WeAreMany.org: Recently posted audio

Coronavirus, Capitalism, and Class Struggle Dennis Kosuth David McNally Sherry Baron Jessica Hansen-Weaver Sean Petty Healthcare Seemingly overnight, the world as we know it has been fundamentally transformed into an unrecognizable, dystopian nightmare. The coronavirus has brought to the surface an underlying, insoluble and system-wide economic crisis, not in the form we expected, and even more terrifying than we could have imagined. read more

Coronavirus, Capitalism, and Class Struggle Dennis Kosuth David McNally Sherry Baron Jessica Hansen-Weaver Sean Petty Healthcare Seemingly overnight, the world as we know it has been fundamentally transformed into an unrecognizable, dystopian nightmare. The coronavirus has brought to the surface an underlying, insoluble and system-wide economic crisis, not in the form we expected, and even more terrifying than we could have imagined. read more

Queering Social Reproduction Kate Doyle Griffiths Aaron Jaffe Barms Armstrong Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time LGBT Social feminism has been revitalised in recent years by a revived interest in ‘social reproduction', which an increasing number of Marxist theorists have used both to explain changes continuing to take place in our era of capitalism, and strategise effective responses led by worker action. read more

The Revolutionary Left and Broad Parties Aaron Amaral Aldo Sauda Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time International The revolutionary left has participated in broad parties in many parts of the world in an attempt to build an alternative to capitalist and social democratic parties that have adopted neoliberalism. This panel will look at examples of such efforts in Quebec, Greece and Brazil but also refer to other efforts throughout the world. read more

Leninism, Social Democracy, and the State Juan Ferre Stephen Maher Jordan House Wladek Flakin Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Socialism & Marxism Socialists and elections: what way forward for the US left? - Juan Ferre, Left Voice 100 Years After the German Revolution: Luxemburg, Kautsky and Lenin - Wladek Flakin, Left Voice Toward a constructive antagonism: trade unions, social movements, political parties, and transforming the state - Stephen Maher and Jordan House

The Role of Socialists in Building the Labor Movement and the Labor Movement in Building Socialism Zyad Hammad Jia Lee Sarah Dowd Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Labor & Unions This panel discussion will focus on current and prospective organizing efforts in several key NYC industries: education, healthcare, and telecommunications. read more

The Menace of the Workers Self-Organization and Recomposition in the US, Mexico, and South Africa Today Immanuel Ness Patrick Gun Cuninghame Robert Ovetz Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Economics Class struggle is slowly back on the agenda around the world. In the US, wildcat teachers strikes, worker resistance to the government shutdown, strike threats, and everyday forms of resistance are widely reported but little explored. With unions in a tailspin and social movements harnessed to advocacy and electoral politics, class struggle is coming back into focus. read more

Case Studies in the Origins of Capitalism Charles Post Xavier LaFance Nicole Leach Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Socialism & Marxism As Marxist economist Anwar Shaikh puts it, ‘capitalism's sheath mutates constantly, but its core remains the same'. To understand the distinct core logic of capitalism is crucial to grasp the political terrain on which socialists are struggling today. read more

What's at Stake in the Fight for Abortion Access Jenny Brown Lillian Cicerchia Kate Castle Phoebe Abramowitz Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Women Abortion access is critical to bodily autonomy and women's liberation, and that access has been chipped away at since Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973. Since 2010 alone, over 400 new restrictions on abortions have been passed across the country, and 87% of US counties lack abortion providers. read more

New Ways of Thinking Campbell Jones Willie Johnson AK Thompson Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Socialism & Marxism Rethinking Economic Planning —Campbell Jones A Radical New Approach to the Socialist Study Group —Willie Johnson Marxist Responses to Christianity Today —AK Thompson

Abundant Futures for Whom Possibilities for (and Despite) a Scarred Earth Kate Aronoff Alyssa Battistoni Daniel Aldana Cohen Jesse Goldstein Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Environment The implications of Green New Deal politics for left organizing: Socialist feminist perspectives bring important insights to our understanding of what abundance means and what kinds of work, done by who, it requires —Alyssa Battistoni read more

Queering Social Reproduction Kate Doyle Griffiths Aaron Jaffe Barms Armstrong Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time LGBT Social feminism has been revitalised in recent years by a revived interest in ‘social reproduction’, which an increasing number of Marxist theorists have used both to explain changes continuing to take place in our era of capitalism, and strategise effective responses led by worker action. read more

The Revolutionary Left and Broad Parties Aaron Amaral Aldo Sauda Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time International The revolutionary left has participated in broad parties in many parts of the world in an attempt to build an alternative to capitalist and social democratic parties that have adopted neoliberalism. This panel will look at examples of such efforts in Quebec, Greece and Brazil but also refer to other efforts throughout the world. read more

Leninism, Social Democracy, and the State Juan Ferre Stephen Maher Jordan House Wladek Flakin Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Socialism & Marxism Socialists and elections: what way forward for the US left? - Juan Ferre, Left Voice 100 Years After the German Revolution: Luxemburg, Kautsky and Lenin - Wladek Flakin, Left Voice Toward a constructive antagonism: trade unions, social movements, political parties, and transforming the state - Stephen Maher and Jordan House

The Role of Socialists in Building the Labor Movement and the Labor Movement in Building Socialism Zyad Hammad Jia Lee Sarah Dowd Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Labor & Unions This panel discussion will focus on current and prospective organizing efforts in several key NYC industries: education, healthcare, and telecommunications. read more

The Menace of the Workers Self-Organization and Recomposition in the US, Mexico, and South Africa Today Immanuel Ness Patrick Gun Cuninghame Robert Ovetz Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Economics Class struggle is slowly back on the agenda around the world. In the US, wildcat teachers strikes, worker resistance to the government shutdown, strike threats, and everyday forms of resistance are widely reported but little explored. With unions in a tailspin and social movements harnessed to advocacy and electoral politics, class struggle is coming back into focus. read more

Case Studies in the Origins of Capitalism Charles Post Xavier LaFance Nicole Leach Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Socialism & Marxism As Marxist economist Anwar Shaikh puts it, ‘capitalism's sheath mutates constantly, but its core remains the same’. To understand the distinct core logic of capitalism is crucial to grasp the political terrain on which socialists are struggling today. read more

What's at Stake in the Fight for Abortion Access Jenny Brown Lillian Cicerchia Kate Castle Phoebe Abramowitz Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Women Abortion access is critical to bodily autonomy and women's liberation, and that access has been chipped away at since Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973. Since 2010 alone, over 400 new restrictions on abortions have been passed across the country, and 87% of US counties lack abortion providers. read more

New Ways of Thinking Campbell Jones Willie Johnson AK Thompson Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Socialism & Marxism Rethinking Economic Planning —Campbell Jones A Radical New Approach to the Socialist Study Group —Willie Johnson Marxist Responses to Christianity Today —AK Thompson

Abundant Futures for Whom Possibilities for (and Despite) a Scarred Earth Kate Aronoff Alyssa Battistoni Daniel Aldana Cohen Jesse Goldstein Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Environment The implications of Green New Deal politics for left organizing: Socialist feminist perspectives bring important insights to our understanding of what abundance means and what kinds of work, done by who, it requires —Alyssa Battistoni read more

Aesthetics of Resistance/Defense Jason Loebs Alan Ruiz Park McArthur Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Art & Culture Leftists have long lamented the depoliticization of art in our so-called “post-critical” era. However, Trump’s election has renewed attention to the complicity of the arts with the legitimating discourses and infrastructures of neoliberal class rule, sparking protests at museums and galleries. How have artists responded to this repoliticized context within their work? read more

Imperialism and the Nation-State Michael Bray Walter Daum Chris Gilligan Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time War & Antiwar Having No Country and Constituting the Nation: Towards the Coherence of Popular Politics —Michael Bray Imperialism Today: Super-Exploitation and Marxist Theory —Walter Daum Critique of the strand of the Left that argue in favor of strengthening state sovereignty, in the face of neoliberalism and/or globalization —Chris Gilligan

Socialism and the International Fight for Reparations Edna Bonhomme Bianca Cunningham Justin Charles Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Racism & Civil Rights

Revisiting Marxist Economics Fred Moseley Rebecca Carson Jared Sacks Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Economics Unequal Turnover Times: Another Cause of Deviations of Prices of Production from Values —Fred Moseley Using the sphere of reproduction to rethink Marx's category of surplus-value —Jared Sacks Returning to Suzanne de Brunhoff’s Marxist monetary theory, to conceptualize the relationship between production and social reproduction —Rebecca Carson

America's Opioid Epidemic Profiting from Pain Nikki Blazek Helen Redmond Jacob Clary Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Healthcare In the United States, 145 people die every day from opioid overdose. Drug overdose is the #1 cause of preventable death among people younger than 55 and average life expectancy has fallen for the last three years due to diseases of despair--alcoholism, drug addiction, and suicide--in the longest sustained decline since World War I. read more

The Struggle to Abolish Private Health Insurance and Establish Medicare for All Natalie Shure Adam Gaffney Dustin Guastella Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Healthcare The demand for Medicare for All has captured the political limelight. Since 2016 no other transformative demand has garnered nearly the same amount of attention and enthusiasm from American workers, nor the same amount of scrutiny and criticism from the business press, establishment politicos and the ire of the business community. read more

Institutions and Left Strategy Michael Hirsch Shannon Walsh Steve Lyons Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Socialism & Marxism In the past 50 years, the right has outgamed the left, engineering a broad-scale takeover of media and public institutions. To rebuild left power, we need institutions that represent our interests, but what should our institutions look like? This panel considers the challenge of building institutional power for the left, proposing new tactics, strategies, and forms of organization. read more

Abolish Silicon Valley Technology and Working-Class Recomposition Magally Miranda J. S. Chen Sarah Mason Jason Prado Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Economics Moderated by Wendy Liu. Sponsored by Notes from Below.

Political and Social Crisis in Germany and Beyond A Discussion of Oliver Nachtwey's "Germany's Hidden Crisis" Oliver Nachtwey Ajay Singh Chaudhary Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time International What are the origins and causes of the current political crisis and the rise of right-wing populism in Germany and around the globe? How has neoliberal policy fueled this breakdown? Oliver Nachtwey and Ajay Singh Chaudhary discuss the collapse of the post-war social order in Germany and beyond. read more

How America Became Capitalist Imperial Expansion and the Conquest of the West Charles Post John Clegg James Parisot Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time U.S. Politics Has America always been capitalist? Today, the US sees itself as the heartland of the international capitalist system, its society and politics intertwined deeply with its economic system. read more

Crises and Hegemonic Transitions From Gramsci's Quaderni to the Contemporary World Economy Lorenzo Fusaro Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Economics Crises and Hegemonic Transitions reworks the concept of hegemony at the international level and analyses its relation to world market crises. read more

China and the US Inter-Imperial Rivalry and Solidarity from Below Au Loong Yu Kevin Lin Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time International The intensifying rivalry between the US and China fills the daily news. The US remains the world’s predominant political and economic power, but it now views China’s growing economic influence as a potential geopolitical challenger, leading it adopt Barack Obama’s Pivot to Asia and Donald Trump’s trade war and threats of a new Cold War. read more

Energy for the People The Green New Deal and the Technical/Political Potentials of Grid Transformation Ashley Dawson Irene Shen Josh Karpoff Lia Soorenian Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Environment The US electric grid is often described as “the largest machine in the world.” Under a Green New Deal, how could this machine be brought under public ownership and social control - and rapidly re-engineered to eliminate carbon emissions? read more

The People’s Republic of Walmart How the World’s Biggest Corporations are Laying the Foundation for Socialism Michal Rozworski Leigh Phillips Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Economics Since the demise of the USSR, the mantle of the largest planned economies in the world has been taken up by the likes of Walmart, Amazon and other multinational corporations. For the left and the right, major multinational companies are held up as the ultimate expressions of free-market capitalism. read more

Forging New Radical Traditions in Europe Kate Seidel Daniel Finn Kathleen Brown Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time International Waiting for the Post-post-Soviet: Old and New Challenges to Building a Left in Russia Today - Kate Seidel Ireland’s Radical Tradition? The IRA and Left Politics in Modern Ireland - Daniel Finn After Aufstehen: Prospects for the German Left - Kathleen Brown

Critical Perspectives on the Venezuelan Crisis Gabriel Hetland George Ciccariello-Maher Andreina Torres Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time International As the political, economic, and humanitarian crises in Venezuela continue to unfold amid a protracted power struggle between the Maduro regime and the Juan Guaidó-led opposition, how do we contextualize the current moment and what possibly lies ahead? Sponsored by the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA).

Women's Oppression and Care Work Marta Baradic Edna Bonhomme Anamarija Šiša Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Women The relation between political and economic crises and mass female labour migration through history —Marta Baradic On the international women's movement in Germany —Edna Bonhomme Providing a Marxist-feminist theoretical framework for the understanding of dating practices —Anamarija Šiša

Critical Perspectives on Law from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-First Century Camila Vergara Sam Menefee-Libey Rob Hunter Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Socialism & Marxism Law and capitalism are co-constitutive. Commodities, property, and the wage relation are all legally constructed. The relations and conditions of production are also elaborated through law, as Marx described in Chapter 10 of Capital. The critique of capitalism and the articulation of socialism are both improved by recognizing that law is a social relation. read more

The Question That Never Goes Away Imperialism, Revolution, and the Agrarian Question in East Asia Tiffany Yang Harlan Chambers Benjamin Kindler Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time International How China's Communist Party approached taxation, particularly grain extraction, from the late 1930s-early 1940s —Tiffany Yang The role of cinema in colonialism-induced ecological change during Japanese rule in Taiwan, 1889-1905 —Harlan Chambers The Chinese Communist Party under Mao Zedong, and the challenge of collective labour through the figure of the "small producer" —Benjamin Kindler

Anti-Communism and "Taliban Governance" in Pakistan Afghanistan Zenab Ahmed Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time International

Queer and Trans (Counter)Cultural Marxism Jordy Cummings Jules Joanne Gleeson Omnia Sol Anja Weiser Flower Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time LGBT This panel brings together Red Wedge, the only English language Marxist journal with a mission of engaging cultural production as a whole, and the Leftovers communist discussion group. Approaching its eighth anniversary, Red Wedge Magazine makes it a point, as goes our slogan, to “rekindle the revolutionary imagination”, towards what we refer to as a Popular Avant-Garde. read more

What Would Happen If Bernie Won? Strategic Opportunities and Challenges for Social Democracy Today Meagan Day Nantina Vgontzas Kate Doyle Griffiths Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time U.S. Politics The idea of social democracy is regaining popularity in the capitalist core, finding mass expression in two of its most liberalized economies through the campaigns of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn. In the US, this electoral insurgency has been matched by an even more unexpected growth of the socialist movement. This fledgling Left is faced with enormous opportunities and challenges. read more

Opioids, Unions, and the Socialist Project Interrogating Connections, Strategizing Activism Honoria Guarino Peter Ikeler Samuel Friedman Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Labor & Unions In 2017, opioid overdoses claimed 49,068 lives in the US. This epidemic now surpasses the mortality of the HIV/AIDS crisis at its peak, annual deaths by car accident, suicide, gun violence or chronic kidney disease. Death by opioid also accounts for two thirds of all US overdose deaths, which totaled 72,000 in 2017. read more

Labor and the Fight for Single Payer Healthcare Sean Petty Laura Gabby Jeff Mikkelson Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Healthcare

Academic Workers Worker-Student Solidarity Amelia Horgan Edward Remus Sara Swerdlyk Historical Materialism 2019 (NY): Socialism in Our Time Labor & Unions New forms of disciplining at work, and new disciplinary forms of work in the academy, are made invisible by the inability to understand academic work as a form of work. —Amelia Horgan One episode in the failure of the New Left to leave a political party for socialism behind —Edward Remus read more