Auxiliary Statements

DISCORD: https://discord.gg/Ym8Bwmaz LINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/AuxiliaryStatementsPodcast This week Jack and Dan cover the first half of Anderson’s classic book on the transition to feudalism. They cover the rise of the slave mode of production in Antiquity from its initial emergence as a solution to class struggle in Greece to its peak during thee Roman Empire. Whilst this mode of production allowed the ancient states to reach stunning cultural heights it was also wracked with internal contradictions that would be its undoing. The eventual crisis was one of an under supply of slaves and whilst the eventual demise of Western Roman Empire was a protracted affair, when the invaders came, their fate was sealed by weaknesses stemming from the mode of production. According to Anderson a new synthesis developed over the next several centuries, a synthesis of two political economies in crisis and decay. It was the melding of Roman and Germanic ways of life that gave rise to the feudal mode of production. Reading - Part 1 - ''Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism'' (1974) by Perry Anderson

Alright, we're finally drawing some conclusions about the whole 'MILITANCY' thing. Universal conscription sounds scary...but what if it wasn't? Reading: Repression Breeds Resistance: The Black Liberation Army and the Radical Legacy of the Black Panther Party by Akinyele Umoja from "Setting Sights" (Scott Crow) Rittenhouse and white backlash by Daniel Lazare https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1373/rittenhouse-and-white-backlash/ Our gun rights too by Paul Demarty https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1374/our-gun-rights-too/

DISCORD: https://discord.gg/bJtAEbFS Is there even still a working class to hang our hopes and dreams on? What is revolutionary agency? Who has it? Is tea even good? All these questions answered today AND MORE as we dive back into longtime friend of the show Mike Davis. Plus, a special listener comment! Reading: Old Gods. New Enigmas (2018) by Mike Davis

Today the fellas have a gander at some Irish history and open up a wider discussion on revolutionary agency, marxism & nationalism and the nature of the Irish working class. Reading: Rethinking national marxism: James Connolly and ‘Celtic Communism’ (2003) by David Lloyd

Its the final instalment of the Revolutionary Strategy reading series! Jack and Dan finish the book and use Mike Macnair’s 14 point outline of his strategic outlook as a frame for their discussion. Drawing on the contents of the book as a whole, and particularly the final three chapters, the lads outline the contents of the Kautskyism Plus strategy presented by Macnair. Macnair is broadly in alignment with Kautsky when it comes to his advocacy of a strategy of patience. Building a workers party and a broader workers movement is a process that cannot be rushed and that requires gradual and progressive work by committed activists. Where Macnair diverges from the ‘pope’ of Marxism is over two questions: those of the state and internationalism. For Macnair, second international Marxism was a project far to committed to work within the bourgeois state rather than opposing it. Likewise it was far to centred on the national rather than the international fight for working class power. Marxism should be substantially internationalist. It was these two failings that lead to the catastrophe of 1914. The aim of Marxist strategy is to set the conditions necessary for the working class to challenge for state power. The workers party must be a party of opposition. Not a loyal opposition but a disloyal one. A party prepared not to take over the running of the state but to smash it and build anew in its own image.

Alright FINE we'll stop talking about Brenner and Meiksins-Wood for a minute, but ONLY A MINUTE. Today our fine chunky chaps talk world systems theory in an effort to broaden their horizons and understand how class operates on a systemic level. Or something like that. Reading: The Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis (1974) by Immanuel Wallerstein and THE CRITIQUE OF WORLD-SYSTEM THEORY: CLASS RELATIONS OR DIVISION OF LABOR (1984) by Albert Bergesen

On this weeks show Jack and Dan read two essays written by C. L. R. James. James analyses the rise and historic significance of Nazi fascism from a Marxist perspective. He makes the case for seeing Nazism, not as a unique political and economic system in contrast to a broader European political economy, but instead reads it as an outgrowth and extension of broader capitalist society. German fascism is presented as a reaction to the crisis of capitalism, a response of the capitalist class to the threat posed by the workers movement. Hitler is presented as being enabled by the German bourgeoisie, and the appeasement of the western not a product of cowardice but a response of tacit acquiescence to the new regime in Berlin. The lads use James’ analysis to inform their ongoing considerations on revolutionary defeatism and the stratigraphic questions that result from the realities of capitalist wars. Was there a revolutionary moment that coincided with WW2 or was the necessity to defeat fascism the sole imperative that precluded the possibility of a proletarian class independent response. Reading: Capitalist Society and the War (1940) and The Lesson of Germany (1945) by C,L,R,James. https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/works/1940/07/capitalism-war.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/james-clr/works/1945/05/lesson-germany.htm

This week we decide once and for all just what the left is and who we should be excluding!! Just kidding, but we do talk the problem of left unity. You've got to draw a line somewhere. Also up for discussion is the question of how to relate to our nation's various imperial wars and the international nature of the working class. Woo hoo! Reading: Revolutionary Strategy: Marxism and the challenge of left unity by Mike Macnair (2008) archive.cpgb.org.uk/assets/files/re…trategy%202.pdf

Whilst waiting for their guests to arrive Jack and Dan sit down for a chat about their podcasting journey so far. One year in, have they learnt anything. The lads talk Corbyn and Sanders and tease out the extent of their ongoing relationship with the radical Social Democratic politics of the kindly grandads of the parliamentary anglophone left. Jack and Dan talk about the somewhat disparate topics discussed on the podcast so far and work on putting the pieces of the puzzle together. They talk: theories of history and the transition to capitalism; fundamental principles for a social and economic transition to communism; and, of cause, appropriate political strategies for the task at hand. The lads also endeavour to identify the podcasts canon, what is the Auxiliary Statements party line? Upon what points of theoretical minutia is this two man sect founded? The hope being to challenge that canon in future episodes.

Well folks with strikes in the air in the United States your shimmering podcast hosts dive into Rosa Luxemburg's classic study of 1905 Russia and the mass strike as a strategy for revolution. McNair calls Luxemburg part of the left tradition, but Dan and Jack separate the wheat from the chaff and figure out just what it is about Luxemburg that makes her part of the 'left' tendency, Reading: The Mass Strike by Rosa Luxemburg (1906)