Hugo Raine - Marxism and the Middle Ages

The study of feudal society has been central to Marxist historiography. But what if a foundational theoretical mistake has governed these inquiries for decades? In this article Hugo Raine studies the writings of Jairus Banaji and Perry Anderson on the transition from feudalism to capitalism, and asks whether you can speak of feudalism as a unitary social system, or whether that is a feature unique to capitalism.

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4105-marxism-and-the-middle-ages

Dirk Kohnert - Britain, Brexit and Africa

Examining the likely outcome of Brexit for Africa, Dirk Kohnert exposes the myths of a rosy new dawn for the continent’s relationship with the UK. Behind the ‘altruistic’ Post-Brexit rhetoric of the British government about assisting pro-poor growth in Africa, the fact is that the UK is a major champion of a wide network of notorious tax havens in UK’s overseas territories, crown dependencies, and island economies of its former empire. The prospects do not look good.

http://roape.net/2018/10/31/britain-brexit-and-africa/

Costas Lapavitsas - Socialism starts at home

Michael Calderbank speaks to Marxist economist Costas Lapavitsas ahead of the publication of his provocative new book The Left Case Against the EU

The book is obviously a critique of the EU as it stands. It’s an assessment of where the union is, what it has become, and its likely direction. It is an attempt to say that the left should have nothing to do with defending this set of institutions.

https://www.redpepper.org.uk/costas-lapavitsas-socialism-starts-at-home/

Richard Wolff takes on Jordan B. Peterson

Prof. Wolff responds to Jordan Peterson’s assertions about Marxism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hg3hdAUAPs

Scott Timcke - The Civil War in the American Ruling Class

American politics is at a decisive historical conjuncture, one that resembles Gramsci’s description of a Caesarian response to an organic crisis. The courts, as a lagging indicator, reveal this longstanding catastrophic equilibrium. Following an examination of class struggle ‘from above’, in this paper I trace how digital media instruments are used by different factions within the capitalist ruling class to capture and maintain the commanding heights of the American social structure. Using this hegemony, I argue that one can see the prospect of American Caesarism being institutionally entrenched via judicial appointments at the Supreme Court of the United States and other circuit courts.

https://www.triple-c.at/index.php/tripleC/article/view/970

Иньиго Эррехон, Шанталь Муфф - Нужна храбрость, чтобы возвращать уважение к неуспешным

Есть распространенное среди левых, но, безусловно, ошибочное представление, что, применив «популистский» подход, мы вымостим путь для правых. Я думаю, что мы, наоборот, принесем им большую пользу, если откажемся от любых проявлений коллективного аффекта и уступим им это пространство. Другая серьезная ошибка в том, чтобы уступать им битву за гегемонию в сфере национальной идентификации. Ошибкой было бы давать самым реакционным силам возможность свободно продвигать их собственный взгляд на то, за что борется страна.

http://www.redflora.org/2017/10/blog-post_26.html?m=1

Михаил Трофименков - Красный нуар Голливуда: Пол Боулз

Исчерпывающий справочник «Кто есть кто» красной интеллигенции эпохи Коминтерна вряд ли будет составлен. Но, в любом случае, очевидно, что большинство ярких творцов 1920-1930-х хотя бы временно побывали по меньшей мере попутчиками мировой революции. Это знание, однако же, не мешает в некоторых случаях (так, недавно было установлено, что в компартии состоял Ф. Скотт Фицджеральд) изумляться: как, и он тоже? Имя Пола Боулза стало достоянием массовой культуры на восьмидесятом году жизни великого прозаика благодаря экранизации Бернардо Бертолуччи романа «Под покровом небес» (1990). Миф Боулза декларативно аполитичен: пророк контркультуры, наставник битников, марокканский отшельник, ценитель гашиша, невозмутимо жестокий экзистенциалист, бисексуальный эстет, женатый на еще более эксцентричной писательнице Джейн Ауэр.

https://seance.ru/blog/portrait/red-noir-paul-bowles/

Robert Kuttner - The Crash That Failed

The financial collapse of 2008 “demonstrated the emptiness of the claim that markets could regulate themselves. It should have led to the disgrace of neoliberalism the belief that unregulated markets produce and distribute goods and services more efficiently than regulated ones. Instead, the old order reasserted itself, and with calamitous consequences. Gross economic imbalances of power and wealth persisted. We are still experiencing the reverberations.”

Reveiw of “Crashed: How a Decade of Financial Crises Changed the World” by Adam Tooze

https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/11/22/financial-crash-that-failed/

Jack Johnson - After Win by Brazilian Fascist Jair Bolsonaro, World's Capitalists Salivate Over “New Investment Opportunities”

As Brazilian women, the LGBTQ community, workers, and people of color reacted with horror to the election of fascist Jair Bolsonaro to the presidency on Sunday after a campaign dripping in bigotry and militarism, Western corporate interests and the business press could hardly contain their glee over the victory of the hard-right former paratrooper who has promised to further pry open Brazilian markets to foreign investment, slash corporate taxes, and privatize the nation's public services.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/10/29/after-win-brazilian-fascist-jair-bolsonaro-worlds-capitalists-salivate-over-new

Michele Filippini - Using Gramsci. A New Approach

This is a new approach to one of the greatest political theorists, Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks are one of the most popular Marxist texts available and continue to inspire readers across the world. In Using Gramsci, Michele Filippini proposes a new approach based on the analysis of previously ignored concepts in his works, creating a book which stands apart. Including chapters on ideology, the individual, collective organisms, society, crisis and temporality, Using Gramsci offers a new pattern in Gramscian studies aimed to speak to the broader audience of social sciences scholars. The tools that are provided in this book extend the uses of Gramsci beyond the field of political theory and Marxism, while remaining firmly rooted in his writings. Working from the original Italian texts, Filippini also examines the more traditional areas of Gramsci’s thought, including hegemony, organic intellectuals and civil society.

Slavoj Žižek - To end our global political crisis, the left needs to learn from Donald Trump

"The new leftist project can only come alive if it will match the populist internationalism and organise itself as a global movement. The emerging pact between Sanders, Corbyn, and Varoufakis is a first step in this direction."

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/donald-trump-pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-democrat-pipe-bombs-brett-kavanaugh-global-left-altright-a8606611.html

Steven Hill - Raw Deal: How the "Uber Economy" and Runaway Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers

The US workforce, which has been one of the most productive and wealthiest in the world, is undergoing an alarming transformation. Increasing numbers of workers find themselves on shaky ground, turned into freelancers, temps and contractors. Even many full-time and professional jobs are experiencing this precarious shift. Now a weird yet historic mash-up of Silicon Valley technology and Wall Street greed is thrusting upon us the latest economic fraud: the so-called "sharing economy," with companies like Uber, Airbnb and TaskRabbit allegedly "liberating workers" to become "independent" and "their own CEOs," hiring themselves out for ever-smaller jobs and wages while the companies profit.  But this "share the crumbs" economy is just the tip of a looming iceberg that the middle class is drifting toward. Raw Deal: How the "Uber Economy" and Runaway Capitalism Are Screwing American Workers, by Steven Hill, is an exposé that challenges conventional thinking, and the hype celebrating this new economy, by showing why the vision of the "techno sapien" leaders and their Ayn Rand libertarianism is a dead end.

Mike Davis - The Lesser Evil? The Left, the Democrats and 1984

Following Bernie Sander's unsuccessful campaign for the Presidential nomination in 2016, the Democratic Party has once more become a site of struggle for socialists. Leading up to the November 6th midterms, could the Democratic Party, in fact, be the best vehicle for social change? In this essay, first published over 30 years ago, Mike Davis warns us about the pitfalls of electoralism, and the passive clientelism that tends to replace popular politics under the bureaucratic guidance of the Democratic Party.

https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4109-the-lesser-evil-the-left-the-democrats-and-1984

Louis Althusser - Philosophy as a Revolutionary Weapon

World outlooks are represented in the domain of theory (science + the ‘theoretical’ ideologies which surround science and scientists) by philosophy. Philosophy represents the class struggle in theory. That is why philosophy is a struggle (Kampf said Kant), and basically a political struggle: a class struggle. Everyone is not a philosopher spontaneously, but everyone may become one.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/althusser/1968/philosophy-as-weapon.htm

Rossana Rossanda - The left has lost its electorate

The 5 Star Movement is nothing at all. The Italians want this kind of formless, generic thing, and they like to be told stories. With the Lega, they are seeking an evil form of identity. That’s what Salvini is about. Di Maio doesn’t stand for anything bad, he just doesn’t stand for anything.

https://global.ilmanifesto.it/rossana-rossanda-the-left-has-lost-its-electorate/

Globalisation and Its Alternative: An Interview with Samir Amin

Globalisation and Its Alternative lays out Samir Amin’s assessment of the concept of globalisation as well as his concept of ‘de-linking;’ that is, for the Third World to compel imperialism to accept its conditions and to be able to drive its own policy. Amin’s perspective helps us understand the current crisis of capitalism and imagine a world based on a multi-polar, internationalist people’s agenda, rather than one driven by global capital.

https://www.thetricontinental.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/181029_Political_Notebook_1_EN_Final_Web.pdf

István Mészáros - Marx’s Theory of Alienation

As is well known, Feuerbach, Hegel and English Political Economy exercised the most direct influence on the formation of Marx's theory of alienation. But we are concerned here with much more than simple intellectual influences. The concept of alienation belongs to a vast and complex problematics, with a long history of its own.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/meszaros/works/alien/index.htm

Allie Conti - Student-Loan Debt Is Bringing on Millennial Class War

A new analysis shows the snowball effects of college debt from credit cards to the size of your house. It will come to a head.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8xjpxa/student-loan-debt-is-bringing-on-millennial-class-war