In this video we take a second look at the TV cult hit Mr. Robot in order to understand the rightward shift happening in American politics, even on the left. We look at four Zero Books titles-Malign Velocities, Neglected and Misunderstood: Introducing Theodor Adorno, Psychology and Capitalism, and Ghosts of My Life- for theoretical insights.
C Derick Varn and Douglas Lain return to discuss the difference between united and popular front politics and what either approach would look like in the age of Sanders and Trump.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLSe3pp_xtQ
Derick Varn and Douglas Lain return to discuss Paul Mattick Sr.'s 1939 essay "Roosevelt's 'New' New Deal."
Paul Mattick was a council communist and left critic of Bolshevism. Mattick was heavily influenced by the work of Henryk Grossman, but unlike Grossman, he was a critic of Leninism. His essay on the New Deal argued that support for the New Deal was crippling the workers movement.
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Zero Books Manifesto:
The modern world is at an impasse. Disasters scroll across our smartphone screens and we’re invited to like, follow or upvote, but critical thinking is harder and harder to find. Rather than connecting us in common struggle and debate, the internet has sped up and deepened a long-standing process of alienation and atomization.
Zero Books aims to work against this trend.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo8rF4fN_B4
Responding to some recent Zero Books podcasts (The Lenin Legend and Did Marx Hate Liberals?) Chris Cutrone returns to discuss an essay he wrote in 2011 entitled "Lenin's Liberalism."
Relevant Essay
Lenin's Liberalism by Chris Cutrone
https://platypus1917.org/2011/06/01/lenins-liberalism/
Support Zero Books on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zerobooks
Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SubZeroBooks
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZeroBooks/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/zer0books
Zero Books Manifesto:
The modern world is at an impasse. Disasters scroll across our smartphone screens and we’re invited to like, follow or upvote, but critical thinking is harder and harder to find. Rather than connecting us in common struggle and debate, the internet has sped up and deepened a long-standing process of alienation and atomization.
Zero Books aims to work against this trend.
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3STHzE5V-g
After several attempts, we are presenting this video with Ben Burgis, author of the upcoming book “Give Them an Argument: Logic For the Left.” Ben returns to answer the question “Did Karl Marx Kill Millions?” In this video Burgis’ calls out Peterson and Shapiro for the hypocrisy as they champion free speech and the need for open debate while avoiding any real engagement with their political enemies.
Zero Books Logo Animations and other animations donated by Brian Cole
https://www.instagram.com/robotbloodco/
This video includes clips from
YouTube Rewind 2018: Everyone Controls Rewind
https://youtu.be/YbJOTdZBX1g
Book Mentioned in this Video
Give The An Argument: Logic for the Left
Support us on Patreon and get access to the Herding Cats: Capital Reading Group
https://www.patreon.com/zerobooks
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZeroBooks/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/zer0books
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zerobooks
Zero Books Manifesto:
The modern world is at an impasse. Disasters scroll across our smartphone screens and we’re invited to like, follow or upvote, but critical thinking is harder and harder to find. Rather than connecting us in common struggle and debate, the internet has sped up and deepened a long-standing process of alienation and atomization.
Zer0 Books wants to work against this trend.
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0_RKOupV3k
In this episode of pop the left Derick Varn and Douglas Lain consider whether a new Marxist party would need to include a clear plan for transforming the means of production along with a plan to obtain state power.
Recommended reading on Marx and Utopia:
Marx's Critique of the Utopian Socialists by ROGER PADEN
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20718467?seq=1
The Development of Utopian Socialism by Frederick Engels
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch01.htm
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trV-DP-VmfQ
This video explains the political character of calls for “law and order,” criticizes the apparent naivete (and perhaps inadvertent reactionary politics) of Bret Weinstein, examines political violence, and critiques Antifa. The video also includes excerpts from David Blacker’s “What’s Left of the World,” and Carl Freedman’s “The Age of Nixon” and attempts to reframe questions of authority, policing, and law and order with a Situationist and Marxist analysis.
Zero Books Logo Animations and other animations donated by Brian Cole
https://www.instagram.com/robotbloodco/
Related Books
What’s Left of the World by David Blacker
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RG8FVT1/
The Age of Nixon by Carl Freedman
https://www.amazon.com/Age-Nixon-Study-Cultural-Power-ebook/dp/B0077AJMEG
Video and Music Clips from Storyblocks and the Prelinger Archive
Other Music Includes
Zero Squared Theme or “Untitled” by Nik Walton
Support Zero Books on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zerobooks
Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SubZeroBooks
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZeroBooks/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/zer0books
Zero Books Manifesto:
The modern world is at an impasse. Disasters scroll across our smartphone screens and we’re invited to like, follow or upvote, but critical thinking is harder and harder to find. Rather than connecting us in common struggle and debate, the internet has sped up and deepened a long-standing process of alienation and atomization.
Zer0 Books wants to work against this trend.
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHLU-OEF5us
Derick Varn and Douglas Lain discuss Marx's feelings about utopianism and blueprints in this episode of Pop the Left. Can we develop a working-class project for socialism without having a good idea of what socialism will work and what will replace capitalist production? Did Marx think we could?
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6JGv4snLgc
Hillary Clinton called them "deplorables". Now, president Donald Trump calls them his minions. The Proud Boys, the Buggalou Movement, you name it. Marx had a different name for them, he referred to them as the lumpenproletariat. A class of people defined by Marx as:
"slum workers or the mob, this term identifies the class of outcast, degenerated and submerged elements that make up a section of the population of industrial centers. It includes beggars, prostitutes, gangsters, racketeers, swindlers, petty criminals, tramps, chronic unemployed or unemployables, persons who have been cast out by industry, and all sorts of declassed, degraded or degenerated elements. In times of prolonged crisis (depression), innumerable young people also, who cannot find an opportunity to enter into the social organism as producers, are pushed into this limbo of the outcast. Here demagogues and fascists of various stripes find some area of the mass base in time of struggle and social breakdown, when the ranks of the Lumpenproletariat are enormously swelled by ruined and declassed elements from all layers of a society in decay."
-Marxist.org
In his latest essay, professor Clyde W. Barrow compares Trump to Louis Bonaparte III who Marx and Engels wrote about in their 18th Brumaire. Bonaparte was, much like Trump an authoritarian populist who rose to power on the backs of a class of people who he himself identified with. The "deplorables" have their hero in Trump. He's rude, vulgar, unforgiving, politically incorrect, and unapologetic about it all. He is a "poor man's ideal of a rich man." The cartoonish villain that people root for.
From Professor Barrow's Essay:
Bonaparte had initially won an election with support from the finance aristocracy and the votes of the rural and urban petit bourgeoisie, who were swayed by his promise to reduce their taxes and his pledge to make France great again. However, Bonaparte’s coup d’état ultimately relied on the mass support and violence of the lumpenproletariat. Marx and Engels did not consider the lumpenproletariat capable of independent political action, because of its dependent position at the margins of capitalism. Thus, when the lumpenproletariat does become politically active, it is often because it has been organized into in the political arena by other classes, although the lumpenproletariat is usually brought into the class struggle by the ruling class as a counterweight to the proletariat’s superior numbers. The ruling class will most often enlist the lumpenproletariat as “bribed tools of reactionary intrigue” by enrolling them in counterrevolutionary militias and special police forces directed against the working class. A uniform, a steady salary, medical care, a pension, and a gun are an appealing ��
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPodQeqmazA
This video answers two questions: "Did the defeats of the socialist movement play a role in the development of cancel culture?" and "Was Karl Marx a free speech absolutist?"
Spoiler: The answer to both questions is an unqualified "yes!"
Relevant Book:
Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/capitalist-realism-mark-fisher/1112473996?ean=9781846943171
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/capitalist-realism-mark-fisher/1112473996?ean=9781846943171
Support Zero Books on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/zerobooks
Subscribe: http://bit.ly/SubZeroBooks
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZeroBooks/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/zer0books
Zero Books Manifesto:
The modern world is at an impasse. Disasters scroll across our smartphone screens and we’re invited to like, follow or upvote, but critical thinking is harder and harder to find. Rather than connecting us in common struggle and debate, the internet has sped up and deepened a long-standing process of alienation and atomization.
Zer0 Books wants to work against this trend.
...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvIHtTTh3EM