In this episode we take on a Marxist classic, Rosa Luxemburg’s “Reform or Revolution,” in which she skewers Eduard Bernstein for being a feckless opportunist and for relinquishing the goal of socialism. Luxemburg takes on his argument that it’s possible for socialists to take increasing control of the capitalist state and progressively implement reforms that socialize the economy. Best diss track of all time. But don’t worry, we take Bernstein seriously, too. A ghost is haunting twenty-first century socialism, and it may very well be his – To rupture, or not to rupture? That is the question.

This is just a short clip from the full episode, which is available to our subscribers on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

Rosa Luxemburg, “Reform or Revolution,” in The Essential Rosa Luxemburg (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2007), 41-104.

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode we take up the question: what is the State? With 1978’s State, Power, Socialism by Nicos Poulantzas as our guide, we talk about what it means to grasp the state as a historically specific form inseparable from the economy, find ourselves torn between the mutual dissatisfactions of Althusser and Foucault, and ask whether it is even possible to conceptualize ‘the capitalist state’ as such. Doing so might be necessary for political strategic reasons, but O, abstraction! Along the way we give some of our favorite French thinkers a bit of a hard time. It’s meant with love. Mostly.

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

Nicos Poulantzas, State, Power, Socialism, trans. Patrick Camiller, with an introduction by Stuart Hall (New York: Verso, 2014)

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode we talk about the weird little unfinished utopian novel The New Atlantis, written by founding enlightenment figure Francis Bacon. We talk about his fetish for differential novelty, his understanding and valorization of knowledge production, and his ambivalent status as a pivotal figure between medieval and modern science. He’s right that European rationality is sickly, but what can orgiastic science deliver for utopian consciousness? Not clear! But it definitely would be cool to be able to make meteors and multiply natural forms.

This is just a short clip from the full episode, which is available to our subscribers on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

Francis Bacon, The New Atlantis, in Bacon et. al., Three Early Modern Utopias (New York: Oxford, 2009)

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss the educational philosophy of the American pragmatist John Dewey. Focusing on his 1938 treatise Experience & Education we explore questions concerning the ends of education, what it means to be an effective educator, and the relationship between experience and history. Dewey advocates for a form of education that focuses less on knowledge accumulation and more on cultivating the capacities of students for freedom through the enrichment of their experience. Other topics include Dewey’s controversial naturalism, the tension between Deweyan pragmatism and Marxist social theory, and finally why the traditional lecture still has a lot to recommend it!

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy | @leftofphil

References:

John Dewey, Experience & Education (New York: Free Press, 2015)

John Dewey, Art as Experience (New York: Penguin Books, 2005)

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss the contributions of political theorist Norman Geras to socialist debates about revolutionary ethics, movement democracy, and justice. He argues for a right to revolution, but that there’s a difference between political and social revolution, and that this difference tells us something about which ends justify which means. Other topics include state theory, dual power, and the role that Marxism can play in social movements today.

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

Norman Geras, “Our Morals: The Ethics of Revolution,” Socialist Register 25(1989): 185-211.

Norman Geras, “Democracy and the Ends of Marxism,” New Left Review 1(203)(1994): 92-106.

Norman Geras, “Human Nature and Progress,” New Left Review 1(213): 151-160.

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we talk about the late, great Charles Mills and his landmark book The Racial Contract. Forcefully arguing that the modern discourse of egalitarianism and freedom is underwritten by a tacit commitment to global white supremacy, Mills develops an immanent criticism of liberalism that remains faithful to many of its core values. We discuss the limits and promises of liberal universalism, the potential reform of contractarian logic, and whether white people really mean it when they say they want to abolish whiteness. Rest in peace to a really real one.

This is just a short clip from the full episode, which is available to our subscribers on Patreon:

patreon.com/leftofphilosophy

References:

Charles W. Mills, The Racial Contract (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we discuss Robert Nozick’s libertarian political philosophy as presented in his 1974 book Anarchy, State, and Utopia. We consider his challenges to leftist thought, especially the sort of left liberalism championed by the likes of John Rawls. We take seriously his demand for an argument for egalitarianism and his critique of patterned accounts of distributive justice. But we also give him a hard time for some of his more absurd arguments, from those about swimming pools to those concerning wealthy basketball players and the all-important human need to feel like a very special boy. When it comes to libertarianism, this is in fact them sending their best.

leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil

References:

Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974).

Katrina Forrester, In the Shadow of Justice: Postwar Liberalism and the Remaking of Political Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN

In this episode, we tackle the concept of violence as it appears in the revolutionary and anticolonial work of Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth. Throughout the episode we link together Fanon’s endorsement of revolutionary violence against colonial domination with his work as a psychiatrist. How could Fanon argue for the necessity of violence while bearing witness to its regressive effects on both those who suffer violence and those who deploy it? What makes the revolutionary violence of the colonized qualitatively distinct from the violence of colonizers? Finally, what can Fanon's dialectic of violence tell us today? This episode casts Fanon as both revolutionary and care worker and explores the tensions and resonances between the need for freedom and the costs of struggle.

leftofphilosophy.com | @leftofphil

References:

Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Richard Philcox (New York: Grove Press, 2004).

Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, trans. Haakon Chevalier (New York: Grove Press, 1965).

Frantz Fanon, Œuvres (Paris: Éditions La Découverte, 2011).

Frantz Fanon, Alienation and Freedom, eds. Jean Khalfa and Robert J.C. Young, trans. Steven Corcoran (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018).

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN