Platypus | Marxist reading group NYC 2008

"It is with [the] problem of agency in mind that I have been studying the intellectuals. . . . [I]f we try to be realistic in our utopianism — and that is not fruitless contradiction — a writer on the Left today must begin there. For that is what we are, that is where we stand." (Mills 1960)

· C. Wright Mills, "Letter to the New Left" (1960) [PDF]

· Mills, "The Politics of Responsibility" (1960)
[in Carl Oglesby, ed., New Left Reader (1969), 23-31]
[includes excerpts from "Letter to the New Left" (1960) [PDF] ]

Carl Oglesby, "Introduction: The Idea of the New Left" (1969)
[in Oglesby, ed., New Left Reader, 1-20]

Session 3: June 15, 2008

The question of "revolutionary leadership"

"The historical crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of revolutionary leadership." (Leon Trotsky 1938)

· Cliff Slaughter, "What is Revolutionary Leadership?" (1960)

Rosa Luxemburg, The Junius Pamphlet, or, The Crisis of German Social Democracy Part I (1915/16)

Session 4: June 29, 2008

The absence of the Left

"However difficult the task of grasping and confronting global capital might be, it is crucially important that a global internationalism be recovered and reformulated. . . . None of the massive demonstrations against the war featured oppositional progressive Iraqis who could provide a more nuanced and critical perspective on the Middle East, a telling political failure on the part of the Left." (Postone 2006)

"We have to note, with regret, that the Iraqi democratic forces have not received, in their difficult struggle, effective solidarity and support from international forces of the Left." (Iraqi CP 2006)

· Moishe Postone, "History and Helplessness: Mass Mobilization and Contemporary Forms of Anticapitalism" (2006)

Fred Halliday, "Who is Responsible? [interview with Danny Postel in Chicago]" (2005)

Iraqi Communist Party, Letter to Fraternal and Friendly Parties About the Situation in Iraq and the Position of the Iraqi Communist Party (Jan. 2006)

Session 5: July 13, 2008

Why Marx?

"The most important Marxian political manifesto remains to be written." (Nicolaus 1968)

· Martin Nicolaus, "The Unknown Marx" (1968)
[also in Carl Oglesby, ed., The New Left Reader (1969), 84-110]

Moishe Postone, "Rethinking Marx (in a post-Marxist world)" (1995)

[supplemental reading:]
André Gorz, from Strategy for Labor (1964)
[in Oglesby, ed., New Left Reader, 41-56]

Session 6: July 27, 2008

Marxism as theory and practice

"In socialism, freedom is to become a reality. But because the present system is called 'free' and considered liberal, it is not terribly clear what this might mean. . . . Not only [the Little Man's] lack of freedom but that of [his betters] as well spells his doom. His interest lies in the Marxist clarification of the concept of freedom. . . .
The socialist order of society is not prevented by world history; it is historically possible. But it will not be realized by a logic that is immanent to history but by men trained in theory and determined to make things better. Otherwise, it will not be realized at all." (Horkheimer 1926-31)

· Max Horkheimer, selections from Dämmerung (Notes 1926-31)

· Theodor W. Adorno, part X. "Imaginative excesses" from "Messages in a Bottle" (orphaned from Minima Moralia 1944-47)

Liza Featherstone, Doug Henwood, and Christian Parenti, " 'Action Will Be Taken': Left Anti-Intellectualism and its Discontents" (2002)

Session 7: August 10, 2008

For a return to Marx

· Georg Lukács, "The Phenomenon of Reification" (Part I of "Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat," 1923) [PDF]
[in History and Class Consciousness, 83-110]

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