Radio Free Humanity: The Marxist-Humanist Podcast

The co-hosts interview Ralph Keller, who has been studying the resurgence of the extreme right in Germany and elsewhere in the European Union. They discuss the extent of the resurgence; why the resurgence is taking place; the influence of far-right ideas on ordinary people; and mainstream political parties’ appropriation of far-right ideas. Although no extreme-right group is yet in government anywhere in the European Union, Keller argues that the resurgence of the extreme right should nonetheless be an urgent matter of concern now, because its influence extends far beyond its hard-core adherents. He and the co-hosts also discuss the relationship between right-wing “speech” and right-wing violence.

During the discussion, reference is made to Keller’s article, The Rise of the Extreme Right in Germany (https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/international-news/the-rise-of-the-extreme-right-in-germany.html).

Plus current-event segment on the battle in Portland—protesters and moms and vets vs. Trump and Barr’s stormtroopers. The soft-on-Trump “left” long ridiculed our warnings about fascism; where does it stand now?

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Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Brendan Cooney and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by Marxist-Humanist Initiative (MHI), but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of MHI.

We welcome and encourage listeners’ comments, posted on this episode’s page of the MHI website.

Please visit MHI’s website for information on philosophy & organization, Marxist-Humanist archives, and its online publication, “With Sober Senses”:

https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/

Brendan interviews Andrew about his With Sober Senses essay, “Not by Politics Alone: Thinking Through a Post-Capitalist Future.” (https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/alternatives-to-capital/not-by-politics-alone-thinking-through-a-post-capitalist-future.html) They discuss what’s wrong with thinking that we can transcend capitalism simply through decentralized decision-making, or experimentation, or by putting different people, with different priorities, into power—and why it’s dangerous to put the whole burden of working out answers on the backs of the completely “new people” that revolution will supposedly create. The discussion calls attention to the economic problems that will need to be solved, such as the need for economic coordination, and why they will need to be solved in a different way than under capitalism. Brendan has Andrew explain why he rejects claims that the economic problems can be solved simply through income redistribution and overcoming the wastefulness of capitalism, and why, instead, a new liberatory mode of production needs to be worked out.

The episode’s current-events segment focuses on the Trumpite drive to re-open US schools in the midst of the worsening COVID-19 pandemic.

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Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Brendan Cooney and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by Marxist-Humanist Initiative (MHI), but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of MHI.

We welcome and encourage listeners’ comments, posted on this episode’s page of the MHI website.

Please visit MHI’s website for information on philosophy & organization, Marxist-Humanist archives, and its online publication, “With Sober Senses”:

https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/

Owing to the leading role of African-Americans, Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign imploded, and now an uprising for Black lives and against police violence has swept the US and the world. The co-hosts lay out the case that these events have delivered body blows to the theory and strategy of Jacobin magazine and others on the anti-neoliberal “left,” consigning them to the Jaco-dustbin of history.

Brendan and Andrew argue that the recent upsurge constitutes mass repudiation of so-called “class-based”—economistic and color-blind––politics. They also argue that Sanders’ campaign imploded, not because of directives issued by Democratic Party bosses, but because voters, led by millions of Black “neoliberal shills,” wanted to end Democratic Party infighting in order to concentrate on removing Trump from office. And they discuss why it is so difficult for the anti-neoliberal “left” to learn from its repeated errors.

The discussion refers to works by Raya Dunayevskaya (American Civilization on Trial) (http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/American-Civilization-on-Trial.pdf), Sydney Ember (New York Times) (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/19/us/politics/bernie-sanders-protests.html), Dustin Guastella (https://jacobinmag.com/2020/05/we-need-a-class-war-not-a-cultural-war), Tucker Carlson (https://video.foxnews.com/v/6161246981001#sp=show-clips), MHI’s 2018 Perspectives (https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/mhieditorial/resisting-trumpist-reaction-and-left-accommodation-marxist-humanist-initiatives-perspectives-for-2018.html), Zack Beauchamp (Vox) (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/4/10/21214970/bernie-sanders-2020-lost-class-socialism), Nathan J. Robinson (https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/03/what-the-stakes-are), Matt Karp (https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/03/bernie-sanders-can-still-win-matt-karp-joe-biden-democrat), Edward-Isaac Dovere (The Atlantic) (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/04/bernie-sanders-thinking-he-will-win-it-all-2020/587326/), Daniel Denvir (https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/06/donald-trump-war-american-democracy-riots-coronavirus), and Meagan Day (Vox interview by Sean Illing) (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/3/16/21165201/bernie-sanders-joe-biden-2020-election-meagan-day).

In a related current-events segment, the co-hosts discuss the struggle to remove Confederate monuments and other symbols. Is a struggle over symbols always a merely symbolic struggle?

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Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Brendan Cooney and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by Marxist-Humanist Initiative (MHI), but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of MHI.

We welcome and encourage listeners’ comments, posted on this episode’s page of the MHI website.

Please visit MHI’s website for information on philosophy & organization, Marxist-Humanist archives, and its online publication, “With Sober Senses”:

https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/

Scottish computer scientist Paul Cockshott and his devotees have frequently portrayed Marx as a proponent of their own “labor theory of value.” But a recent essay by “RV,” (https://paulcockshott.wordpress.com/2020/05/17/guest-post-pauls-theory-and-marxs-theory-of-value-a-response/) a young Belgian activist and theorist, has exposed sharp differences between Cockshott’s theory and Marx’s actual theory. In this interview, RV explains to the co-hosts what the differences are, why they are important, and what impelled him to push back against the efforts to “force Marx, at all costs, to hold” Cockshott’s theory. They also discuss RV’s suggestion that we should let these two different theories contend, to “see which one better stands the test of reality,” how Cockshott is likely to respond to this suggestion, and why RV rejects the “empirical evidence” that supposedly supports Cockshott’s theory.

In the current-events segment, the co-hosts discuss the calls to “defund the police” and proposals to reform policing in the US. Can policing indeed be reformed? If so, what reforms are possible?

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Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Brendan Cooney and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by Marxist-Humanist Initiative (MHI), but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of MHI.

We welcome and encourage listeners’ comments, posted on this episode’s page of the MHI website.

Please visit MHI’s website for information on philosophy & organization, Marxist-Humanist archives, and its online publication, “With Sober Senses”:
https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/

The co-hosts interview Guillem Murcia López, a translator of the just-published Spanish edition (https://www.elviejotopo.com/libro/reivindicando-el-capital-de-marx/) of Andrew’s book Reclaiming Marx’s “Capital’: A Refutation of the Myth of Inconsistency (https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/product/reclaiming-marxs-capital). They discuss the book’s political and intellectual relevance to Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries, the work involved in translating it and securing its publication in Spain, the phenomenon of academics building their careers around their own clever "corrections" of Marx, and more. Later in the interview, Brendan has Andrew explain how the temporal single-system interpretation of Marx’s value theory eliminates the theory’s alleged internal inconsistencies.

In the current-events segment, the co-hosts discuss US Explodes with Protests over Police Murder of George Floyd (https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/mhieditorial/us-explodes-with-protests-over-police-murder-of-george-floyd.html). This new MHI editorial argues that the mass interracial uprising shows that the cops aren’t invincible, and that police rioting has radicalized a whole generation within a week.

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Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Brendan Cooney and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by Marxist-Humanist Initiative (MHI), but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of MHI.

We welcome and encourage listeners’ comments, posted on this episode’s page of the MHI website.

Please visit MHI’s website for information on philosophy & organization, Marxist-Humanist archives, and its online publication, “With Sober Senses”:
https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/

The second half of a two-part interview on the “value-form paradigm”—a Marx-inspired and market-focused strand of political economy. Some years ago, the noted value-form theorist Patrick Murray (http://copejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/patrick-murray-avoiding-bad-abstractions.pdf) responded to criticisms of the paradigm, leveled by Andrew (http://copejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/andrew-kliman-on-capitalism_s-historical-specificity-and-price-determination.pdf) and others in a published symposium. (http://copejournal.com/critique-of-political-economy-vol-1/) In this episode––guided by Brendan’s questioning, and for the first time anywhere––Andrew continues his reply to Murray.

The co-hosts discuss the source of profits, the quantity theory of money, and intra-firm trade. The discussion focuses on Andrew’s argument that the implications of the value-form paradigm contradict what Marx wrote about these issues, and on Murray’s attempts to explain away the apparent contradictions. Andrew explains why he finds Murray’s rebuttals to be unsuccessful.

The segment includes references to chapter 3 (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch03.htm) and chapter 5 (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch05.htm) of Capital, volume 1, and to Marx’s draft chapter, “Results of the Direct Production Process.” (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch01.htm)

In the current-events segment, the co-hosts respond to a recent “anti-neoliberal left” piece in Salon (https://www.salon.com/2020/05/09/you-dont-owe-joe-biden-anything-shaming-the-left-is-immoral--and-bad-politics/), in which Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla once again puts the political interests of “the left” ahead of the life-and-death struggle against Trumpist reaction.

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Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Brendan Cooney and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by Marxist-Humanist Initiative (MHI), but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of MHI.

We welcome and encourage listeners’ comments, posted on this episode’s page of the MHI website.

Please visit MHI’s website for information on philosophy & organization, Marxist-Humanist archives, and its online publication, “With Sober Senses”: https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/

Some years ago, Andrew participated in a published symposium (http://www.copejournal.com/critique-of-political-economy-vol-1/) on the “value-form paradigm”—a Marx-inspired and market-focused strand of political economy. Andrew (http://www.copejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/andrew-kliman-on-capitalism_s-historical-specificity-and-price-determination.pdf) and others criticized the value-form paradigm, and the noted value-form theorist Patrick Murray (http://www.copejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/patrick-murray-avoiding-bad-abstractions.pdf) responded to them.

In this episode (and a future one), Andrew replies to Murray’s paper—for the first time anywhere. He and Brendan discuss differences between Marx and value-form theory regarding how commodities’ values are determined and whether capitalism is essentially a monetary system. They also engage in a broader dialogue on the general features of the value-form paradigm and its political implications; some of that discussion focuses on how Marx’s critique of Proudhonism is relevant to the value-form paradigm.

The segment includes references to Marx’s Capital—chapter 1 (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm), chapter 2 (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch02.htm), and chapter 7 (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm) of volume 1, and chapter 1 of volume 2 (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1885-c2/ch01.htm#4)—and to Paul A. Samuelson’s famous paper, “Understanding the Marxian Notion of Exploitation.” (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2721055)

The current-events segment focuses again on the COVID-19 pandemic––especially Lysol Don’s latest epidemiological wisdom and Nazis storming Michigan’s Capitol building. Are there really “good people on both sides” of this lunacy?

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Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Brendan Cooney and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by Marxist-Humanist Initiative (MHI), but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of MHI.

We welcome and encourage listeners’ comments, posted on this episode’s page of the MHI website.

Please visit MHI’s website for information on philosophy & organization, Marxist-Humanist archives, and its online publication, “With Sober Senses”:
https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/

Brendan interviews Andrew about his just-published With Sober Senses article, “Ceaseless Self-Movement: Dunayevskaya’s Interpretation of the Dialectic of the Absolute.” (https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/philosophy-organization/ceaseless-self-movement-dunayevskayas-interpretation-of-the-dialectic-of-the-absolute.html) They discuss Hegel’s concept of “absolute negativity” and its importance to Marx’s and Dunayevskaya’s understanding of the process of revolutionary transformation. The discussion also highlights Dunayevskaya’s radical break from the tradition of "post-Marx Marxists," who held that the Hegelian dialectic culminates in a “synthesis,” a closed system that reconciles all contradiction. Brendan and Andrew then explore the claim that Dunayevskaya was misreading Hegel.

In this episode’s current-events segment, the co-hosts discuss the economic impact of the Coronavirus Crisis. Is $2 trillion of US government stimulus too little, or too much––or is this is wrong question?

* ~ * ~ * ~ *

Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Brendan Cooney and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by Marxist-Humanist Initiative (MHI), but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of MHI.

We welcome and encourage listeners’ comments, posted on this episode’s page of the MHI website.

Please visit MHI’s website for information on philosophy & organization, Marxist-Humanist archives, and its online publication, “With Sober Senses”:https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/

The co-hosts discuss the new prototype account for the distribution of “personal income” (https://www.bea.gov/data/special-topics/distribution-of-personal-income)—what share of income is obtained by the top 1%, the bottom 10%, and so on—unveiled earlier this month by the U.S. government agency that reports Gross Domestic Product statistics. Andrew thinks that this new “distributional national account” is likely to soon change the ways in which we discuss and think about income inequality; Brendan finds out why. They also discuss how the government’s conclusions, and its approach to measuring income inequality, differ from those of the “distributional national account” that Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman published a few years ago. How will Piketty and associates respond to the government’s new inequality database? And how will it affect redistributionist politics more generally?

In the episode’s current-events segment, the co-hosts discuss Donald Trump’s dangerous peddling of a miracle cure for COVID-19 (the coronavirus) and whether the behavior of this “very stable genius” should be normalized as a valid alternative (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-anthony-fauci-social-distancing-us-italy-face-the-nation/) to what “deep state” experts say—a “hope layperson’s standpoint” rather than a “medical, scientific standpoint.”

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Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Brendan Cooney and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by Marxist-Humanist Initiative (MHI), but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of MHI.

We welcome and encourage listeners’ comments, posted on this episode’s page of the MHI website.

Please visit MHI’s website for information on philosophy & organization, Marxist-Humanist archives, and its online publication, “With Sober Senses”:
https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/

In a previous episode of this podcast series (https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/episode-9-the-tankie-craze-resurgent-stalinism-among-youth), MHI organizational secretary Anne Jaclard discussed her relationships with former “Tankie” and “soft-Stalinist” youth who are now disillusioned with Stalinism and have reached out to MHI. The latest episode features two of these youth––Logan and James (last names withheld). They join Anne and the co-hosts to discuss what attracted them to Stalinism, their experiences, and why they became disillusioned with it. They also reflect on why Stalinism attracts other young people, how to combat it, and why they have turned toward Marxist-Humanism.

In this episode’s current-events segment, the co-hosts discuss the changed state of the Democratic Party primary race since South Carolina.

* ~ * ~ * ~ *

Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective. It is co-hosted by Brendan Cooney and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks. Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by Marxist-Humanist Initiative (MHI), but the views expressed by the co-hosts and guests of Radio Free Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of MHI.

We welcome and encourage listeners’ comments, posted on this episode’s page of the MHI website.

Please visit MHI’s website for information on philosophy & organization, Marxist-Humanist archives, and its online publication, “With Sober Senses”:
https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/