This is where I'll be putting links to audio-visual and other material for POLS 323 Marxism: Classical and Contemporary
during Semester 2, 2017. I will be adding to, editing, and updating
this blog during the course of the semester. So it is a work in
progress.
Some of the av-material and links overlap with POLS 208 Democracy, so check that blog out as well. http://briansroper.blogspot.co.nz/2017/02/pols-208-democracy-videos-and-links-2017.html
Manufacturing Consent 9 Minute Summary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBWfkE7BXU
Amy Goodman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5scBuP2EK-I
Digital Disconnect: Robert McChesney on How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy
• Short 17 minute segment on the capitalist political of the internet with Aaron Swartz and Robert McChesney (from Democracy Now!).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5yCL2U6Fzo
• This is a lecture on capitalism and the internet by Robert McChesney.
https://vimeo.com/144932323
He gives another lecture on the same topic at;
https://archive.org/details/Digital_Disconnect_-_How_Capitalism_is_Turning_the_Internet_Against_Democracy
The lecture schedule is outlined below.
Lecture
Schedule
Introduction
1.
What is Marxism? Is Marxism Still Relevant? Why Classical and Contemporary
Marxism?
Section 1: Laying the Foundations: Karl Marx and
Frederick Engels
2.
Karl Marx: Intellectual Significance, Biography and Historical Context
3.
Marx’s General Theory of History: Dialectical and Historical Marxism
4.
Marx’s Critique of Capitalism: Analysing Capitalist Exploitation to Explain
Inequality in Capitalist Society
5.
Marx’s Critique of Capitalism: The Causes of Capitalist Economic Crises
6.
Marx’s Critique of Capitalism: What is Alienation? What’s Wrong with Liberal
Democracy?
7.
Frederick Engels’ Contribution to Establishing Marxism: Social History,
Dialectics, Women’s Oppression, Editor and Populariser of Marx’s Writings.
Section 2: Classical Marxism: Overview, Context and Key
Figures
8. German Social Democracy, Classical Marxism and Lenin’s Theory of Revolution
9.
Lenin’s Conceptualisation and Defence of Socialist Organisation
10. Rosa
Luxemburg: Reform or Revolution?
11. Rosa
Luxemburg: The Mass Strike and Luxemburg’s Critique of the Bolsheviks
12. Leon
Trotsky: The Fight Against Stalinism
13.
Antonio Gramsci: Hegemony and Contradictory Consciousness
14.
Georg Lukacs: History and Class Consciousness
15. The
Classical Marxist Vision of Socialism: Revolution, Socialism and Participatory
Democracy
----------------Mid-Semester Break----------------
Section 3: Contemporary Marxism
16.
Marxist Economics: The Global Financial Crisis and its Aftermath
17.
Marxist Educational Sociology: Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education
18.
Marxist International Relations: Imperialism and the Causes of War
19.
Applying Marxism in Practice: The International Socialist Tradition
20.
Marxist Ecology: Analysing the Causes of Resource Depletion, Habitat
Destruction, and Global Warming
21.
Socialist and Marxist Feminism: Capitalism, Gender Inequality and Women’s
Liberation
22. Digital
Disconnect: How Capitalism is Turning the Internet Against Democracy
23. The
Ideological Bias of the Corporate Media: Manufacturing Consent?
Section 4: Anti-Marxism
24. The
Neoliberal Critique of Marxism
25. The
Post-Structuralist and Anarchist Critiques of Marxism
Conclusion: Results and Prospects
26. The
Democratic Socialist Alternative to 21st Century Capitalism.
Videos and Links
Introductions to Marx and Marxism
Marx in Soho performed by Brian Jones
This
play provides both a genuinely amusing and accurate account of Marx's
life and central ideas. Well worth watching. Learn stuff and have a good
laugh while doing so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2baw7stI6U
'Karl Marx' 30 minute humorous introduction to Marx by Marx Steel (in 2003). Unfortunately the only online version I have been able to find is very low definition- but it is still well worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02ddGtKZuSU
David Harvey on the Global Financial Crisis and Crises of Capitalism.
Animation of David Harvey providing a 10 minute oral outline of the Marxist analysis of capitalist economic crises.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0
Roland Boer, 'In Defence of Engels', published on the Philosophers for Change blog site.
An interesting article by the author of a very good book on Engels: Roland Boer, Criticism of Earth: On Marx, Engels and Theology (Chicago and Leiden: Haymarket and Brill, (2014 [2012]).
Among other things, argues that Engels' "writes of ‘two great discoveries, the materialistic conception of
history and the revelation of the secret of capitalistic production
through surplus-value …. With these discoveries Socialism became a
science’.[31] As ever, Engels attributes these discoveries to Marx, but
they were also very much his achievement."
https://philosophersforchange.org/2014/09/09/in-defence-of-engels/
New Zealand
For New Zealand material, some of which is relevant to this course, go to:
The Russian Revolution
The most accurate short (20 minutes long) video documentary on the Russian Revolution that I have been able to find currently (2016) available on Youtube is: Timeline:
The Russian Revolution - by British socialist John Rees - produced as
part of a historical 'timeline' series of historical documentaries
produced by Islam TV in the UK. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VldXUyCaeQ
The Neoliberal Critique of Marxism
• Milton Friedman - Redistribution of Wealth
Chicago and monetarist economist, Milton Friedman, providing a neoliberal justification of the unequal distribution of wealth in advanced capitalist societies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJwUaVDIPXg
