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Henri Lefebvre and Marxism: A view from the Frankfurt School
Lefebvre and contemporary interpretations of Marx Alfred Schmidt Frankfurt, 1968 . . In recent years the literature that has appeared about, for, and against Marx and Marxism has...
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Resources on communization
“Communization” is a theoretical current that emerged from the French ultraleft after 1968. Gilles Dauvé is usually credited with coining the term according to its contemporary use in...
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Rosa Luxemburg and the party
Chris Cutrone Platypus Review May 21, 2016 . . In one of her earliest interventionsin the Social-Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), participating in the notorious theoretical...
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Marx and Engels on Karl Kautsky
. That Vladimir Lenin and his fellow revolutionaries of 1917 considered the Social-Democratic leader Karl Kautsky a pedant and a philistine is well known. Lenin pinpointed the reason...
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Race and the Enlightenment
. I wrote a preamble to this piece relating it to a recent debate over postmodernism and Enlightenment. Since it got a bit overlong, I decided to repost as a standalone entry. But you can still read...
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Materialism, postmodernity, and Enlightenment
Jacobin published an article just over a week ago entitled “Aliens, Antisemitism, and Academia,” written by Landon Frim and Harrison Fluss. “Alt-right conspiracy theorists have...
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Trump and healthcare
. Many left-liberals are currently celebrating the collapse of the Republicans’ proposed healthcare bill, which would have “repealed and replaced” Obamacare. There is good reason to...
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Mihály Biró, 1886-1948
Budapest native Mihály Biró (1886-1948) joined the Social Democratic cause early in life. He spent the period between 1910 and 1914, designing striking and widely noted posters and...
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David Riazanov and the tragic fate of Isaak Rubin
Reportedly, the Russian revolutionary and pioneering Marxologist David Riazanov once insulted Stalin to his face at a party meeting held during the mid-1920s. At the time, the...
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Theories of the young Marx
. Wer die Jugend hat, hat die Zukunft. — Karl Liebknecht . In a civilization that’s grown old, ours is a culture that prizes youth. No longer as presage to a radiant future, but part of a...
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Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad
The real reason leftists are so upset about the Pepsi ad is that it puts all their purely performative, feelgood protest actions on blast. . . Of course, this is hardly the first time an...
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Gary Johnson, Syria, and the apocalypse
. The best we can do right now with respect to Syria and various other world-historical phenomena is predict likely outcomes, since we have no ability to meaningfully alter the course of...
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Moar like Absurdo, amirite?
. Following the missile strike on Shayrat in Western Syria last Thursday, a wave of protests broke out across the United States. These proved something of a mixed bag, as one might expect. In...
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A revolutionary impulse: Russian avant-garde at the MoMA
. Four months back, the Museum of Modern Art opened an exhibit entitled A Revolutionary Impulse: Rise of the Russian Avant-Garde. The show received mostly favorable write-ups in...
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Leon Trotsky, “demon” of the revolution
. Comrades, we love the sun that gives us light, but if the rich and the aggressors were to try to monopolize the sun, we should say: “Let the sun be extinguished, let darkness reign, eternal...
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Don’t bother reading Settlers
. Opening tirade . J. Sakai’s 1983 screed Settlers: The Mythology of the White Proletariat has been making the rounds again lately. Presumably because it offers a readymade explanation...
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Toussaint Louverture, leader of the Haitian revolution
. Haitian revolutionary leader and statesman Toussaint Louverture was born 274 years ago today. You can read a number of books, essays, and articles by clicking on the links below. CLR...
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Society, totality, and history
. Dialectics elude straightforward definition. No doubt it is easier to say what dialectics is not, rather than to say what it is. Against Ferdinand Lassalle, Marx remarked in a letter to...
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Marxism and historical predictions
. Because Marxism addresses itself principally to history, its adherents often traffic in historical predictions. This was true of Marx and Engels no less than their followers, and...
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“Last illusions”: The Labour Party and the Left
Efraim Carlebach Platypus Review № 97, June 2017 . . In every era the attempt must be made anew to wrest tradition away from a conformism that is about to overpower it… even the dead will not...
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