Cosmopod

Anton and Donald join Mike Macnair for a discussion on law in history and in Marxist thought. They discuss the purpose of law, the different schools of philosophy of law, how Hegel conceived law and the state, and what Marx and Engels took from it, the legal theories of the Soviet theoretician Pashukanis, the role of the constitution in a bourgeois state, what is the role of judges in capitalism and how to organize law in a socialist society. References: Mike Macnair - Law and State as Holes in Marxism A brief and short introduction to philosophy of law is provided by the aptly titled Philosophy of Law: A Very Short Introduction by Raymond Wacks.

Stani Bjegunac lays out the ways a planned economy could contribute to the project of transgender liberation, focusing on the issues of bathrooms and medical transition. Marina reads the article aloud.

This is a narration of the introduction to Mike Macnair's groundbreaking book Revolutionary Strategy. Narration and editing by Lydia Apolinar.   The free market triumphalism of the 1990s is over. Early 21st century capitalism looks like Karl Marx’s description: growing extremes of wealth and poverty, and irrepressible boom-bust cycles. But for the moment, rightwing religious and nationalist nostalgia politics is the main beneficiary of the opposition this has spawned. The political left remains in the shadow of its disastrous failures in the 20th century. The centre-left - where it has not joined forces with the neoliberal right - clings to nationalist and bureaucratic-statist nostalgia for the social-democratic Cold War era. The far left clings to the coat-tails of the centre-left. It cannot unite itself - let alone anyone else - because it is unwilling to reinterrogate the ideas of the early Communist International, especially on the ‘revolutionary party’. To move beyond this impasse we need to re-examine critically the strategic ideas of socialists since Marx and Engels’ time. This book begins the task.   You can purchase a physical copy of the book itself at Lulu. To support the project, sign up for our Patreon.

Rudy joins Roxy Hall and Giacomo Bianchino for a discussion on the past, present and future of the Australian state. We talk about the history of Australian colonization with its differences and similarities with US and Canada, the squatter vanguard of settler-colonialism, the failed attempt at a bourgeois revolution that was the Eureka Stockade and the process of Federation. We then turn to the formation and pivotal role of the Australian Labor Party in Australian politics, outlining the broad pacts between labour and capital which included White Australia, the Whitlam government and the New Left period, and finish off by discussion the present prospects for struggle around the AUKUS military pact, migrant workers, housing and the environmental and indigenous struggles. Check out Jack's article on Agricultural Labor in Australia.  Further reading:J. Roberts - "Massacres to Mining: the Colonisation of Aboriginal Australia" H. McQueen- "A New Britannia: An Argument concerning the social origins of Australian radicalism and nationalism." R. W. Connell and T. H. Irving  - "Class Structure in Australian History " E. Humphrys - "How Labour Built Neoliberalism: Australia’s Accord, the Labour Movement and the Neoliberal Project" Erratum: Harold Holt was the Prime Minister that enfranchised indigenous peoples.

In light of the Taliban’s consolidation of power in response to U.S. withdrawal from the region, Rob Ashlar predicts not the foreclosure of class struggle in Afghanistan but new beginnings. LC reads the article aloud.

Niko and Rudy sit down with Jason Moore, author of Capitalism in the Web of Life and The Capitalocene (Part I, II) for a discussion on his approach to world-ecology including the  concepts of Capitalism as a way of organizing nature and of the Web of  Life. We discuss how Capitalism has organized nature since its inception  and why it is necessary to begin a periodization of capitalism's effects on nature in the colonization of the Atlantic Islands, the debates around Metabolic rift/shift, the role of climate changes in history and what that can teach us for today's  struggles, the concept of the four Cheaps and appropriation of unpaid labor, internationalism, the pitfalls of 70s ecology, the Green New  Deal, how scientists should relate to radical politics and how to  adequately incorporate the concept of Capitalism as a method for  organizing Nature in our politics.

This is a narration of the introduction to Mike Macnair's groundbreaking book Revolutionary Strategy. Narration and editing by Lydia Apolinar.   The free market triumphalism of the 1990s is over. Early 21st century capitalism looks like Karl Marx’s description: growing extremes of wealth and poverty, and irrepressible boom-bust cycles. But for the moment, rightwing religious and nationalist nostalgia politics is the main beneficiary of the opposition this has spawned. The political left remains in the shadow of its disastrous failures in the 20th century. The centre-left - where it has not joined forces with the neoliberal right - clings to nationalist and bureaucratic-statist nostalgia for the social-democratic Cold War era. The far left clings to the coat-tails of the centre-left. It cannot unite itself - let alone anyone else - because it is unwilling to reinterrogate the ideas of the early Communist International, especially on the ‘revolutionary party’. To move beyond this impasse we need to re-examine critically the strategic ideas of socialists since Marx and Engels’ time. This book begins the task.   You can purchase a physical copy of the book itself at Lulu. To support the project, sign up for our Patreon.

Donald and Rudy join John Smith, author of Imperialism in the 21st  Century: Globalization, Exploitation and Capitalism's Final Crisis for a discussion on imperialism and unequal exchange. We discuss the history of three global commodities: t-shirts, iPhones and coffee and what they  can tell us about the worldwide social relationships of capitalism, why  GDP and productivity are illusions that hide exploitation and  super-profits, the concept of labor aristocracy and super-profits and the political programs of Arghiri Emmanuel, Samir Amin and Ruy Mauro Marini.  We then turn to the present, including capitalism's crisis, decaying US  hegemony, the possibilities of North-South solidarity and the existing  actual solidarity links in trade unions. We finish by discussing what fair trade relationships between socialist countries could look like.

Roxy Hall makes an intervention into debates around transgender issues, critiquing both trans liberalism and anti-trans radical feminism to stake out a position that seeks the abolition of gender. Annie Rose reads the article aloud.

Matt and Rudy join Sasha Durakov Warren from An Unsound Mind for a discussion on the history of psychiatry reform movements and radical mental health. We discuss how the definition of mind has changed across history, and how  the internal movements to reform psychiatry and mistakenly grouped under  broad umbrellas that hide a myriad of approaches and contradictions. We  also discuss the Franco Basaglia's Democratic Psychiatry movement and Fanon's decolonial psychiatry, and end by envisioning what therapy could  look like in a communist society.