A panel held on April 4th, 2014 at the Sixth Annual Platypus International Convention at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Panelists:
James Heartfield (audacity.org)
Tarek Shalaby (Revolutionary Socialists)
Description:
āāI became a Trotskyist in 1933. The theory of state capitalism is a development of Trotsky's position.... But at the end of the Second World War, the perspectives that Trotsky had put forward were not realized. Trotsky wrote that one thing was certain, the Stalinist bureaucracy would not survive the war. It would either be overthrown by revolution or by counterrevolution.... The assumption was that the collapse of the Stalinist bureaucracy would be a fantastic opening for the Trotskyist movement, for the Fourth International. The Stalinist bureaucracy not only didn't collapse but it expanded.... Therefore, at that time, Stalinism had a fantastic strength. And we had to come to terms with it.ā
ā Tony Cliff, interview with Ahmed Shawki (1997)
Tony Cliff's recognition in his own moment of a certain kind of impasse within Trotskyism and his attempt to overcome it require full consideration and appreciation both in terms of the merits of its potential and a consciousness of its limits. Panelists will address this legacy for the Left today.
A Platypus-wide teach-in on the CPGBās campaign against Lukacs and its stakes for Platypus as a project.
Held on Saturday January 11 1-4PM at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago 112 S. Michigan Ave. room 920 while simultaneously broadcast internationally via Livestream.
James Turley's historical chart of Lukacs's influence on Platypus:
The preparatory readings for this event are as follows and can be found at:
- Mike Macnair, āThe philosophy trapā 11/21/13
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/
- Chris Cutrone, āDefending Marxist Hegelianism against a Marxist critiqueā 8/11/11
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/
- Georg Lukacs, Original Preface (1922) to History and Class Consciousness (1923)
http://www.marxists.org/
CPGB contra LukƔcs
Communist Party of Great Britain (Provisional Central Committee)
contra Georg LukƔcs
James Turley, Chris Cutrone, Lawrence Parker
http://
Originally published in Weekly Worker January 24 ā March 14, 2013. PDF:
http://
articles:
- James Turley, āThe antinomies of Georg LukĆ”csā 1/24/13
- Chris Cutrone, āRegressionā 1/31/13
- James Turley, āDummyā 2/21/13
- Chris Cutrone, āNota beneā 2/28/13
- James Turley, āBaconā 3/7/13
- Lawrence Parker, āLukĆ”cs reloadedā 3/7/13
- Chris Cutrone, āUnreloadedā 3/14/13
http://
Supplemental:
Chris Cutrone, āGillian Roseās āHegelianā critique of Marxismā 3/1/10
http://platypus1917.org/
A panel event held on November 5th, 2013, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
It is generally assumed that Marxists and other Leftists have the political responsibility to support reforms for the improvement of the welfare of workers. Yet, leading figures from the Marxist tradition-- such as Lenin, Luxemburg, and Trotsky-- also understood that such reforms would broaden the crisis of capitalism and potentially intensify contradictions that could adversely impact the immediate conditions of the workers. For instance, full employment, while being a natural demand from the standpoint of all workers' interests, also threatens the conditions of capitalist production [which rely on a surplus of available labor], thereby potentially jeopardizing the system of employment altogether. In light of such apparent paradoxes, this panel seeks to investigate the politics of work from Leftist perspectives. It will attempt to provoke reflection on and discussion of the ambiguities and dilemmas of the politics of work by including speakers from divergent perspectives, some of whom seek after the immediate abolition of labor and others of whom seek to increase the availability of employment opportunities. It is hoped that this conversation will deepen the understanding of contemporary problems faced by the Left in its struggles to construct a politics adequate to the self-emancipation of the working class.
Speakers:
Bill Barclay
Democratic Socialists of America/Chicago Political Economy Group
Lenny Brody
Justice Party/Network for Revolutionary Change
Leon Fink
Professor of labor history, University of Illinois at Chicago
A teach-in held on September 17th, 2013 at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, led by Brian Schultz. An introductory teach-in on the development of human history from a Marxist perspective.
