Radio Free Humanity: The Marxist-Humanist Podcast

Brendan and Andrew take a new look at the extensive “notes” that Raya Dunayevskaya made (https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/RD-on-Coolidge.pdf) in preparation for a May 1946 Workers Party debate with “David Coolidge” (Ernest Rice McKinney) on the “Negro Question.” Coolidge held that class oppression is “primary” while racial oppression is “secondary”––a view that...

Brendan and Andrew take a new look at Raya Dunayevskaya’s 1944 polemic, “A Restatement of Some Fundamentals of Marxism Against Carter’s Vulgarization.” (https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/a-restatement-of-some-fundamentals-of-marxism-against-carters-vulgarization-2) They explore its relevance to vulgarizations of Marxism that we confront today, which identify surface manifestations of capit...

Brendan interviews Andrew about his role in the development of the temporal single-system interpretation of Karl Marx’s value theory (TSSI). The interview focuses especially on Andrew’s personal experiences during the early years. In response to charges that Marx’s value theory and falling-rate-of-profit theory are logically invalid––leveled with increasing stridency in the late 1970s and early 19...

Brendan and Andrew welcome back (https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/episode-19-spanish-edition-of-reclaiming-marxs-capital-interview-with-translator) Guillem Murcia López, a translator of the Spanish edition (https://www.elviejotopo.com/libro/reivindicando-el-capital-de-marx/) of Reclaiming Marx’s “Capital.” They discuss a forthcoming Spanish book collection that defends various dimensions...

The co-hosts discuss a Yale University colloquium talk, “Use-Value and Exchange-Value … and Value,” that Andrew delivered on October 7. Much of the discussion is about common misconceptions regarding the concepts and the relations among them. The co-hosts also discuss how the key opposition in Marx’s theory––between use-value and value––differs from the opposition between use-value and exchange-va...

The co-hosts and Anne Jaclard interview Dr. Pauline Muchina, author of “Please Aid Kenyan Children & Women Facing COVID-19, Floods, Locusts.” (https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/international-news/please-aid-kenyan-children-women-facing-covid-19-floods-locust.html) Although Kenya is much poorer than the United States, and corruption remains rampant there, the death rate from COVID-19 in Ken...

Jade Saab, who previously appeared on the podcast to discuss “The Uprising in Lebanon,” (https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/episode-6-the-uprising-in-lebanon) returns to provide an update in the wake of the explosion in August that devastated Beirut and triggered the resignation of Lebanon’s government. He and the co-hosts discuss how the country’s protest movement has responded to these an...

Raya Dunayevskaya’s pamphlet, “American Civilization on Trial: Black Masses as Vanguard” (ACOT) (http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/American-Civilization-on-Trial.pdf) argues that the pivotal moments of forward movement in the US have always been those moments when white working people took their lead from the black masses and coalesced with them. When some young C...

Brendan and Andrew continue their dialogue with Patrick Murray, the noted value-form theorist. (The value-form paradigm is a Marx-inspired strand of political economy that focuses on the market.) Patrick responds to Andrew’s arguments that Marx’s views on the origin of profit, intra-firm trade, and the quantity theory of money presuppose that commodities’ prices are determined before they are sold...

Brendan and Andrew welcome Patrick Murray, the noted value-form theorist, onto the podcast. (The value-form paradigm is a Marx-inspired strand of political economy that focuses on the market.) Patrick responds to the recent, two-episode RFH discussion––“The Value-Form Paradigm vs. Marx’s ‘Capital’”––and enters into extended dialogue with the co-hosts. Much of the discussion focuses on whether, in...

Brendan and Andrew interview Lesley Rimmel (https://history.okstate.edu/people/emeriti), a professor emerita of history at Oklahoma State University who specializes in the history of Russia under Stalin. Rimmel pushes back against the efforts by Grover Furr––a Maoist writer newly popular among pro-Stalinist (“tankie”) youth––to “normalize” and defend Stalin. She and the co-hosts discuss Stalin’s d...

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 anyw...

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 experimentat...

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 histor...

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 the...

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 Spai...

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...

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...

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...

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 acco...

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...

Brendan interviews Andrew about his recent study “Wealth Inequality in the U.S.: Its Level, Trend, and Significance” (https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/economics/wealth-inequality-in-the-u-s-its-level-trend-and-significance.html). They discuss differences between what the wealthy own and what working people own––the massive difference in the amount, but also how the “wealth” of the working...

The co-hosts interview Adam Plante, a young New York City education activist and Marxist-Humanist thinker, about his work on liberal democracy. With respect to the current moment, they discuss such topics as Plante’s view that the rise of Trump and other authoritarian strongmen is a threat specifically to socialist values; why the threat of Trumpism has been minimized; Plante’s contention that the...

Brendan and Andrew discuss Karl Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Program (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/gotha/), written in 1875 to oppose the merger of two German socialist parties—one of which was supposedly Marxist—and the program of the new united party. The discussion focuses largely on the Critique’s commentary on the nature of a communist society, the transformation from one...

Anne Jaclard, MHI’s organizational secretary and a veteran of the left ever since the 1960s, joins Brendan and Andrew to discuss and offer follow-up reflections on “Both Times as Tragedy: the Resurgence of Stalinism among Today’s ‘Left’ Youth,” (https://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/philosophy-organization/video-mhi-panels-at-left-forum-conference-confronting-right-left-authoritarianism-confro...