Summer and Fall/Autumn 2018 – Winter 2019

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

• required / + recommended reading

Marx and Engels readings pp. from Robert C. Tucker, ed., Marx-Engels Reader (Norton 2nd ed., 1978)

Week A. Introduction: Capital in history | Jul. 28, 2018

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)

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

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

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

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

• Chris Cutrone, "Capital in history" (2008)

+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms

+ video of Communist University 2011 London presentation

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

• Cutrone, "The Marxist hypothesis" (2010)

• Cutrone, “Class consciousness (from a Marxist persective) today”

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

Week B. 1960s New Left I. Neo-Marxism | Aug. 4, 2018

• Martin Nicolaus, “The unknown Marx” (1968)

+ Commodity form chart of terms

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

• Theodor W. Adorno, “Late Capitalism or Industrial Society?” (AKA “Is Marx Obsolete?”) (1968)

• Moishe Postone, “Necessity, labor, and time” (1978)

+ Postone, “Interview: Marx after Marxism” (2008)

+ Postone, “History and helplessness: Mass mobilization and contemporary forms of anticapitalism” (2006)

+ Postone, “Theorizing the contemporary world: Brenner, Arrighi, Harvey” (2006)

Week C. 1960s New Left II: Gender and sexuality | Aug. 11, 2018

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

• Juliet Mitchell, “Women: The longest revolution” (1966)

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

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

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

Week D. 1960s New Left III. Anti-black racism in the U.S. | Aug. 18, 2018

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

• Richard Fraser, “Two lectures on the black question in America and revolutionary integrationism” (1953)

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

+ Spartacist League, “Black and red: Class struggle road to Negro freedom” (1966)

+ Bayard Rustin, “The failure of black separatism” (1970)

• Adolph Reed, “Black particularity reconsidered” (1979)

+ Reed, “Paths to Critical Theory” (1984)

Week E. Frankfurt School precursors | Aug. 25, 2018

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

• Wilhelm Reich, “Ideology as material power” (1933/46)

• Siegfried Kracauer, “The mass ornament” (1927)

+ Kracauer, “Photography” (1927)

Week F. Radical bourgeois philosophy I. Rousseau: Crossroads of society | Sep. 1, 2018

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)

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

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

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

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

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

• Rousseau, selection from On the Social Contract (1762)

Week G. Radical bourgeois philosophy II. Adam Smith: On the wealth of nations (part 1) | Sep. 8, 2018

• 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.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 III. Adam Smith: On the wealth of nations (part 2) | Sep. 15, 2018

• Smith, selections from The Wealth of Nations

Volume II [PDF]
IV.7. Of Colonies
Book V: Of the Revenue of the Sovereign or Commonwealth
V.1. Of the Expences of the Sovereign or Commonwealth

Week I. Radical bourgeois philosophy IV. What is the Third Estate? | Sep. 22, 2018

• Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, What is the Third Estate? (1789)

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

Week J. Radical bourgeois philosophy V. Kant and Constant: Bourgeois society | Sep. 29, 2018

• Immanuel Kant, "Idea for a universal history from a cosmopolitan point of view" and "What is Enlightenment?" (1784)

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

• Benjamin Constant, "The liberty of the ancients compared with that of the moderns" (1819)

+ Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the origin of inequality (1754)

+ Rousseau, selection from On the social contract (1762)

Week K. Radical bourgeois philosophy VI. Hegel: Freedom in history | Oct. 6, 2018

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

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

Week 1. What is the Left? I. Capital in history | Oct. 13, 2018

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)

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

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

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

+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) chart of terms

• Chris Cutrone, "Capital in history" (2008)

+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms

+ video of Communist University 2011 London presentation

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

• Cutrone, "The Marxist hypothesis" (2010)

• Cutrone, “Class consciousness (from a Marxist persective) today”

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

Week 2. What is the Left? II. Utopia and critique | Oct. 20, 2018

• Max Horkheimer, selections from Dämmerung (1926–31)

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

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

• 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

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

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

Week 3. What is Marxism? I. Socialism | Oct. 27, 2018

• Marx, selections from Economic and philosophic manuscripts (1844), pp. 70–101

+ Commodity form chart of terms

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

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

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

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

Week 4. What is Marxism? II. Revolution in 1848 | Nov. 3, 2018

• Marx, The coming upheaval (from The Poverty of Philosophy, 1847) and Class struggle and mode of production (letter to Weydemeyer, 1852), pp. 218-220

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

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

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

Week 5. What is Marxism? III. Bonapartism | Nov. 10, 2018

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

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

• Marx, selections 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)

• Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, pp. 525–541

• Marx, Programme of the Parti Ouvrier (1880)

Week 6. What is Marxism? IV. Critique of political economy | Nov. 17, 2018

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

+ Commodity form chart of terms

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

• Marx, selections from the Grundrisse (1857–61), pp. 222–226, 236–244, 247–250, 276–293 ME Reader pp. 276-281

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

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

Week 7. Nov. 24, 2018 U.S. Thanksgiving break

Winter break readings

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

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

+ Edmund Wilson, To the Finland Station: A Study in the Writing and Acting of History (1940), Part II. Ch. (1–4,) 5–10, 12–16; Part III. Ch. 1–6

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

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

Week 8. What is Marxism? V. Reification | Dec. 1, 2018 / Jan. 5, 2019

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

Week 9. What is Marxism? VI. Class consciousness | Dec. 8, 2018 / Jan. 12, 2019

• Lukács, “Class Consciousness” (1920), Original Preface (1922), “What is Orthodox Marxism?” (1919), History and Class Consciousness (1923)
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 
+ Reification chart of terms
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Marx, Preface to the First German Edition and Afterword to the Second German Edition (1873) of Capital (1867), pp. 294–298, 299–302

Week 10. What is Marxism? VII. Ends of philosophy | Dec. 15, 2018 / Jan. 19, 2019

• Korsch, “Marxism and philosophy” (1923)

+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms 

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

+ 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

Winter–Spring 2019

II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism

On this episode of SPS, we discuss Childish Gambino’s “This Is America;” “50 Years of 1968,” the opening plenary at the International Convention of the Platypus Affiliated Society in Chicago, April 2018; and the recent liberal hysteria over the Irish border, with Platypus members Cam Hardy (Toronto) and Rory Hannigan (Sheffield, UK).

Hosted by Audrey Crescenti, Pam C. Nogales C., Laurie Rojas.

Articles mentioned:
(1) "Up in the air: The legacy of the New Communist Movement, An interview with Max Elbaum" with Spencer A. Leonard, in the Platypus Review 30 (December 2010)
platypus1917.org/2010/12/01/up-in…munist-movement/
(2) "The Cynicism of Childish Gambino’s 'This Is America'" by Israel Daramola, in Spin (May 8, 2018)
www.spin.com/2018/05/donald-glo…is-america-review/
(3) "The ex-IRA men: ‘United Ireland? It’s all guff’" by Simon Carswell, in the Irish Times (Apr 8, 2017)
www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/ir…-guff-1.3041131
(4) Mike Mcnair on Ireland and Brexit, in "Across the board" for the Weekly Worker (April 24, 2018)
weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1200/across-the-board/

Radical Minds co-hosts Erin Hagood and Stephanie Gomez interview Matt Cavagrotti and Greg Lucero on the historical and contemporary relationship between socialism and organized labor.

Greg Lucero is a member of Teamsters, Revolutionary Chicago, and the Socialist Party USA. Matt Cavagrotti is a member of Teamsters and the Platypus Affiliated Society.

Topics discussed include:

• Recent wave of American teachers' strikes
• AFSCME vs. Janus Supreme Court decision
• Upcoming contract negotiations between UPS and Teamsters
• Legacy of the New Communist Movement's failed "turn to industry" in the 1970s
• The nature and problems of revolutionary leadership
• Prospects for reviving unionism and socialism in the U.S.

Radical Minds is a radio show exploring the intersection between politics and economics in the modern world, broadcast on WHPK (88.5 FM Chicago). This episode aired May 24, 2018.

The article referenced by Greg is Radical Minds' interview with Mark Rudd, leader of Students for a Democratic Society and co-founder of the Weather Underground, published in issue 24 of the Platypus Review.

Between us we can change this rotten society. Now, put on your coat and make for the nearest cinema. Look at their deadly love-making on the screen. Isn’t it better in real life? Make up your mind to learn to love. Then, during the interval, when the first advertisements come on, pick up your tomatoes or, if you prefer, your eggs, and chuck them. Then get out into the street, and peel off all the latest government proclamations until underneath you discover the message of the days of May and June.

Stay awhile in the street. Look at the passers-by and remind yourself: the last word has not yet been said. Then act. Act with others, not for them. Make the revolution here and now. It is your own. C’est pour toi que tu fais la révolution.

— Daniel and Gabriel Cohn-Bendit, Obsolete Communism: The Left-Wing Alternative

Recommended films for screening

+ Brother Outsider: The Bayard Rustin Story
+ Rebels with a Cause: The SDS
+ Medium Cool
+ Columbia Revolt
+ The Weather Underground
+ Finally Got the News

Recommended background readings

+ Students for a Democratic Society, Port Huron Statement (1962)
+ Irwin Unger, The Movement (1974); see also Unger’s retrospective of 1968

Further background readings

+ Kirkpatrick Sale, SDS (1973)
+ Massimo Teodori, The New Left (1969)
+ Harold Jacobs, Weatherman (1970)

• required / + recommended reading

Primary book source *

• Carl Oglesby, ed. The New Left Reader (1968)

Recommended preliminary readings

+ The Platypus Historians Group, "Requiem for the '60s: Response to a boycott of discussion of '40 years of 1968'" (2008)
+ Chris Cutrone, "Let the dead bury the dead!" Response to Principia Dialectica (UK) on May 1968 (2008)
+ Atiya Khan, The Decline of the Left in the 20th Century: 1968 (2009)

Week 1 | June 9

• Stuart Hall, "Introducing New Left Review"
• C. Wright Mills, "Letter to the New Left" and "The politics of responsibility" *
• Leszek Kolakowski, "The concept of the Left" *
• Herbert Marcuse, "Conclusion to One-Dimensional Man" *

Week 2 | June 16

• Carl Oglesby, "The idea of the New Left" *
• Louis Althusser, "Contradiction and over-determination" *
+ Althusser, "Marxism and humanism"

Week 3 | June 23

• Cliff Slaughter, "What is revolutionary leadership?"
• Revolutionary Tendency of the Socialist Workers Party/U.S., "In defense of a revolutionary perspective"
• Spartacist League, "Genesis of Pabloism"

Week 4 | June 30

• Malcolm X, "I don't mean bananas" *
• Huey Newton, "A prison interview" *
• Spartacist League, "Soul power or workers' power? The rise and fall of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers"
+ Harold Cruse, from The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual Part 1 Part 2

Week 5 | July 7

• Andre Gorz, from Strategy for Labor *
• Stuart Hall, Raymond Williams, E.P. Thompson, from The May Day Manifesto *

Week 6 | July 14

• Daniel and Gabriel Cohn-Bendit, "The battle of the streets," from Obsolete Communism: The Left-Wing Alternative *
• Rudi Dutschke, "On anti-authoritarianism" *
• Mark Rudd, "Columbia: Notes on the Spring rebellion" *
• Sorbonne students' open assembly of June 13-14, 1968, "The appeal from the Sorbonne" *
• Tom Fawthorpe, Tom Nairn, David Triesman, "Three student risings" *

Week 7 | July 21

• Marcuse, "The question of revolution" (1967)
+ Theodor Adorno, “Late Capitalism or Industrial Society?” (AKA “Is Marx Obsolete?”) (1968)
+ Esther Leslie, Introduction to the 1969 Adorno-Marcuse correspondence (1999)
+ Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, correspondence on the German New Left (1969)
• Adorno, “Marginalia to Theory and Praxis” (1969)
• Adorno, “Resignation” (1969)
+ Adorno, Interview with Der Spiegel magazine (1969)

Coda

+ Marcuse, "The failure of the New Left" (1975)