BENJAMIN STUDEBAKER ATTRIBUTES modern social and political thought to Stoicism, which he understands to be at heart Neo-Platonist — by contrast with Plato’s own Platonism. In his view, it comes down to us from late Hellenism — Alexandrianism? But is capitalism Epicurean, as Studebaker avers, and socialism Stoic? Studebaker rejects the vision of socialism as society going beyond politics, which he interprets as the impossible or undesirable state without “disturbance”: an inhuman dystopia.
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UNFORTUNATELY, it seems that the Millennial moment, on both Left and Right, has been motivated by anti-postmodernism and anti-neoliberalism. This has meant adopting absolutism as opposed to relativism and collectivism as opposed to individualism, statism as opposed to the market, and hence nationalism as opposed to “globalism.” This has meant remaining blind and irrelevant to developments of post-neoliberalism, which will be both continuity and change — and never one without the other. For capitalism to continue it must change; for it to change it must continue.
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IRONICALLY, IT MIGHT ONLY BE NOW that the 21st century is really beginning. But this comes after the death of the Millennial Left, which strived but failed to be true to what was new and different about the 21st century, instead falling back on rehearsing and repeating the 20th century, to which it remained beholden.
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THERE ARE TWO DISTINCT THEORIES of “Bonapartism”: one liberal; the other Marxist. The liberal theory of Bonapartism is about “strong-man rule” and focused on the character of the political leader; the Marxist theory is with respect to the role of the state in capitalism.
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On October 30, 2024, the Platypus Affiliated Society hosted a panel discussion at the University of Chicago on the then-upcoming 2024 U.S. presidential election. The event’s speakers were Jorge Mújica, Chicago labor organizer and member of Morena; Chris Cutrone, founding member and teacher in Platypus and lead organizer of the Campaign for a Socialist Party; and Eddie Liger Smith, founding member and executive of the American Communist Party. Panelists were asked to respond to the following prompt: How should the Left approach the 2024 election? Would a Harris administration offer new opportunities for the Left? Would a Trump administration? What is to be made of third-party candidates?
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