A panel discussion with audience Q&A on the problematic forms of anti-capitalism today, held on May 30th at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH).
Transcribed in Platypus Review #53
āAfter the failure of the 1960s New Left, the underlying despair with regard to the real efficacy of political will, of political agency, in a historical situation of heightened helplessness, became a self-constitution as outsider, as other, rather than an instrument of transformation. Focused on the bureaucratic stasis of the Fordist, late 20th Century world, the Left echoed the destruction of that world by the dynamics of capital: neoliberalism and globalization.
The idea of a fundamental transformation became bracketed and, instead, was replaced by the more ambiguous notion of āresistance.ā The notion of resistance, however, says little about the nature of that which is being resisted, or of the politics of the resistance involved.
āResistanceā is rarely based on a reflexive analysis of possibilities for fundamental change that are both generated and suppressed by the dynamic heteronomous order of capital. āResistanceā is an undialectical category that does not grasp its own conditions of possibility; it fails to grasp the dynamic historical context of capital and its reconstitution of possibilities for both domination and emancipation, of which the āresistersā do not recognize that that they are a part.ā
ā Moishe Postone, āHistory and Helplessness: Mass Mobilization and Contemporary Forms of Anticapitalismā (Public CultureĀø 18.1: 2006)
Reform, revolution, resistance: what kind of weight do these categories hold for the Left today? How are they used, to where do they point, and what is their history? Join the Platypus Affiliated Society for a discussion concerning a question that has renewed immediacy in light of the #Occupy movement.
Speakers:
1) Nikolas Sevastakis, associate professor at the School of Political Science of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
2) Thodoris Karyotis, member of direct democracy and cooperative movements
3) Aris Tsioumas, member of KEHA (Kinisi Ergatikis Hirafetisis kai Autoorganosis, i.e. Movement for Labour Emancipation and Selforganisation)
4) Costas Gousis, member of NAR, component of the anticapitalist coalition ANTARSYA
On May 9th, 2012, Platypus members Ross Wolfe and Benjamin Blumberg made an appearance on WBAI (99.5 FM) Occupy Wall Street Radio.
A discussion with Richard Wolin, distinguished Professor of History at the City University of New York Graduate Center, on his recent book The Wind from the East: French Intellectuals, the Cultural Revolution, and the Legacy of the 1960s, held on May 7th, 2012, at New York University.
On May 4th, 2012, Platypus member Pam Nogales made an appearance on WBAI (99.5 FM) Occupy Wall Street Radio.
Platypus@NYU presents a roundtable discussion following the May 1st General Strike. Held on May 2nd, 2012, at New York University.
Since November of 2011, and with the help of working groups and organizers of OWS, Platypus has been hosting a series of roundtable discussions reflecting on the obstacles and possibilities, political content, and potential future of the #Occupy movement. These have taken place in New York, Chicago, Boston, Halifax (Canada), London (UK). We welcome any and all who would like to be a part of this project of self-education and potential rebuilding of the Left to join us in advancing this critical moment.
