In the mid-19th century, Marx and Engels famously observed in the Communist Manifesto that a specter was haunting Europe: the specter of Communism. 160 years later, it is Marxism itself that haunts us.
In the 21st century, it seems that the Left abandoned Marxism as a path to freedom. But Marx critically intervened in his own moment and emboldened leftists to challenge society; is the Left not tasked with this today? Has the Left resolved the problems posed by Marx, and thus moved on?
With Platypus Affiliated Society member Andony Melathopoulos.
On Wednesday September 14th, 2011 in New York City, Platypus hosted a dialogue with Sebastian Traenkle, editor of the influential German left journal Phase II revolving around what does contemporary landscape of left politics look like in Germany and the United States? What are the points of convergence and departure that shape left politics in these two countries? What might we learn from one another? This conversation will touch on the legacy of 9-11, the Anti-Deutsch milieu, popular anticapitalism versus value critique, the relative prominence of the Marxist and anarchist traditions, and the contentious differences in orientation towards the Israel-Palestine conflict, among other themes.
This event is part of the transatlantic dialogue series initiated by the Platypus Affiliated Society which aims to rebuild an emancipatory internationalism.
A panel held on August 28, 2011 in Frankfurt, Germany.
Panelists (in speaking order): Jerzy Sobotta (Frankfurt), Haseeb Ahmed (Maastricht), Watson Ladd (Chicago), Pam C. Nogales C. (New York)
Poduimsdiskussion: Hosting the conversation on the death of the Left.
The panel will present on the recent history of the Left in the U.S. through the history of the emergence and activities of our new student organization, the Platypus Affiliated Society. Platypus was established in 2006 in response to the failure of the Iraq anti-war movement. We formed an organization dedicated to âhosting the conversationâ on the death of the Left internationally, seeking to present more directly questions and problems from the history of Marxism, as guide to why and how the world has arrived at its present state. We find the most interesting and deepest questions and problems of modern history to be raised by Marxism, but not exclusively so. We hope to help clear or at least call critical attention to the present and historical ideological obstacles to the potential for forming a cosmopolitan Left as a truly progressive-emancipatory force.
The panel will include speakers from New York, Chicago, Boston/Maastricht and Frankfurt.
Poduimsdiskussion: Hosting the conversation on the death of the Left.
Die Veranstaltung wird die neuere Geschichte der Linken in den USA anhand der Entstehung und den Aktivitäten der neuen studentischen Organisation, the Platypus Affiliated Society, zum Gegenstand haben. Platypus wurde 2006 als Antwort auf die Niederlage der Anti-Irakkrieg-Bewegung gegründet. Wir haben eine Organisation geschaffen, welche es sich zum Hauptanliegen gemacht hat, die Diskussion über den Tod der Linken zu anzustoßen und so direkter die Fragen und Probleme aus der Geschichte des Marxismus aufzuwerfen, um zu verstehen, wie und warum die Welt zu ihrem gegenwärtigem Zustand gelangt ist. Wir glauben, dass die interessantesten und tiefsten Probleme moderner Geschichte, nicht ausschließlich aber vor allem durch den Marxismus angesprochen wurden. Wir hoffen, gegenwärtige und historische ideologische Hindernisse für eine potentielle Entstehung einer kosmopolitischen Linken – als einer tatsächlich progressiv-emanzipatorischen Kraft – aus dem Weg zu räumen, oder zumindest kritisch ins Bewusstsein zu rufen.
Der Panel besteht aus Sprecherinnen und Sprechern aus New York, Chicago, Boston/Maastricht und Frankfurt. (Die Veranstaltung findet auf englisch statt.) 
IVI (Bockenheim) • Kettenhofweg 130 • Frankfurt am Main
Sonntag, 28. August 2011, 18:00 (IVI)
A presentation by Platypus member Spencer Leonard on August 19th, 2011, at Communist University, which took place from August 17th to August 20th, 2011, at Goldsmiths, University of London.
For background reading please see the attached PDFs, also available at the following URLs:
Mike Macnair's Critique of Platypus
Also:
Cutrone, "Capital in history" (2008)
Cutrone, "The Marxist hypothesis" (2010)
A presentation by Platypus member Chris Cutrone on August 16th, 2011, at Communist University, which took place from August 17th to August 20th, 2011, at Goldsmiths, University of London. Video Credit: Communist Party of Great Britain.
What is progress if not the absolute elaboration of humanity’s creative dispositions . . . unmeasured by any previously established yardstick[,] an end in itself . . . the absolute movement of becoming?
* * *
[T]he ancient conception, in which man always appears (in however narrowly national, religious, or political a definition) as the aim of production, seems very much more exalted than the modern world, in which production is the aim of man and wealth the aim of production. In fact, however, when the narrow bourgeois form has been peeled away, what is wealth, if not the universality of needs,capacities, enjoyments, productive powers etc., of individuals, produced in universal exchange? What, if not the full development of human control over the forces of nature — those of his own nature as well as those of so-called “nature"? What, if not the absolute elaboration of his creative dispositions, without any preconditions other than antecedent historical evolution which make the totality of this evolution — i.e., the evolution of all human powers as such, unmeasured by any previously established yardstick —
an end in itself? What is this, if not a situation where man does not reproduce in any determined form, but produces his totality? Where he does not seek to remain something formed by the past, but is in the absolute movement of becoming? In bourgeois political economy — and in the epoch of production to which it corresponds — this complete elaboration of what lies within man, appears as the total alienation, and the destruction of all fixed, one-sided purposes as the sacrifice of the end in itself to a wholly external compulsion. Hence in one way the childlike world of the ancients appears to be superior; and this is so, insofar as we seek for closed shape, form and established limitation. The ancients provide a narrow satisfaction, whereas the modern world leaves us unsatisfied, or, where it appears to be satisfied, with itself, is vulgar and mean.
— Marx, "Pre-capitalist economic formations," Grundrisse (1857-58)
Recommended background readings:
Mike Macnair's Critique of Platypus
Also:
Cutrone, "Capital in history" (2008)
Cutrone, "The Marxist hypothesis" (2010)
