[P2P-F] Fwd: New videos, NYC discussion 4/13

[Michel Bauwens]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Marxist-Humanist Initiative <mhi at marxisthumanistinitiative.org>
Date: Mon, Apr 4, 2011 at 10:49 AM
Subject: New videos, NYC discussion 4/13
To: MHI Information <mhi at marxisthumanistinitiative.org>


April 1, 2011

Dear Friend of MHI,

            These are tumultuous times, with revolutions and
counter-revolutions changing the face of the Middle East and North Africa
day-by-day. We support the efforts of the masses who are fighting tyrants in
Libya, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, and elsewhere. In particular, we try to
follow, hear from, and write about those people who are trying to work out
how to build a different society, such as the Egyptians who have just
re-occupied Tahrir Square with demands to curb the continuing power of the
military.

            Meanwhile, the literal fall-out from the “natural” and unnatural
disasters in Japan continues (see
http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/mhieditorial/mhi-editorial-japan-suffers-triple-disaster-world-holds-its-breath-what-should-humans-build.html).
The onslaught of assaults on U.S. workers’ rights, women’s rights, and civil
rights is stirring up resistance such as the battle in Wisconsin over
collective bargaining. MHI is attempting to analyze all these events in our
web publication, “With Sober Senses” (
http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/our-publication), but it is
difficult to keep up. The constants in these world events are the
destructive power of capitalist society, and capitalism’s generation of its
own opposition through revolts that release human creativity.

            The theoretical contexts and possibilities raised by these
“constants” proved to be controversial at the panel discussions that MHI
organized at the recent Left Forum conference and an additional meeting in
New York. At the Left Forum, we put on two panels on “Is Socialism
Possible?” featuring many views by a variety of Marxists, anarchists, and
autonomists, and another panel called “The Great Recession and Its
Aftermath” featuring Andrew Kliman, David McNally, Fred Moseley, and Alan
Freeman. At the panels and at our later meeting, “Crisis, Austerity &
Resistance in the Euro Zone: A View from Finland,” there was much
disagreement about the nature of the recent crisis, about what reforms are
capable of achieving, and about whether socialism* is* a kind of reformed
capitalism or whether it can only develop out of a complete break with
existing society. For example, some thought that regulating or nationalizing
the banking industry could cause it to help working people, and some thought
that socialism could emerge through efforts to establish cooperative labor
within capitalism. MHI speakers, in contrast, argued that capitalism must be
uprooted in order for a new mode of production and a human society to
emerge, and called for theoretical work on the question of what is necessary
to establish socialism.

*            We are pleased to announce that videos of all four events are
now posted on our website *(http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/)*.* We
encourage you to send us your comments, especially on the questions of
whether reforms that are fundamental as well as sustainable are possible,
and what would constitute socialism.

*Finally, for those in the New York City area*, let me invite you to our
next event (co-sponsored with The New SPACE):  *“Is an Emancipatory
Communism Possible?”*,* *a talk by Allan Armstrong from Scotland. It’s
*Wednesday
April 13 at 7:00 p.m*. at TRS Professional Suites, 44 East 32nd
Street, 11thfloor (between Madison & Park Aves.), Manhattan. See more
about the talk at
http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/alternatives-to-capital/413.html.

In solidarity,

Anne Jaclard for MHI







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