Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality [will] have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence. —Marx & Engels (1845), The German […]
18 Nov
When Elizabeth Humphrys and I originally wrote “Anti-politics: Elephant in the room” on Left Flank just over a year ago, we were trying to summarise the changes in our thinking over the causes and consequences of the “crisis of representation” that the blog had been focused on since its inception. The post has been widely […]
06 Nov
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Historical Materialism’s 11th annual conference — How Capitalism Survives — begins tomorrow at SOAS, Vernon Square, in London. Four writers and contributors to Left Flank are speaking. On Friday morning at 9.45am, Elizabeth Humphrys, Tad Tietze and Luke Stobart are speaking in a session on ‘Anti-politics, social movements & the practical critique of the state’ (Room V121) — along […]
08 Sep
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Left Flank’s ELIZABETH HUMPHRYS has launched a new website for her own work, An Integral State: Notes on Marx & Gramsci. The latest post is her paper from the roundtable on Leo Panitch & Sam Gindin’s Deutscher Prize winning book The Making of Global Capitalism, at the Historical Materialism Australasia conference last weekend in Sydney. […]
25 Aug
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Left Flank is proud to be supporting this year’s Historical Materialism Australasia conference — States, Social Reproduction, Capital — which will be held in Central Sydney on 5-6 September 2014. There is an impressive array of papers and discussions confirmed, with contributors from Australia and internationally, which should make this the biggest and best HM Australasia conference […]
21 May
THANASIS KAMPAGIANNIS returns to the debate on imperialism, on the occasion of the controversies that have opened up inside the Left regarding the crisis in Ukraine. This is a translation of an article recently published in the theoretical magazine of the Greek Socialist Workers Party (SEK), Socialism From Below. The declaration of the end of […]
15 Jan
I’ve just had a contribution to an ongoing debate on Marxism and “privilege theory” published at the US Socialist Worker website. I’m putting it up here at Left Flank if people want to comment directly. The Socialist Worker page usefully links to the key posts in the debate. I’VE FOLLOWED with interest the debate on […]
31 Oct
By ELIZABETH HUMPHRYS & TAD TIETZE At a certain point in their historical lives, social classes become detached from their traditional parties. In other words, the traditional parties in that particular organisational form, with the particular men who constitute, represent, and lead them, are no longer recognised by their class (or fraction of a class) […]
23 Jun
I’m excited to be able to say that I have a chapter contribution in the just released ‘Marxism and Social Movements’ book, which is part of the Historical Materialism book series. I’ve read a number of the contributions, and it a really exciting engagement between social movement theory and Marxist approaches to collective action. On […]
08 Mar
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Introducing AN INTEGRAL STATE, the new blog by Elizabeth Humphrys Recent years have seen a big increase in Marxist theorising on the state and its relationship to the capitalist system. These discussions have gone through several phases, from debates over the nature of globalisation in the late 1990s, to renewed interest in imperialism in reaction […]
08 Dec
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