Sidney Powell’s conspiracy theories went too far for Trump’s legal team after her outlandish claims went viral online.
Subjects Archives: Marxism
Crying wolf on election fraud is OK at NYT—if targets are official enemies
President Donald Trump’s categorical refusal to accept what seems like an inevitable and increasingly crushing election loss has many in media rightly worried about the political repercussions of such a move, with some sounding the alarm over a potential coup d’etat in the U.S. (e.g., Salon, 11/11/20; Washington Post, 11/12/20; Guardian, 11/13/20; New Republic, 11/13/20).
‘The Principal Contradiction’ by Torkil Lauesen
One of my frustrations with contemporary Marxist philosophy is the way in which the word ‘dialectical’ is often employed like a magical wand to sanctify various relational phenomena.
Discrimination and bias in economics, and emerging responses
Recently, mainstream economics has been forced to acknowledge some of the explicit and implicit forms of discrimination and bias that are rampant in the discipline, thanks in particular to some brave interventions by some women economists.
No Platform by Evan Smith
Smith’s book demonstrates that the far-right has always played the victim card when it comes to free-speech, writes Houman Barekat.
How do the dead celebrate? The bipartisan culture of death
Like most political formations in the United States, Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) members and supporters represent different tendencies.
The Swedish Herd Immunity myth
After a Spring in which Sweden had one of the worst Covid death rates in Europe, some latched on to their low summer case numbers to argue for a herd immunity approach. But as cases again rise dramatically, Madeleine Johansson challenges the Swedish herd immunity myth.
Standing by a radical Chávez: A conversation with Rafael Uzcátegui
A key figure from the newly-formed Popular Revolutionary Alternative talks about his expectations for the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Eric Hobsbawm’s dialectical materialism in the postwar period 1946-56
Hobsbawm’s thinking was guided by dialectical materialism, which was a scientific outlook based on analysis. It always accounted for unpredictable human agency and, though economic factors played the principal role in the development of history, this study rejects the claim that Hobsbawm was a mechanical determinist.
Births of a Nation, Redux: Surveying Trumpland with Cedric Robinson
What Robinson identified as “the rewhitening of America” a century ago is what we’re seeing play out today.
The commons as the fulcrum for social regeneration
Karl Marx’s 1875 critique of the German Social Democratic Party provides a withering examination of capitalism’s ‘wicked ways’ and a guide to what the commons is and how to bring it about.
Biden will likely be worse than Obama. The left must lead the backlash, or the right will
It looks like a safe bet that Joe Biden will be sworn in on January 20th after successfully campaigning on returning the murderous and oppressive Orwellian US empire back to its pre-Trump “normal”.
Utopian socialism
The third major influence on Marx’s critique of political economy (in addition to and combined with classical economics and Hegel’s philosophy) was utopian socialism.
Quebec, Canada, and the Indigenous Peoples: Toward plurinational alliances around a decolonial outlook?
Until the 1960s, the left in Canada and in Quebec was mainly Canadian and Anglophone.
A restless thinker
In the millions of pages written about Karl Marx, his final years have been somewhat neglected.
The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology
John Bellamy Foster’s brilliant recovery of a century of ecological and socialist thought will inform, enable, and inspire a new generation of reds and greens.
Toward a critique of political economy: Hegel
It is difficult to fully understand the Marxian critique of political economy without some understanding of Hegel. No less an authority than Lenin wrote that “it is impossible completely to understand Marx’s Capital, and especially its first chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel’s Logic.”
Susan Rice, scourge of Africa, may become Secretary of State
Rice has been intimately involved in covering up the deaths of more than six million Congolese, and has cultivated close relations with every U.S.-backed tyrant on the continent.
Reading Marx in Ann Arbor
In the course of an undergraduate education here at the University of Michigan, there are just some things one is bound to encounter at some point or another. The Big House, the Shapiro Undergraduate Library, the block ‘M’; not to mention Zingerman’s, Hatcher Graduate Library and Angell Hall; these are the perennial names, spaces and […]
Silvia Federici: The exploitation of women and the development of capitalism
Federici demonstrates that unpaid labor–especially that of women confined to the domestic sphere and of enslaved workers–is a necessary support for waged labor.
