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Image Credit: Karl Marx statue (Jörg Schubert CC BY 2.0)

An anthropology of Marxism

Beyond its analytical value, Robinson’s account holds great potential as a tool of political praxis. For what Anthropology confronts is the question of how exactly are we to make sense of the cultural and political significance of Europe’s medieval period in our current global moment?

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Follow the leaders, Berlin, 2011. Art and photo by Isaac CordalFollow the leaders, Berlin, 2011. Art and photo by Isaac Cordal

The planet is on fucking fire

Nye promptly did, with what Oliver admiringly called ” an entirely appropriate amount of profanity.” “By the end of this century, if emissions keep rising, the average temperature on Earth could go up another four to eight degrees,” said Nye, growing agitated. “What I’m saying is the planet is on fucking fire.”

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Boots Riley’s masterpiece of socialist cinema — Sorry to Bother You — may be the most self-consciously marxist film ever made. It is an exhortation to rebel, but to do so with our eyes open, with ‘sober senses,’ so we don’t replicate uncritically the logics that we aspire to contest.

Could this be the most Marxist film ever made?

Can a film be true? More to the point, can a film about capitalism avoid being recuperated by the system as just another commodity to make money for the culture-industry? Predictably, Riley sides with Marx, who said: “The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but […]

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Police State

Note from USA: The A to Z of the American Police State

What characterizes American government today is not so much dysfunctional politics as it is ruthlessly contrived governance carried out behind the entertaining, distracting and disingenuous curtain of political theatre. And what political theatre it is, diabolically Shakespearean at times, full of sound and fury, yet in the end, signifying nothing.

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Capitalist Democratic State

Seven theses on the Capitalist Democratic State

What is the capitalist democratic state and how should it be confronted? This question has bedevilled the left for generations. On the one hand, a social democratic conception of the state as a neutral institution that needs to be occupied and captured by bureaucrats with the right ideas has lead to experiments in socialist governance […]

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neoliberalism fascism

Neoliberal fascism

Undoubtedly we live in the age of neoliberalism. There might also be a link between Neoliberalism and fascism. If one agrees with the rather enticing idea that Hayek’s ideology pamphlet The Road to Serfdom is the ur-texts of neoliberalism, then neoliberalism was indeed invented during the dying days of German Nazism and Italian fascism.

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