Marx Talks

At the height of the Great Depression, eviction was a constant threat for working-class people. By 1932 the unemployment rate had reached 29 percent, with no sign of economic recovery on the horizon. Abandoned by the system, workers organised to resist eviction and fight for tenant protection. The Communist Party-led Unemployed Workers' Movement showed the way, organising direct militant direct ac...

Marxism 2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marxism 2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1917, the Russian Bolshevik Party led millions of workers and peasants in overthrowing the capitalist state and establishing soviet power. This session will explore how a party which had the politics, experience and organisation necessary to argue to and win the leadership of a revolutionary working-class movement was built. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

First articulated in the 1980s, intersectionality has its origins in legal theory. It has since been taken up by progressives and others, ostensibly as a way to integrate different forms of oppression into political theory and practice. But like most buzzwords, intersectionality means different things to different people. This session will look at whether it adds anything new to the fight against...

Marxism 2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the turn of the 20th century, Germany was one of the world's most advanced capitalist countries, yet also one of the youngest. Economic and military competition between Germany and the established empires of Britain and France helped to foster a crisis in the global system which would eventually break out into WWI. It also drove the organisation and radicalisation of the German working class, w...

Is it even possible to overthrow capitalism today? It’s often argued that workers are too apathetic or disorganised, that the capitalist state is too powerful, the media too influential. Revolutions might happen in countries with extreme poverty and repressive governments, but wealthy liberal democracies like the US and Australia are too stable to be challenged. Accepting arguments like these mean...

From below-inflation wage 'rises' to the end of progressive income tax, from privatisation of public housing to further restrictions on the right to strike- the ALP and the Australian capitalist class today in lock-step attacking workers. How do we explain Labor's appalling record, and what can activists and workers do to build resistance to a right wing Labor government? Hosted on Acast. See acas...

Issues of gender and sexuality—whether it be abortion rights, marriage or who uses what bathroom—have become a particular focus of the Christian right both here and in the United States in recent years. To defend the important gains that have been made in these areas over the last few decades, it is essential for the left to effectively confront and defeat the right. This session will look at how...

Marxism 2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Addressing the Institute of Public Affairs earlier this year, Peter Dutton proclaimed “the time has come for a sensible and sober conversation on nuclear power in Australia.” With AUKUS, Australia is experiencing the most serious proposal for expanded domestic nuclear technology in decades. It’s no coincidence this comes at a time of increasing imperialist tensions between the US and China. The nu...

The Wall Street crash of 1929 was a watershed moment. It not only plunged millions of workers into poverty but had a dramatic economic and political impact on world capitalism. In its wake, major economies embraced protectionism and state intervention and turned away from the "free" market. This laid the basis for a renewed intensification of international and domestic political tensions on everyt...

Israel’s brutal war on the Palestinians has strengthened the already growing interest amongst left wing people in the interconnections between colonialism, imperialism and capitalism in the Middle East and beyond. For many, this has meant an engagement with settler colonial theory. However, settler colonial theory is not a useful guide to understanding colonialism, imperialism and racism in today’...

Today China and the US are locked in a strategic conflict for global dominance. However, it was the US that helped transform China into the economic powerhouse that now challenges American hegemony. How did the US-China conflict emerge? And what does it tell us about the contradictions of global capitalism in the 21st century? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Insurrection is a term that rarely enters debates on the left today. But revolutionary Marxists have long insisted that the capitalist state must be consciously dismantled if workers are going to overthrow the capitalist class and build socialism. This session will explain why socialist revolution necessitates insurrection, what it would look like and how socialists can organise for it. Hosted on...

The Syrian revolution was part of the Arab Spring, a revolutionary wave across North Africa and the Middle East in 2011. The revolution began with demonstrations demanding the overthrow of the Assad regime. Self-organisation flourished in local coordinating committees and Friday protests. Assad’s regime unleashed brutal repression: sarin gas, barrel bombs, and widespread arrests and torture of pol...

In most of the world, Stalinist states have long since disintegrated. Many of the Communist parties that supported them have likewise collapsed. But even where organised Stalinism appears to have vanished, its ideological legacy lives on. As in every oppressive state, the Stalinist bureaucracy had to produce an ideology that justified its existence. We are used to the rulers of free market capital...

There are few historical figures who have been subject to as much abuse as Leon Trotsky. In Stalin's Soviet Union he was slandered as a Nazi collaborator or agent of Western imperialism. Winston Churchill, on the other hand, labelled him the “ogre of Europe” for fighting to extend socialist revolution across the continent. The ire that Trotsky has provoked in defenders of the status-quo stems from...

The COVID pandemic, economic crisis and climate catastrophe have all exposed the continued and seeming irresolvable divide between the first and third worlds. To many, this divide can be explained as a simple case of rich countries getting rich off the back of poor ones. This can find echoes in the left in concepts like 'unequal exchange' and the 'labour aristocracy', which argue that first world...

Latin American politics is marked by polarization. The new left government in Chile has suffered a series of defeats from a revived right wing. Lula has been re elected in Brazil in a rejection of the far-right leader Bolsonaro but remains committed to the same neoliberal economics as his predecessor. Argentina has seen the rise of a new far-right party as the centre-left struggles with skyrocketi...

Australia is one of the most expensive places to live in the world. Data shows that the cost of housing has increased 412% over the past 25 years. After an endless construction boom, housing is more unaffordable than ever, mortgage and rental stress have increased and homelessness is on the rise. How did it come to this? This talk will explain the market failure at the heart of the housing crisis....

For Marxists, class is about more than the divide between rich and poor. Class plays a fundamental role in determining what gets made, how we live, the ideas that dominate society, and even the ways oppression is enforced. Find out what class really is, how it functions, and how recognising the divide between the working class and the capitalist class is the starting point for socialist politics....

Marxism 2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Revolutionary Socialist League is a Marxist organisation, founded in Kenya in 2018 by radicals who rejected the pro-China politics of the Communist Party of Kenya. This session will feature RSL activists who will outline their struggle to build an internationalist and socialist left in Africa. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.