The goal of the fifth session of Marxism 101 is to help participants understand how Marxist political economy and a theory of history motivates, is in dialogue, or constructive debate with contemporary local movements/revolutionary projects.
ASSIGNED MATERIALS
- Just Transition Zine
- Black Land and Liberation Initiative [Video]
- Ban the Box in Employment: A Grassroots History
- The Prison Industrial Complex and the Global Economy
STUDY QUESTIONS
- How is an analysis or critique of capitalist political economy taken up in these study materials, particularly related to the organization or social movements to which they refer?
- What are the different social forces identified in these pieces and how are they in contention with one another? What is the historical terrain (political, economic, etc.) on which these struggles are happening? What social, political, and economic changes are a result of the these contests over power?
- What strategies are employed by social forces (on either side of the power dynamic) are named or explored in these pieces? Are there any contradictions you are able to explore between what people “hope will happen “and what people “think will happen”?
- What kinds of things do these pieces make you think about any local organizing work that you do?
LESSON
Irma Salvatierra Shauf-Bajar (GABRIELA USA), Linda Evans (All of Us or None), Jill Shenker (National Domestic Workers Alliance) and Gopal Dayaneni (Movement Generation) discuss anti-capitalist theory and practice in grassroots organizing work.
SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS