Articles tagged “Anderson; Kevin”

Celebrating the Centenary of Raya Dunayevskaya  (1910-1987)

Video of meeting at Loyola University Chicago featuring presentations by Peter McLaren (UCLA), David Schweickart (Loyola University), Sandra Rein (University of Alberta), Ba Karang (West Africa), Kevin Anderson (University of California, Santa Barbara), and Peter Hudis (Loyola University). We have also posted the written texts or summaries for some of the presentations.

A report from the successfully concluded Founding Conference of the International Marxist-Humanist Organization, Chicago, July 3-4, 2010

The views set out in our Statement of Principles and our commitment to the dialectics of revolution place us in conflict with the dominant philosophical perspectives, even on the Left. Two of these dominant perspectives on the Left are:  (1) the tradition of democracy and civil society that emerged in the 1980s as a rejection of revolution and of Marxism and with which are associated thinkers like Jürgen Habermas; (2) the traditions of autonomous Marxism and postcolonialism, which are associated with thinkers like Antonio Negri and Edward Said.   The first of these trends is influential in the mass democratic movement in Iran today, while the second is influential in the anti-globalization movement. — Editors

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In Marx at the Margins, Kevin Anderson uncovers a variety of extensive but neglected texts by the well-known political economist which cast what we thought we knew about his work in a startlingly different light. Analyzing a variety of Marx’s writings, including journalistic work written for the New York Tribune, Anderson presents us with a Marx quite at odds with our conventional interpretations. Rather than providing us with an account of Marx as an exclusively class-based thinker, Anderson here offers a portrait of Marx for the twenty-first century: a global theorist whose social critique was sensitive to the varieties of human social and historical development, including not just class, but nationalism, race, and ethnicity, as well.

In the Grundrisse (1857-58), Marx sketches a multilinear theory of history. This marks an important turn in his thought. These themes are taken up again and developed further in Capital, Vol. I (1872-75), but as a theorization of contemporary possibilities rather than past history.

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Given the importance of the events in Iran to the worldwide movement for human emancipation, I would like to call attention to the Iranian American translator Frieda Afary’s blog, “ Iranian Progressives in Translation .” In recent weeks, Iranian Progressives in Translation has featured the voices of feminist, gay, youth, and Marxist thinkers and activists. While we have already reprinted some of these translations on our website, I would like urge our readers to visit this website directly. Its statement of purpose reads: “This site is devoted to publishing English translations of statements or articles by progressive Iranian thinkers and activists who may not be widely known internationally but offer important ideas.”

The upheaval in Iran has shaken up Iranian and even regional politics. Not since the Palestinian Intifada of 1987 has the Middle East seen such a massive and persistent grassroots mobilization. At the same time, the Iranian upheaval is also the product of deep divisions inside the nation’s dominant classes.

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The French CGT union’s racist expulsion of African immigrants from its offices reveals deep contradictions inside the labor movement.

On Wednesday, June 24, a terrible event took place in Paris: Hundreds of Africans sans papiers (undocumented immigrants) who had occupied the Bourse de Travail for over a year were evicted and pushed onto the street with their belongings. These workers had taken refuge in the Bourse du Travail, a union-run employment service, because they have no work permits and hope to secure legalization.

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Israel’s invasion and devastation of the Gaza Strip is one more illustration of that nation’s barbaric behavior toward weaker peoples and nations. Far from the small beleaguered land represented in its own propaganda and that of its US supporters, nuclearly-armed Israel’s war machine is unmatched in the region, allowing it to attack its neighbors with impunity.

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Die Schriften Raya Dunayevskayas, einer Schlüsselfigur des marxistischen Humanismus in den USA, skizzieren eine Philosophie der Befreiung, die dem modischen Abgesang auf die Dialektik ebenso entgegensteht wie einem Verharren in reiner Negativität. Gemäß Lenins Diktum, dass ein kluger Idealismus dem klugen Materialismus näher stehe als ein dummer Materialismus, unternimmt Dunayevskaya eine Hegel-Lektüre, die Subjekt, Praxis und Freiheit ins Zentrum rückt. Ebenso entschieden richtet sie Marx’ Philosophie der Revolution nicht nur gegen den östlichen Staatskapitalismus, sondern auch gegen Theoretiker des “Westlichen Marxismus” wie Georg Lukács, Karl Korsch oder Theodor W. Adorno – gestützt auf die Überzeugung, dass keine Philosophie ihren Namen verdient, die nicht die “Stimmen von unten” in sich aufnimmt. Was Dunayevskayas Denken von akademischer Selbstgenügsamkeit abhebt, ist nicht zuletzt diese Orientierung an den Kämpfen ihrer Zeit – von den wilden Streiks in den USA über den ungarischen Aufstand 1956 bis zur neuen Frauenbewegung in den siebziger Jahren.

This year, we celebrate the 125th anniversary of Marx’s 1882 Preface to the COMMUNIST MANIFESTO, co-authored by Engels, in which he espouses an alternate road toward communism for Russia, one based upon agricultural Russia’s village communes, and different from that outlined in CAPITAL, Vol. I for Western Europe.

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