A panel discussion organized by the Platypus Affiliated Society on November 22nd, 2013, at the University of Pittsburgh
The Platypus Affiliated Society cordially invites you to attend a discussion about the history of Trotskyism, on Pitt campus next Friday. The discussion will aim to explain the history of Trotskyism to a general audience, & discuss its political relevance in the present--no specialized knowledge will be presumed, & anyone with an interest in the history of Marxism & the Left is welcome. The event will have 15-20 minutes for each speaker, followed by a 15 minute response section, & a 45 minute audience Q&A.
Speakers:
Andrew Wagner (WIL, IMT)
Andrew R. (Member of the ISO who is speaking for himself and does not represent the organization)
Thomas Willis (Platypus)
Moderator:
Richard Rubin (Platypus)
A moderated panel discussion hosted by the Platypus Affiliated Society on the interrelation of capital, history and ecology, held at Loyola University on November 19th, 2013.
Panelists:
- Franklin Dmitryev (News and Letters) Author of "Ecosocialism and Marx's Humanism"
- Fred Magdoff (University of Vermont) Author of "What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism"
- Steven Vogel (Denison University) Author of "Against Nature: The Concept of Nature in Critical Theory"
- Alice Weinreb (Loyola University) Author of the forthcoming "Modern Hungers: Food, War and Germany in the Twentieth Century"
Description:
The Dutch atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen recently characterized the period marked by the start of the industrial revolution in the 18th Century to the present as a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene. This periodization is meant to capture a change in the history of the planet, namely that for the first time in history its course will be determined by the question of what humanity will become.
This panel will focus on different interpretations of why the Left has failed to deal with the deepening crisis of the Anthropocene through the 19th and 20th Centuries and how and if this problem is interrelated with the growing problems associated with ecological systems across the earth. While Karl Marx would note that the problem of freedom shifted with the industrial revolution and the emergence of the working class - the crisis of bourgeois society that Marx would term capital - the idea of freedom seemed not to survive the collapse of Marxist politics in the 20th Century. We seem to live in a world in which the fate of ecological systems seem foreclosed, where attempts at eco-modernization seem to emerge many steps behind the rate of ecological degradation. For many, degradation of the environment appears a permanent feature of modern society, something which can only be resisted but never transformed.
This panel will consider the relationship between the history of capital and the Left—and thus the issue of history and freedom - and how it may be linked to our present inability to render environmental threats and degradation visible and comprehensible, and by extension, subject to its conscious and free overcoming by society.
Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts bemerkten Marx und Engels in einer berühmten Formulierung: "Ein Gespenst geht um in Europa - das Gespenst des Kommunismus." 160 Jahre später scheint der Marxismus selbst zu einem Gespenst geworden zu sein.
Es scheint, als hätte die Linke im 21. Jahrhundert den Marxismus als möglichen Weg zur Freiheit aufgegeben. Doch griff Marx vor allem in seiner eigenen Zeit ein, um seine Zeitgefährten zu ermuntern, die Gesellschaft zu verändern. Trägt die Linke diese Verantwortung heute wohl nicht mehr? Hat die Linke gar die Problematiken, die Marx aufwarf, beantwortet und ist fortgeschritten?
Ist der Marxismus ĂĽberhaupt noch relevant?
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 panel event which took place the University of Kings College in Halifax, Canada, on October 9, 2013.
Panelists:
Howard Epstein (outgoing MLA for Halifax Chebucto)
Judy Haiven (Solidarity Halifax, Saint Mary’s University)
Alex Khasnabish (Halifax Radical Imagination Project, Mount Saint Vincent University)
Description:
This Nova Scotia election season saw an array of positions on the Left concerning the outcome that might follow from the victory of the NDP. Among them, there were some who openly supported the incumbent Darrell Dexter as the lesser of evils, others who opposed him by casting a vote for another candidate, and still others who followed the abstentionist line by not voting at all. Many of those who voted for the NDP did so under the assumption that the they were a broadly center-left party with vaguely social-democratic tendencies, who might be pushed to reverse neoliberal policies and stave off measures of austerity. Some, while generally less optimistic, endorsed the NDP on the premise that organizing a mass movement against capitalism would be easier with the NDP in power. Others argued that the NDP had done nothing to deserve reelection, offering no hope for either change or progress moving forward. The rest, who took no stance either for or against any party, chose instead to eschew electoral politics altogether.
Now that the election is over we are afforded a brief chance to critically evaluate the prospects for the Nova Scotia Left’s transition into the next term. What is different today from the time of NDP's historic win in 2009, when the election seemed like a departure from the course taken under previous Progressive Conservative and Liberal governments? More recently, how are we to regard the Left's renewed focus on parliamentary politics (not only in Nova Scotia, but also in Quebec) when only a year earlier such politics were often deemed obsolete in light of the extra-parliamentarianism of Idle No More, the Quebec student strike and Occupy? Did the last four years since the election and last two years since the 2011 upsurge that started with the Arab Spring, signal progress or regress for the Left? How would the terrain have shifted for the Left with another term under the NDP vs the Liberals? Will government social programs and infrastructure deteriorate yet further? Or will legislative reforms breathe life back into the moribund welfare state? Should we, in fact, take for granted the idea that keeping the Liberals and Progressive Conservatives out of office promises a better environment in which the Left to organize? What does the future hold for a Left caught in the stale air of the status quo?
