms

Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms

Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 


Week 4. What is Marxism? II. Revolution in 1848 | Nov. 8, 2020

• MarxAddress to the Central Committee of the Communist League (1850), pp. 501–511

• Marx, "My Unique Contributions" (letter to J. Weydemeyer, 1852), pp. 218-220

• EngelsThe tactics of social democracy (Engels's 1895 introduction to Marx, The Class Struggles in France), pp. 556–573

• Marxselections from The Class Struggles in France 1848–50 (1850), pp. 586–593

• Marxselections from The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), pp. 594–617


Week 5. What is Marxism? III. Bonapartism | Nov. 15, 2020

+ Karl Korsch, "The Marxism of the First International" (1924)

• MarxInaugural address to the First International (1864), pp. 512–519

• Marxselections from The Civil War in France (1871, including Engels's 1891 Introduction), pp. 618–652

+ Korsch, Introduction to Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme (1922)

• MarxCritique of the Gotha Programme, pp. 525–541

• MarxProgramme of the Parti Ouvrier (1880)


Week 6. What is Marxism? IV. Critique of Political Economy | Nov. 22, 2020

The fetish character of the commodity is not a fact of consciousness; rather it is dialectical, in the eminent sense that it produces consciousness. . . . [P]erfection of the commodity character in a Hegelian self-consciousness inaugurates the explosion of its phantasmagoria.
-- Theodor W. Adorno, letter to Walter Benjamin, August 2, 1935

• Marx, selections from the Grundrisse (1857–61), pp. 222–226, 236–244, 247–250, 276–293 --- sections A, C, D, and H (w/their numbered subsections) and sections F and G

• MarxCapital Vol. I, Ch. 1 Sec. 4 "The fetishism of commodities" (1867), pp. 319–329

Commodity form chart of terms

Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

Organic composition of capital chart of terms

+ Marx on surplus value chart of terms

Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms


Week 7. What is Marxism? V. Reification | Dec. 6, 2020

• Georg Lukács“The phenomenon of reification” (Part I of “Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat,” History and Class Consciousness, 1923)

Commodity form chart of terms

Organic composition of capital chart of terms

Capitalist contradiction chart of terms

Reification chart of terms

Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms


Week 8. What is Marxism? VI. Class Consciousness | Dec. 13, 2020

• LukácsOriginal Preface (1922)

• Lukács“What is Orthodox Marxism?” (1919)

• Lukács“Class Consciousness” (1920)

Note: all are chapters from Lukacs' History and Class Consciousness (1923)

+ Marx, Preface to the First German Edition and Afterword to the Second German Edition (1873) of Capital (1867), pp. 294–298, 299–302

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
Reification chart of terms
Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms


Week 10. What is Marxism? VII. Ends of Philosophy | Dec. 20, 2020

• Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy (1923)

+ Marx, "To make the world philosophical" (from Marx's dissertation, 1839–41), pp. 9–11

+ Marx, "For the ruthless criticism of everything existing" (letter to Arnold Ruge, September 1843), pp. 12–15

+ Marx, "Theses on Feuerbach" (1845), pp. 143–145

Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms


Winter break recommended readings

+ James Joll, The Second International 1889–1914 (1966)

+ Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918–19 (1968)

+ Georg Lukacs, Lenin: A Study in the Unity of His Thought (1924)

+ Edmund Wilson, To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History (1940)

+ Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution / Lenin for Beginners (1977)

+ Tariq Ali and Phil Evans, Introducing Trotsky and Marxism / Trotsky for Beginners (1980)

+ J.P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg: A Biography (1962)


Spring 2021 Marxist reading syllabus

II. Introduction to Revolutionary Marxism

Weeks 11 through 28 of the syllabus on What is Revolutionary Marxism?