Welcome!
Some of the av-material and links overlap with POLS 208 Democracy, so check that blog out as well. https://briansroper.blogspot.com/2019/07/pols-208-democracy-videos-and-links-2019.html
The lecture schedule is outlined below.
Lecture Schedule
17. Marxist Educational Sociology: Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education
18. Marxist International Relations: Capitalist Imperialism & War from its Origins to the End of the Cold War
19. Marxist Economics: The Global Financial Crisis and its Aftermath
20. The Political Economy of the Covid 19 Pandemic: Origins, Spread, Impact, Policy Responses.
21. Marxist International Relations: US Supremacy (1990-2007), the Rise of China after 1978, and the Decline of US Hegemony (2008-2025)
22. Marxist Ecology: Analysing the Causes of Resource Depletion, Declining Biodiversity, and Global Warming
23. Socialist and Marxist Feminism: Capitalism, Gender Inequality, Intersectionality and Women’s Liberation
24. Digital Disconnect: The History and Political Economy of the Internet and Smart Phones
25. The Ideological Bias of the Corporate Media: Manufacturing Consent?
Rosa Luxemburg - Then and Now
An excellent slideshow with Alistair Hulett singing the Internationale in the background.
Lenin - What is Soviet Power?
Five minute speech by Lenin with English subtitles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l53FPENoAU
Another interesting short speech by Lenin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_EcpFLmUaU
Antonio Gramsci - Five Lectures
There are some interesting, informative and illuminating lectures on Gramsci available online. Here are the best five (in my view).1. Peter Thomas – ‘Gramsci and Hegemony’ (37 minutes)
If you only have time to listen to one of these lectures, then catch the excellent lecture by Peter D. Thomas – author of the best book on Gramsci published during the past decade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Exe5U3kFU5g
2. Alex Callinicos - ‘Gramsci and the Art of Politics’ (66 minutes)
A superb lecture on Gramsci is by Alex Callinicos.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bP_IEzHRjM
3. Megan Trudell – ‘The Uses and Abuses of Gramsci’ (65 minutes)
Megan Trudel provide a critique of common misinterpretations and misrepresentations of Gramsci.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNuhNnSoAOQ
4. Paul D’Amato – ‘Life of a Revolutionary’ (69 minutes)
This lecture provides a superb account of the historical context of Gramsci’s intellectual and political life from 1914 to 1926.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEXsE-sP2ps
5. Bob Jessop – ‘The Life and Work of Gramsci’ (62 minutes)
This lecture by Jessop provide a very clear account of key concepts in Gramsci’s thought, but doesn’t put enough emphasis on the context of Gramsci’s intellectual and political life, nor duly acknowledge that Gramsci was a resolutely revolutionary Marxist.
https://bobjessop.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/1-bob-jessop-lectures-on-gramsci.mp3
The best way to check out the contemporary analysis and politics of the Marxist tradition is to search the websites of some of the more significant anti-Stalinist Marxist intellectuals and organisations. These sites have lots of articles providing useful discussions of a wide range of issues.
Michael Roberts Blog - Blogging from a Marxist Economist https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/
Michael Roberts worked in the City of London as an economist for over 40 years. He has closely observed the machinations of global capitalism from within the dragon’s den. At the same time, he was a political activist in the labour movement for decades. Since retiring, he has written several books. The Great Recession – a Marxist view (2009); The Long Depression (2016); Marx 200: a review of Marx’s economics (2018): and jointly with Guglielmo Carchedi as editors of World in Crisis (2018). He has published numerous papers in various academic economic journals and articles in leftist publications.
Socialist Alternative: https://redflag.org.au/ and http://marxistleftreview.org/
SA is the largest socialist organisation in Australia. It is based in the International Socialist tradition but has no formal links to the organisation that founded this tradition- the British Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP). As well as coverage of international issues such as Brexit, the US presidential election, the refuge crisis, and global warming, it also provides socialist analysis of political developments in Australia, such as the racist politics of Pauline Hanson, the anti-worker policies of the federal Liberal Government, Australia’s racist immigration and refugee policies, and so forth.
We Are Many: http://wearemany.org/
This site is sponsored by the Center for Economic Research and Social Change, which also hosts Haymarket Books and which published the International Socialist Review. “We are simply trying to offer a small sampling of the best radical audio and video sources we know of. We know that the internet provides vast opportunities to share information and ideas, but we do not believe that this can replace the real actions of real people. We encourage our visitors, friends, fellow-travellers, and comrades to take inspiration from the people included here into their own struggles for justice.”
International Socialism Project: https://internationalsocialism.net/
This is a revolutionary socialist organisation based in the international socialist tradition formed by former members of the ISO (US) in the wake of the ISO's disbanding in 2019.
Solidarity: Against the Current: https://www.solidarity-us.org/atc
Solidarity is a Trotskyist organisation in the U.S. Its main publication – Against the Current carries useful articles on a broad range of topics.
Democratic Socialists of America: https://www.dsausa.org/
The DSA, which now has over 60,000 members, produces what has become an important Marxist journal: Jacobin. Available at: https://jacobinmag.com/
The ‘About the DSA’ section of the website states: ‘The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is the largest socialist organization in the United States. DSA's members are building progressive movements for social change while establishing an openly democratic socialist presence in American communities and politics. At the root of our socialism is a profound commitment to democracy, as means and end. As we are unlikely to see an immediate end to capitalism tomorrow, DSA fights for reforms today that will weaken the power of corporations and increase the power of working people. For example, we support reforms that: decrease the influence of money in politics; empower ordinary people in workplaces and the economy; restructure gender and cultural relationships to be more equitable.
We are activists committed to democracy as not simply one of our political values but our means of restructuring society. Our vision is of a society in which people have a real voice in the choices and relationships that affect the entirety of our lives. We call this vision democratic socialism — a vision of a more free, democratic and humane society. In this web site you can find out about DSA, its politics, structure and program
International Socialist Organization
(NZ): https://iso.org.nz/
Established at the University of Otago in 1993, the ISO now has branches in Auckland, Wellington, and Dunedin. Although still very small, it is not as small as the other socialist groups in Aotearoa. Recent articles on its website have focused on: the TPPA, Gramsci, Brexit, the struggle for a Living Wage, disability rights, workers’ struggles, ANZAC Day, Maori struggles, the 2018 and 2020 elections, the climate strike movement, Covid-19 pandemic, and the Ardern Labour-led Government.
Inequality: A New Zealand Conversation: http://www.inequality.org.nz/understand/
This site contains useful and interesting articles on inequality in New Zealand.
The Standard: https://thestandard.org.nz/
The most widely read left-of-centre NZ-based source of online news and commentary. Well worth reading in relation to developments and events within New Zealand.
The About section of the site states:
“We’re a cooperative who saw a gap in the New Zealand political blogosphere and decided that we should have a go at filling it here at The Standard blog site. We write here in our personal capacities and the opinions that are expressed on the blog are individual unless expressly stated otherwise (see the policy). We do not write on behalf of any organization.”
“We come from a variety of backgrounds and our political views don’t always match up but it’d be fair to say that all of us share a commitment to the values and principles that underpin the broad labour movement and we hope that perspective will come through strongly as you read the blog.”
Counter-futures:
Left Thought and Practice in Aotearoa: https://counterfutures.nz/
Currently New Zealand’s most important left-wing academic journal.
RS21: Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century: https://rs21.org.uk/
About: “Revolutionary Socialism in the 21st Century (rs21) is a news, comment, analysis and campaigning website run by a group of revolutionary socialists in Britain.”
Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP): https://www.swp.org.uk/. Publishes Socialist Worker (UK) https://socialistworker.co.uk/ (weekly socialist newspaper), Socialist Review http://socialistreview.org.uk/ (monthly magazine) and International Socialism http://isj.org.uk/ (quarterly journal of socialist theory and analysis).
Still the largest socialist group in Britain, the SWP emerged from the most serious crisis in its history in 2013 less than half the size that it was prior to the crisis. Nonetheless, it has recovered and its main publications contain useful socialist analysis of developments and issues taking place internationally and in the UK.
The Fourth International: http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/
This is the main English language publication of the Fourth International that was established by Trotsky in 1938. The FI is the other major Trotskyist current with affiliated organisations in many countries. One of the major issues that divides the ‘orthodox Trotskyists’ of the Fourth International from the ‘neo-Trotskyists’ in the IS tradition concerns their different analyses of the rise and international spread of Stalinism. But on many, if not most, issues there is broad agreement between the member organisations of the two largest anti-Stalinist socialist currents. Quite apart from this, International Viewpoint carries very good socialist analysis of international political developments and issues.
The Alternative Press Centre: http://www.altpress.org/mod/apc_directory/index.php
As a very large online directory of radical (anarchist, feminist, environmentalist, and socialist) periodicals, with links.
The Titanic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KQm_7Lpt5E
• To access the 2021 major assessment report (AR6) by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), go to: https://www.ipcc.ch/assessment-report/ar6/
• To access the 2014 major assessment report (AR5) by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), go to: http://www.ipcc.ch/
If you want to download the most important graphs and figures then go to: http://www.climatechange2013.org/report/reports-graphic/ch2-graphics/
• To access the 2007 major assessment report (AR4) by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC),
go to: http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_ipcc_fourth_assessment_report_synthesis_report.htm
• Video showing thinning of Greenland polar ice based on international study using satellite data and photographs from the University of Leeds website.http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GAhA8NBHZIo
• See also the British channel 4 news report on the study (2012) at:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/3336/
• "2012 Record Low Artic Ice Sheet". The Arctic ice cap is melting at a rapid rate and may shrink to its lowest-ever level within weeks as temperatures continue to rise. Al Jazeera's Nick Clark joined an expedition travelling deep into the Arctic Circle to Qaanaaq, in Greenland. Three minute report on the melting of the Arctic ice caps. Well worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwwBcdmT8tc
• Very interesting report on the 'carbon bubble' on the Guardian website. Highlights which stock exchange listed companies have the greatest carbon assets and the financial risks that they face if these assets become unburnable due to the introduction of more effective environmental policies addressing the causes of climate change. This also indicates just how powerfully motivated these companies are to lobby governments to prevent them introducting more effective environmental policies to counter global warming.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/interactive/2013/apr/19/countries-exposed-carbon-bubble-map
• Really interesting article in The Guardian: "The climate crisis of the 21st century has been caused largely by just 90 companies, which between them produced nearly two-thirds of the greenhouse gas emissions generated since the dawning of the industrial age, new research suggests."
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/20/90-companies-man-made-global-warming-emissions-climate-change
• John Bellamy Foster gives lecture on capitalism and climate change.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmhFc9kdTRU&list=PL432220236CB86FAB
• Climate Central - a US based research foundation - has an interactive 'Surging Seas' map that allows you to see the degree of encroachment on land of sea level rises.
http://sealevel.climatecentral.org/
• UN Women provides lots of interesting and useful comparative data on gender inequality and women's participation in government.
http://www.unwomen.org/
The (2011) Progress of Women report can be downloaded from:
http://www.unwomen.org/resources/progress-of-the-worlds-women/
The World's Women 2010: Trends and Statistics can be downloaded from: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/Worldswomen/WW2010pub.htm
The World's Women 2015: Trends and Statistics can be downloaded from: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/gender/worldswomen.html
http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/snapshots-of-nz/nz-social-indicators/Home/Trust%20and%20participation%20in%20government/female-rep-parl-local-govt.aspx
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_-
Manufacturing Consent 9 Minute Summary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBWfkE7BXU
Amy Goodman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5scBuP2EK-I _How_Capitalism_is_Turning_the_Internet_Against_Democracy
• Showdown in Seattle- 'This is what democracy looks like'. Part V of the Indy Media documentary on the global justice protests that successfully shutdown the millenium round of the WTO at the end of 1999. This sparked the dramatic growth of the global justice movement during the first half of the 2000s.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYyCDE6dbDU&list=PLBA3384E63E9826B2&index=5
• Occupy Wall Street Video: Global Day of Action, 15OCT
Six minute video focusing on the protests of Occupy New York.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfXPCkXBqRE
• The Guardian: Occupy Protests Mapped Around The World
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2011/oct/18/occupy-protests-map-world
• The Guardian: Images of the World Social Forum 2013 in Tunis
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/gallery/2013/mar/28/world-social-forum-alternative-world-in-pictures?INTCMP=SRCH#/?picture=406383884&index=0
• A Twenty Year Programme of Neoliberal Fiscal Austerity?
British Cabinet Secretary, Sir Jeremy Heywood, said in 2013 that the cuts pushed through by the Coalition did not go nearly far enough. He said that there was a “very long way to go” and added: “This is not a two-year project or a five-year project. This is a 10-year project, a 20-year generational battle to beef up the economy in ways that we have not seen for many, many decades.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10156170/Twenty-years-to-fix-economy.html
• 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
• Hayek on Socialism Friedrich von Hayek providing a brief critique of socialism. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNbYdbf3EEc
• Wet Leg - Chaise Longue
• The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world
Lecture 2
• London Grammar - Hell to the Liars
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_TXvjDE5Ec
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93yZZjGqk_s
• Wolf Alice - Delicious Things
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLS99zDpeBQ
Lecture 3
• Big Thief - Masterpiece
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oacUgWXrqwc
• PJ Harvey - The Wheel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ReW0jJkag8
Lecture 4 - A
• The Uncluded - Delicate Cycle
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHYhzg8QWbI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GHXEGz3PJg
Lecture 7
• Valerie June - Shakedown
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cShj4BimPXc
• Wolf Alice - Lipstick on the Glass
Lecture 8
• For those I love - You stayed / to live
Lecture 9
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogCih4OavoY
Lecture 10
• Rage Against the Machine - Take the Power Back
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEorxBT0bcM\
• Sunflower Bean - 2013
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_EylIzpggU
• Daughter - Smother
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1CiINFsBkY&list=RDv1CiINFsBkY&start_radio=1
Lectures 11-12
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHrlmwudYuA
• First Aid Kit - Emmy-Lou
Lecture 13
• Boots Riley - The Guillotine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acT_PSAZ7BQ
Lecture 14
• The Clash - Call Up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ScaGjwkg2Y
Lecture 16
• Lana Del Rey - Mariners Apartment Complex
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uFv9Ts7Sdw
• The Specials - Ghost Town
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ2oXzrnti4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7Ol-YDS4Jc
• P J Harvey - Good Fortune
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDBZZ3uvimE
• The Shins - A Comet Appears
• Nirvana - Never Mind
