Mondays at 6pm on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81062045963
Facebook event: https://fb.me/e/1TRK16DKi
Everybody welcome! No prior experience required.
• 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 | Aug. 9, 2021
• Max Horkheimer, "The little man and the philosophy of freedom" (1926–31)
• epigraphs on modern history and freedom by Louis Menand (on Marx and Engels), Karl Marx, on "becoming" (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58), and Peter Preuss (on history)
+ 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” (2012)
+ G.M. Tamas, "Telling the truth about class" [HTML] (2007)
+ Robert Pippin, "On Critical Theory" (2004)
+ Rainer Maria Rilke, "Archaic Torso of Apollo" (1908)
Week B. 1960s New Left I. Neo-Marxism | Aug. 16, 2021
• Martin Nicolaus, “The unknown Marx” (1968)
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms
+ Marx on surplus-value 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. 23, 2021
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)
+ 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. 30, 2021
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)
+ Eugene Debs, "The Negro in the class struggle" (1903)
+ Debs, "The Negro and his nemesis" (1904)
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
• Richard Fraser, “Two lectures on the black question in America and revolutionary integrationism” (1953)
+ Fraser, "For the materialist conception of the Negro struggle" (1955)
• 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 | Sept. 6, 2021
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
• Wilhelm Reich, “Ideology as material power” (1933/46)
• Siegfried Kracauer, “The mass ornament” (1927)
+ Kracauer, “Photography” (1927)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
Week F. Radical bourgeois philosophy I. Rousseau: Crossroads of society | Sep. 13, 2021
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)
• epigraphs on modern history and freedom by James Miller (on Jean-Jacques Rousseau), Louis Menand (on Marx and Engels), Karl Marx, on "becoming" (from the Grundrisse, 1857–58), and Peter Preuss (on history)
+ 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]
+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms
• Rousseau, selection from On the Social Contract (1762)
Week G. Radical bourgeois philosophy II. Adam Smith: On the wealth of nations (part 1) | Sep. 20, 2021
• 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 III. Adam Smith: On the wealth of nations (part 2) | Sep. 27, 2021
• Smith, selections from The Wealth of Nations
Volume II [PDF]
IV.7, Of Colonies
V.1. Of the Expences of the Sovereign or Commonwealth Article 2d and 3d and Part IV
Week I. Radical bourgeois philosophy IV. What is the Third Estate? | Oct. 4, 2021
• Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, What is the Third Estate? (1789) [full text]
+ Bernard Mandeville, The Fable of the Bees (1732)
Week J. Radical bourgeois philosophy V. Kant and Constant: Bourgeois society | Oct. 11, 2021
• 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
+ Kant's 3 Critiques [PNG] and philosophy [PNG] charts 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. 18, 2021
• 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
Mondays at 6:30pm BST via Zoom (recurring link here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86210746511). Everyone welcome.
( • required / + recommended readings)
Required background reading:
• Six readings by Chris Cutrone, "Revolution without Marx? Rousseau, Kant and Hegel" (2013); Review of Andrew Feenberg, The Philosophy of Praxis (2015); "Why still read Lukacs? The place of 'philosophical' questions in Marxism" (2014); "Ends of philosophy" (2018); "On philosophy and Marxism" (2020); and “The negative dialectic of Marxism” (2021)
Recommended supplemental reading:
+ Adorno, Lectures on Negative Dialectics
+ Adorno, History and Freedom
+ Adorno, Introduction to Dialectics
+ Adorno, Ontology and Dialectics
+ Adorno, Metaphysics: Concepts and Problems
Primary sources:
• Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics (1966, trans. E.B. Ashton, 1973)
+ Alternate translation by Dennis Redmond (2001/2021) [2021 updated PDF]
Charts of terms:
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Kant's 3 Critiques [PNG] and philosophy [PNG] chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Reification chart of terms
+ Adorno's critique of actionism chart of terms
Week 1: June 7, 2021
• Gillian Rose, Review of Adorno's Negative Dialectics (1976)
• Theodor W. Adorno, "Why still philosophy?"
• Chris Cutrone, "Ends of philosophy" (2018); "On philosophy and Marxism" (2020); and “The negative dialectic of Marxism” (2021)
Week 2: June 14, 2021
• Adorno, Negative Dialectics, Prologue (Preface and Introduction)
Week 3: June 21, 2021
• Adorno, Negative Dialectics, Part One: Relation to Ontology: I. The Ontological Need
Week 4: June 28, 2021
• Adorno, Negative Dialectics, Part One: Relation to Ontology: II. Being and Existence
Week 5: July 5, 2021
• Adorno, Negative Dialectics, Part Two: Negative Dialectics: Concepts and Categories
Week 6: July 12, 2021
• Adorno, Negative Dialectics, Part Three: Models: I. Freedom
Week 7: July 19, 2021
• Adorno, Negative Dialectics, Part Three: Models: II. World Spirit and Natural History
Week 8: July 26, 2021
• Adorno, Negative Dialectics, Part Three: Models: III. Meditations on Metaphysics
+ Cutrone, "Ends of philosophy" (2018); "On philosophy and Marxism" (2020); and “The negative dialectic of Marxism” (2021)
Mondays 7pm-9:30pm
Every Wednesday at 6-8pm. No previous experience required and all welcome!
Join Platypus LSE for our weekly Marxist reading group! This term we will be reading about the revolutionary Marxist politics of the early 20th Century including the Russian and German revolutions and their aftermath. We will be engaging with works from Rosa Luxemburg, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Walter Benjamin, Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno.
Reading group sessions will be held over ZOOM, and can be accessed by following the link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82756097236.
• Required reading
+ Recommended reading
Week 10. What is Marxism? VII. Ends of philosophy | Jan. 20, 2021
• Korsch, “Marxism and philosophy” (1923)
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Herbert Marcuse, "Note on dialectic" (1960)
+ 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 2021
II. Introduction to revolutionary Marxism
Week 11. Revolutionary leadership | Jan. 27, 2021
• Rosa Luxemburg, “The Crisis of German Social Democracy” Part 1 (1915)
• J. P. Nettl, “The German Social Democratic Party 1890–1914 as a Political Model” (1965)
• Cliff Slaughter, “What is Revolutionary Leadership?” (1960)
Week 12. Reform or revolution? | Feb. 3, 2021
• Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution? (1900/08)
+ Eugene Debs, "Competition versus Cooperation" (1900)
Week 13. Lenin and the vanguard party | Feb. 10, 2021
• Spartacist League, Lenin and the Vanguard Party (1978)
+ Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution / Lenin for Beginners (1977)
Week 14. What is to be done? | Feb. 17, 2021
• V. I. Lenin, What is to be Done? (1902)
+ Richard Appignanesi and Oscar Zarate / A&Z, Introducing Lenin and the Russian Revolution / Lenin for Beginners (1977)
Week 15. LSE Reading Week | Feb. 22 - 26, 2021
Week 16. Mass strike and social democracy | Mar. 3, 2021
• Luxemburg, The Mass Strike, the Political Party and the Trade Unions (1906)
+ Luxemburg, "Blanquism and Social Democracy" (1906)
Week 17. Permanent revolution | Mar. 10, 2021
• Leon Trotsky, Results and Prospects (1906)
+ Tariq Ali and Phil Evans, Introducing Trotsky and Marxism / Trotsky for Beginners (1980)
Week 18. State and revolution | Mar. 17, 2021
• Lenin, The State and Revolution (1917)
Week 19. Imperialism | Mar. 24, 2021
“The bourgeoisie makes it its business to promote trusts, drive women and children into the factories, subject them to corruption and suffering, condemn them to extreme poverty. We do not ‘demand’ such development, we do not ‘support’ it. We fight it. But how do we fight? We explain that trusts and the employment of women in industry are progressive. We do not want a return to the handicraft system, pre-monopoly capitalism, domestic drudgery for women. Forward through the trusts, etc., and beyond them to socialism!”
— Lenin, The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution (1916/17)
• Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916)
+ Lenin, Socialism and War Ch. 1 The principles of socialism and the War of 1914–15 (1915)
Week 20. Failure of the revolution | Mar. 31, 2021
• Luxemburg, “What does the Spartacus League Want?” (1918)
• Luxemburg, “On the Spartacus Programme” (1918)
+ Luxemburg, "German Bolshevism" (AKA "The Socialisation of Society") (1918)
+ Luxemburg, “The Russian Tragedy” (1918)
+ Luxemburg, “Order Reigns in Berlin” (1919)
+ Eugene Debs, “The Day of the People” (1919)
+ Sebastian Haffner, Failure of a Revolution: Germany 1918–19 (1968)
Week 21. Platypus international convention| Apr. 3, 2021
Information forthcoming
Week 22. Retreat after revolution | Apr. 14, 2021
• Lenin, “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder (1920)
+ Lenin, "Notes of a Publicist" (1922)
Week 23. Dialectic of reification | Apr. 21, 2021
• Lukács, “The Standpoint of the Proletariat” (Part III of “Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat,” 1923). Available in three sections from marxists.org: section 1 section 2 section 3
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms + Organic composition of capital chart of terms
+ Reification chart of terms
+ Lukács, “The phenomenon of reification” (Part I of “Reification and the consciousness of the proletariat,” History and Class Consciousness, 1923)
Week 24. Lessons of October | Apr. 28, 2021
• Trotsky, The Lessons of October (1924) [PDF]
• Trotsky, "Stalinism and Bolshevism" (1937)
Week 25. Trotskyism | May 5, 2021
+ Trotsky, "To build communist parties and an international anew" (1933)
+ Trotsky, "If America should go communist" (1934)
• Trotsky, The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International (AKA The Transitional Program and the Struggle for Socialism, 1938)
+ Trotsky, "Trade unions in the epoch of imperialist decay" (1940)
+ Trotsky, Letter to James Cannon (September 12, 1939)
Week 26. The authoritarian state | May 12, 2021
• Friedrich Pollock, "State Capitalism: Its Possibilities and Limitations" (1941) (note 32 on USSR) [HTML]
• Max Horkheimer, "The Authoritarian State" (1942) [PDF]
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
Week 27. On the concept of history | May 19, 2021
• epigraphs by Louis Menand (on Edmund Wilson) and Peter Preuss (on Nietzsche) on the modern concept of history
+ Charles Baudelaire, from Fusées [Rockets] (1867)
+ Bertolt Brecht, "To posterity" (1939)
+ Walter Benjamin, "To the planetarium" (from One-Way Street, 1928)
+ Benjamin, "Fire alarm" (from One-Way Street, 1928)
[JPG] [PDF]
+ Benjamin, "Experience and poverty" (1933)
+ Benjamin, Theologico-political fragment (1921/39?)
+ Benjamin on history chart of terms
• Benjamin, "On the Concept of History" (AKA "Theses on the Philosophy of History") (1940) [PDF]
• Benjamin, Paralipomena to "On the Concept of History" (1940)
+ Benjamin, Arcades Project Convolute N, "On the theory of knowledge, theory of progress" (see especially p. 471 [N8,1] on Horkheimer on unredeemablility of past suffering)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
Week 28. Reflections on Marxism | May 26, 2021
+ Capital in history timeline and chart of terms
+ Benjamin on history chart of terms
• Theodor Adorno, “Reflections on Class Theory” (1942)
• Adorno, “Imaginative Excesses” (1944–47)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Adorno, Dedication, "Bequest", "Warning: Not to be Misused" and "Finale", Minima Moralia (1944–47)
+ Horkheimer and Adorno, "Discussion about Theory and Praxis" (AKA "Towards a New Manifesto?") [Deutsch] (1956)
Week 29. Theory and practice | Jun. 2, 2021
+ Adorno, “On Subject and Object” (1969)
+ Commodity form chart of terms
+ Reification chart of terms
+ Capitalist contradiction chart of terms
+ Adorno's critique of actionism chart of terms
• Adorno, “Marginalia to Theory and Praxis” (1969)
• Adorno, “Resignation” (1969)
+ Being and becoming (freedom in transformation) / immanent dialectical critique chart of terms
+ Adorno, “Late Capitalism or Industrial Society?” (AKA “Is Marx Obsolete?”) (1968)
+ Organic composition of capital chart of terms
+ Esther Leslie, Introduction to the 1969 Adorno-Marcuse correspondence (1999)
+ Adorno and Herbert Marcuse, correspondence on the German New Left (1969)
+ Adorno, Interview with Der Spiegel magazine (1969)
