Auxiliary Statements

DISCORD: discord.gg/bJtAEbFS LINKTREE: linktr.ee/AuxiliaryStatementsPodcast This week we learned all about the global, existential, horrifying threat of avian flus and their relationship to the capitalist mode of production. Then we learned all about the Chinese state. Then we had a breakdown. This is also now a xXstraightXedgeXx vegan podcast now. Reading: Social Contagion (2021) by Chuang https:...

DISCORD: discord.gg/bJtAEbFS LINKTREE: linktr.ee/AuxiliaryStatementsPodcast Well folks, the lads finally did it. They finished End Notes #1. And all it took was their sanity. Reading, Endnotes 1 (2008) endnotes.org.uk/issues/1

DISCORD: discord.gg/bJtAEbFS LINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/AuxiliaryStatementsPodcast Reading, Endnotes 1 (2008) - Intro and Chapter 1 https://endnotes.org.uk/issues/1

DISCORD: https://discord.gg/JGGu5MGN LINKTREE: linktr.ee/AuxiliaryStatementsPodcast Well well well, look who it is, back again. You! The dear listener. God bless you. This week the lads attempt to untangle the mess of ideas that always seem to assert themselves under the banner of being 'anti work.' What does that mean? Is it viable as a movement? Whether it's Tang ping or r/antiwork, we're here t...

This week Dan & Jack return from their COVID hiatus to finish up Perry Anderson's C L A S S I C text and talk feudalism. Specifically, what was it, where did it come from, how did it differ from place to place and what caused its seemingly inevitable crisis and collapse. Reading - Part 2 - ''Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism'' (1974) by Perry Anderson

DISCORD: discord.gg/bJtAEbFS LINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/AuxiliaryStatementsPodcast Following up on their interview with June Reith a few weeks back, Jack and Dan decided for this show to take her advice and read Designing Freedom by business consultant and cybernetician Stafford Beer. First delivered as a series of radio lectures in 1973, designing freedom is a scathing critique of the principles...

This week's art is by Tom: https://www.instagram.com/thomasagreenwood/ Very special episode this week as we sat down with June Reith of General Intellect Unit to discuss systems theory, burning our Kautsky and left organization tactics! Reading: 'The Tree of Knowledge' by Maturana and Varela DISCORD: discord.gg/Ym8Bwmaz LINKTREE: linktr.ee/AuxiliaryStatementsPodcast

DISCORD: https://discord.gg/Ym8Bwmaz LINKTREE: https://linktr.ee/AuxiliaryStatementsPodcast This week Jack and Dan cover the first half of Anderson’s classic book on the transition to feudalism. They cover the rise of the slave mode of production in Antiquity from its initial emergence as a solution to class struggle in Greece to its peak during thee Roman Empire. Whilst this mode of production al...

Alright, we're finally drawing some conclusions about the whole 'MILITANCY' thing. Universal conscription sounds scary...but what if it wasn't? Reading: Repression Breeds Resistance: The Black Liberation Army and the Radical Legacy of the Black Panther Party by Akinyele Umoja from "Setting Sights" (Scott Crow) Rittenhouse and white backlash by Daniel Lazare https://weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1373/r...

DISCORD: https://discord.gg/bJtAEbFS Is there even still a working class to hang our hopes and dreams on? What is revolutionary agency? Who has it? Is tea even good? All these questions answered today AND MORE as we dive back into longtime friend of the show Mike Davis. Plus, a special listener comment! Reading: Old Gods. New Enigmas (2018) by Mike Davis

Today the fellas have a gander at some Irish history and open up a wider discussion on revolutionary agency, marxism & nationalism and the nature of the Irish working class. Reading: Rethinking national marxism: James Connolly and ‘Celtic Communism’ (2003) by David Lloyd

Its the final instalment of the Revolutionary Strategy reading series! Jack and Dan finish the book and use Mike Macnair’s 14 point outline of his strategic outlook as a frame for their discussion. Drawing on the contents of the book as a whole, and particularly the final three chapters, the lads outline the contents of the Kautskyism Plus strategy presented by Macnair. Macnair is broadly in align...

Alright FINE we'll stop talking about Brenner and Meiksins-Wood for a minute, but ONLY A MINUTE. Today our fine chunky chaps talk world systems theory in an effort to broaden their horizons and understand how class operates on a systemic level. Or something like that. Reading: The Rise and Future Demise of the World Capitalist System: Concepts for Comparative Analysis (1974) by Immanuel Wallerstei...

On this weeks show Jack and Dan read two essays written by C. L. R. James. James analyses the rise and historic significance of Nazi fascism from a Marxist perspective. He makes the case for seeing Nazism, not as a unique political and economic system in contrast to a broader European political economy, but instead reads it as an outgrowth and extension of broader capitalist society. German fascis...

This week we decide once and for all just what the left is and who we should be excluding!! Just kidding, but we do talk the problem of left unity. You've got to draw a line somewhere. Also up for discussion is the question of how to relate to our nation's various imperial wars and the international nature of the working class. Woo hoo! Reading: Revolutionary Strategy: Marxism and the challenge of...

Whilst waiting for their guests to arrive Jack and Dan sit down for a chat about their podcasting journey so far. One year in, have they learnt anything. The lads talk Corbyn and Sanders and tease out the extent of their ongoing relationship with the radical Social Democratic politics of the kindly grandads of the parliamentary anglophone left. Jack and Dan talk about the somewhat disparate topics...

Well folks with strikes in the air in the United States your shimmering podcast hosts dive into Rosa Luxemburg's classic study of 1905 Russia and the mass strike as a strategy for revolution. McNair calls Luxemburg part of the left tradition, but Dan and Jack separate the wheat from the chaff and figure out just what it is about Luxemburg that makes her part of the 'left' tendency, Reading: The Ma...

This week we decided it was about time to have a gander at some history. Turns out, history is pretty brutal. Reading: Chapter 1 "Lust for Gold, Lust for Silver" from The Open Veins of Latin America (1971) by Eduardo Galeano.

The long awaited "baseball episode" is finally here, folks, as today we're joined by Bobby Wagner of the socialist baseball podcast Tipping Pitches. Today we talk the looming deadline for the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the players in the MLB and the owners of the teams, the exploitation of minor leaguers and why the Giants are bad. Huge thanks again to Bobby! Go check out his show! An...

Following on from last weeks discussion of Hal Draper's strategy of the Marxist centre, Jack and Dan consult another canonical text of contemporary Marxism this week; Mike Macnair’s Revolutionary Strategy. With an emphasis on the Second International, and the German SPD more specificity, Macnair outlines the differences in strategy that defined the key debates within turn of the century Marxism. W...

This week the lads once again humble themselves at the alter of the ever apposite font of revolutionary wisdom; Hal draper. This time Jack and Dan explore the ins and outs of the sect, that inescapable nadir of left political organisation. What is a sect, why do they come about, are they inescapable, and what is their historical impact and legacy? The sect, it turns out, is not the way to build an...

Boy revolutions can be a nasty business, eh? Especially that French one. It was kind of a pain in the neck, but once it was over it was a weight off of a lot of people's shoulders, am I right? This week rotund podcast hosts Dan and Jack take a look at Marx's writings on the French Revolution in an effort to understand what political revolutions can and cannot accomplish. Is there ever a right time...

All good things must come to an end...no we don't mean our old friend JFK (or RFK for that matter) we mean the time has come to put The Devil's Chessboard to rest. This is our final episode on David Talbot's classic tome and it's left us with some questions: what was the class composition of the fellas that killed JFK? what place does this type of crankery have in socialism? where have all our bea...

Alright here it is friends, the episode where we solve the JFK assassination. Not much else to say. Think we solved this one forever. Not that complicated tbh. This was recorded in a marathon podcasting session and next week's episode will be the fourth and final part on our series on The Devil's Chessboard. But don't worry, we'll be back with more crankery sometime down the line. We barely even t...

This week, we sat down to watch BBC's Cuba! Africa! Revolution!, a documentary all about Cuba's internationalist adventures in the African continent. And tell you what, we here at Auxiliary Statements are not above admitting this is the first time we've been exposed to this absolutely kick ass era of history. Turns out Cuba was involved not only in helping out Congolese freedom fighters after frie...