Ian James - The Intruded

This all changed in the following decade when Nancy encountered the influences that would shape the rest of his career. In 1961 he was introduced to Hegel by the philosopher and theologian Georges Morel, and the following year wrote his master’s dissertation on religion in Hegel under the supervision of Paul Ricœur. Although, by his own account, Nancy was no longer personally religious, he nevertheless continued in these years to participate in activist Christian circles as well socialist and trade union groups. During this time he also discovered Heidegger, and was influenced by the philosopher of science Georges Canguilhem who taught him at the Sorbonne. In 1967 he met Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, another deeply engaged reader of Heidegger with whom he would participate in the events of May ’68, and who as a colleague at Strasbourg became a long-standing friend and philosophical collaborator. The sixties bear witness to the eclecticism of Nancy’s intellectual formation, one in which the influences of his religious upbringing and milieu, his political activism and philosophical engagements were so deeply entangled as to be inseparable. In this environment Heidegger’s destruction of metaphysics could align with a profound disaffection with the political perspectives of the period and fuel non-conformist or non-communist Marxist activism and even insurrection.

https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/the-intruded

Robert W. McChesney - Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times

First published to great acclaim in 2000, Rich Media, Poor Democracy is Robert W. McChesney’s magnum opus. Called a “rich, penetrating study” by Noam Chomsky, the book is a meticulously researched exposition of how U.S. media and communication empires are threatening effective democratic governance. What happens when a few conglomerates dominate all major aspects of mass media, from newspapers and magazines to radio and broadcast television? Since the publication of this prescient work, which won Harvard’s Goldsmith Book Prize and the Kappa Tau Alpha Research Award, the concentration of media power and the resultant “hypercommercialization of culture” has only intensified.

McChesney lays out his vision for what a truly democratic society might look like, offering compelling suggestions for how the media can be reformed as part of a broader program of democratic renewal. Rich Media, Poor Democracy remains as vital and insightful as ever and continues to serve as an important resource for researchers, students, and anyone who has a stake in the transformation of our digital commons. This new edition includes a major new preface by McChesney, where he offers both a history of the transformation in media since the book first appeared; a sweeping account of the organized efforts to reform the media system; and the ongoing threats to our democracy as journalism has continued its sharp decline.

Дмитрий Поляков - Анархизм, постанархизм и «беньяминизация» насилия

Статья посвящена проблеме политического насилия, рассмотренной через призму современной анархистской мысли и, в частности, через осмысление насилия в теории постанархизма. Целью же является попытка зафиксировать интенсификацию конфликтного дискурса в современной радикальной политической философии, а также специфическую постанархистскую артикуляцию такого типа насилия, который подразумевал бы выход за пределы логики стандартного столкновения противоборствующих политических сил. Такая артикуляция в работах теоретика постанархизма С. Ньюмана сопровождается рецепцией концептуального аппарата немецкого мыслителя В. Беньямина. Результирующим тезисом можно считать сопряжение усиливающейся политизации жизни с тенденцией мыслить политику и политическое в терминах антагонизма, войны и, в конечном итоге, насилия. Если политическое мыслится таким образом, то можно предположить, что и растущая политизация практически всех сторон жизни будет сопровождаться (и уже сопровождается) аналогичными импульсами.

https://syg.ma/@riedaktsiia-akrateia/anarkhizm-postanarkhizm-i-bieniaminizatsiia-nasiliia

Over Three Decades Since Reunification, Germany Is Still Fractured

An interview with Steffen Mau

October 3, 1990, saw the reunification of Germany. But more than 30 years later, inequalities are deeper than ever and Easterners are angered at the promises that weren’t realized.

Between the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 2019 and the anniversary of German reunification last October, the German-language book market was met with a flood of titles purporting to reexamine the historical relationship between East and West Germany and evaluate Easterners’ status post-reunification.

One of the most noteworthy was Lütten Klein: Leben in der ostdeutschen Transformationsgesellschaft by sociologist Steffen Mau. Drawing on a wide range of sources as well as his own experience growing up in Lütten Klein a model district of the port city of Rostock Mau’s book charts the rise of the German Democratic Republic and the society it nurtured from its founding in the late 1940s to its collapse. It explores the complexities of the relationship between the population and the ruling Socialist Unity Party, identifies the social groups and structures that consolidated over the decades, and explores the rhythms of life in East Germany’s rapidly growing cities.

After sketching out the East German social structure pre-1989, Mau shows how the traumas of reunification collapse of the political system and public sphere, wholesale privatization of the economy, mass unemployment and outmigration impacted different sections of the population. He paints a picture of a region marked by stark “social fractures” between a handful of booming cities and vast rural zones abandoned to decline and depopulation. This frustration among East Germans, compounded by a distrust of elites inherited from the GDR, has ultimately created the conditions in which right-wing populism can flourish.

https://jacobinmag.com/2021/10/german-reunification-east-west-berlin-wall-anniversary

Charles Bettelheim, Neill G. Burton - China since Mao

There has been a veritable leap backward." With these words Charles Bettelheim, former chairman of the Franco-Chinese Friendship Association and Director of Studies at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, sums up his analysis of the program and actions of the present leaders of the Chinese Communist Party. His analysis of the events in China since the death of Mao Tse-tung in September 1976 leads him to conclude that the present leadership, having proclaimed the end of the Cultural Revolution, has set China on the revisionist road. Bettelheim's article is in response to a letter, also included in this volume, from Neil G. Burton to the editors of Monthly Review. Burton, a Canadian living and working in China, defends the policies of the Chinese Communist Party leaders as producing the essential conditions under which the masses can continue to educate and liberate themselves. Thus the issue is joined, in what undoubtedly will be a continuing discussion of the course of the Chinese revolution.

Adam Mayer - Global Lenin

Adam Mayer celebrates a new volume on the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Lenin150 (Samizdat) has a sheer diversity that takes one’s breath away. Authors young and old, queer and old-style Marxist-Leninist, women and men write about Lenin’s work, history and legacy in an anthology that also includes many African and Black voices.  Mayer argues that this rich collection proves that Leninism is alive and well.

https://roape.net/2021/09/30/global-lenin/

Fred Halliday - Arabia without Sultans

Fred Halliday writes: 'The Arab Middle East is probably the most misunderstood of all regions; the one with the longest history of contact with the west; yet it is probably the one least understood. Part of the misunderstanding is due to the romantic mythology that has long appeared to shroud the deserts of the peninsula. Where old myths have broken down, new ones have absorbed them or taken their place. Now the Sheikh of Arabia has stepped down from his camel. Instead, through the delusive lens of the 'energy crisis' he is seen to be riding a Cadillac and squeezing the powerless Western consumer of oil.' First published in the 1970s, Arabia Without Sultans retains its validity for the present as it analyses the Arabian peninsula and Iran within the global context of western post-colonial strategy and the political economy of oil. Halliday offers a thorough study of the history, the politi and the economi of this region in an ambitious, encompassing and entertaining manner. This classic work remains indispensable for students, academi, and all those who wish to have a greater understanding of the Arabian peninsula. 'A well-documented work, written by an author who knows the language of the area.' Maxime Rodinson 'Halliday provides an unusual view-point and a well-documented description of the history of these states.' Middle East International 'Anyone interested in this area will want to read this.' International Affairs 'A most valuable account of the developments which have taken place in the Arab Gulf over the last hundred years.' Tariq Ali

Violence, Slavery and Freedom between Hegel and Fanon. Wits University Press, 2020.

Reviewed by Daniel Badenhorst

Violence, Slavery and Freedom between Hegel and Fanon is one of the newest additions to the ever-expanding secondary literature on Fanon’s Hegelschriften. Bringing together the works of six different authors, in addition to an interpretative introduction by Robert Bernasconi, this book provides the reader with a kaleidoscopic view of the Fanon-Hegel relation. With each chapter their relation appears in a new hue and previously unnoticed elements come to the fore. As a result, whether it be in abandoning old interpretive assumptions (as in Philippe Van Haute’s essay) or in taking paths less well trodden (as in Beata Stawarska or Ulrike Kistner’s contributions) The volume serves to enlighten and expand our way of thinking. For this, the authors and editors deserve credit and for this alone, anyone interested in Fanon’s Hegelschriften is encouraged to do themselves the favour of availing themselves of this fine collection.

https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/19683_violence-slavery-and-freedom-between-hegel-and-fanon-by-ulrike-kistner-and-philippe-van-haute-eds-reviewed-by-daniel-badenhorst/

Carlos M. Vilas - The Sandinista Revolution: National Liberation and Social Transformation in Central America

Looks at Nicaragua's economic system before the revolution, describes the social and economic changes implemented by the Sandinista government, and examines education and social programs under the new regime

Paul M. Sweezy - The theory of capitalist development

Since its first publication in 1942, this book has become the classic analytical study of Marxist economics. Written by an economist who was a master of modern academic theory as well as Marxist literature, it has been recognized as the ideal textbook in its subject. Comprehensive, lucid, authoritative, it has not been challenged or even approached by any later study.

Slavoj Zizek - The vagaries of the superego

To understand properly Freud’s Crowd Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, one should locate it in the context of his reactions to the Great War. Today, one tends to forget the traumatic impact of this war which shattered the very foundations of European trust in progress and gave birth to phenomena like Communism and Fascism. Even Freud, whose theory of the unconscious libidinal processes seemed to prepare him well for the explosion of ‘irrational’ violence, felt the need to radically reformulate his basic theoretical premises. He dealt with the problem in three steps. First, in his Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920), he introduced the notion of death-drive to account for dreams and acts which generate no pleasure but only pain. Then, in Crowd Psychology (1921), he analyzed the formation of social groups which bring individuals to forsake their ‘rational’ behavior and surrender to self-destructive violence. Hans Kelsen, the leading Austrian legal philosopher, reproached Freud that his theory of crowd-formation cannot account for social formations held together by normative structures, and, in reaction to Kelsen’s critique, Freud wrote The Ego and the Id(1923) where he addresses the question: how does the a-sexual social space distinguish itself from the domain of libidinally-cathected interactions? For Freud, the operator of this a-sexualization is superego.

https://lacaneman.hypotheses.org/2098

John Sanbonmatsu - The Postmodern Prince: Critical Theory, Left Strategy, and the Making of a New Political Subject

A work of political theory with a focus on questions of strategy that examines the politics of the New Left in the 1960s, showing how its expressivism led to political division and also prepared the ground for postmodernism. It shows also how the political economy of academic life in an increasingly commodified society strengthened the basis of postmodernism. Develops a brilliant account of a Marxism that sets itself the task of building a collective political subject capable of challenging capitalism in its moment of global crisis.

Барбара Эренрайх - Тёмные истоки позитивного мышления

Позитивное мышление как современный аналог популярной религии имеет все те же ключевые аспекты. Вместо пасторов и проповедников — мотивационные ораторы, вместо воскресных проповедей — семинары по мотивационному развитию личности, вместо молитвы — аффирмации и визуализации, вместо священных текстов — self-help книги, вместо грехов — негативные мысли, вместо рая — обретение успеха и богатства. Барбара Эренрайх исследует феномен популярности этого явления и находит его протестантские корни и прародителей.

https://syg.ma/@roman-shevchuk/barbara-erienraikh-tiomnyie-istoki-pozitivnogho-myshlieniia

Pablo Iglesias - The Left Needs to Break the Reactionary Stranglehold Over the Spanish State

In Spain, a center-left coalition government faces opposition not just from right-wingers and business leaders but from parts of the judiciary and police. For Pablo Iglesias, it’s time the Left pushed back against right-wing dominance in the state machine.

https://jacobinmag.com/2021/10/pablo-iglesias-spain-far-right-franco-podemos-vox-state