May Day in Los Angeles

Summary— We present reports from Marxist-Humanist participants on the 2013 May Day celebrations— EditorsPDF

Summary: The death of Margaret Thatcher recalled her 11 years as British prime minister. She ushered in a harsher form of capitalism, presided over increases in unemployment, inequality, poverty and homelessness, and heightened the danger of nuclear war – Editors.

Summary: Marilyn Nissim-Sabat and Peter Hudis of the International Marxist-Humanist Organization presented a workshop at the fifth annual international convention of the Platypus Affiliated Society, held at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Speakers from various perspectives were asked to bring their experience of the Left’s recent history to bear on today’s political possibilities and challenges as part of the “Differing Perspectives on the Left” workshop series (81 mins.) — Editors

Summary: Review of Kevin B. Anderson and Russell Rockwell, eds, The Dunayevskaya–Marcuse–Fromm Correspondence, 1954–1978: Dialogues on Hegel, Marx and Critical Theory, Lexington Books, Lanham MD and Plymouth, 2012, 269 pp., £49.95/$80 hb., £21.95/$34.99 pb., 978 0 73916 835 6 hb., 978 0 73916 836 3 pb.  Review was first published in Association of Musical Marxists. Originally written for  Radical Philosophy No.178  (March/April 2013) – Editors

Michel Foucault

Summary:  The concept of specific forms of resistance, rooted in Foucault, has come to the fore in radical thought, replacing earlier concepts of emancipation rooted in abstract universals (Marcuse), but at a tremendous cost. Marx’s emancipatory but concrete dialectic of class and ethnicity goes beyond both of these one-sided perspectives. Originally appeared in Logos: A Journal of Modern Society and Culture 12:1 (Winter 2013)  – Editors

Historic Two Day Strike Paralyzes India. February 21, 2013

Summary: In India, 20-21 February 2013, 100 million workers, represented by 11 trade unions and federations, participated in a 48-hour strike, called to protest the anti-labor policies of the “center-left,” United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. In some sectors of the Indian economy, such as ordinance, petroleum, finance and telecoms, the strike was almost 100% solid. Significantly, for the first time since the Independence of India in 1948, unions affiliated to different political parties came together for the protest, including the Indian National Trade Union Congress, which is affiliated to the Congress Party – the largest party of the UPA Coalition.

From the series Our World, Our Times

In urban and rural Bangladesh, class divisions are stark. Workers are struggling against dangerous conditions, low wages and repressive violence. — Editors

Was the birth of philosophy in Ancient Greece a reflex and projection of the generic forms of capitalist exploitation, such as exchange-value, money and the commodity-form? Did commodity fetishism and reification exist in Antiquity or are they historically specific to capitalism? If the entire history of philosophy is branded with class-exploitation, is the Hegelian dialectic redundant in critical theory? David Black, introducing one of the themes of his forthcoming book, The Philosophical Roots of Anti-Capitalism, evaluates Alfred Sohn-Rethel’s “anti-philosophical” critique of capitalism–Editors (Image: spiritisabone.files.wordpress.com)

(Persian Translation)

Summary: The assassination of leftist leader Chokri Belaid on February 6, apparently by Islamists, has brought into the open the long-simmering conflict that has pitted the ruling Islamist Ennahda Party against leftists, trade unionists, and secularists, who have staged the first general strike in 40 years and the largest street demonstrations since the 2011 revolution  – Editors

(Persian Translation)

Summary: This article was presented as part of a panel entitled “Alternatives to Capitalism: Theoretical, Practical, Visionary” hosted by the International Marxist Humanist Organization and the Department of Sociology at Loyola University Chicago, July 13, 2012 — Editors

Many on the Left fail to see the current economic crisis as a structural crisis of capitalism in which capital is fighting for a redistribution of value from labor to capital as a means of its own survival in the face of the tendential decline in the rate of profit. Without such a recognition, it is very hard to pose the question of a viable alternative to capitalism. Based on a presentation to the July Convention of the International Marxist-Humanist Organization in Chicago – Editors

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(Persian Translation)

Summary: Marx’s holds that the abolition of private property does not necessarily lead to socialism, while he rejects Proudhon’s idea of organizing the distribution of labor. Marx believed that in order to achieve socialism, we must abolish wage labor. Other points of Marx’s, like abstract versus concrete labor, the nature of value, and the split in the category of labor (labor as an activity vs. labor power, the commodity) are also discussed, in the context of a critique of today’s free market advocates. This article is not available in English – Editors

Dark-e Marks az badil-e sarmayeh dari: Barresi-ye asari jadid az Peter Hudis

Summary: This article, “Dark-e Marks az badil-e sarmayeh dari:  Barresi-ye asari jadid az Peter Hudis”  [Marx's Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism:  Examining a New Work by Peter Hudis] discusses Hudis’s Marx’s Concept of the Alternative to Capitalism.  It originally appeared on the Iranian website Critique of Political Economy and can be accessed HERE.

This interview with Peter Hudis by Tibor Rutar was published in Slovenian in Tribuna, January 2013, pp. 28-30.

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Summary: This 30-minute BBC radio program in the series “Women with a Past,” and accompanying web article, uncovers new research on Helen Macfarlane, the first English translator of Marx’s Communist Manifesto. It builds on Helen Macfarlane: A Feminist, Revolutionary Journalist, and Philosopher in Mid-Nineteenth-Century England (2004) by David Black, who is interviewed on the audio program http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-20475989  — Editors