Marx is often accused of what has been called a Promethean vision of human social organisation, namely that human beings, using their superior brains, knowledge and technical prowess, can and should impose their will on the rest of the planet or what is called ‘nature’ – for better or worse.
On the 200th anniversary of his birth, Engels too must be saved from the same charge.Actually, Engels was well ahead of Marx (yet again) in connecting the destruction and damage to the environment that industrialisation was causing.
Engels’ major work (written with Marx’s help), The Dialectics of Nature, written in the years up to 1883, just after Marx’s death, is often subject to attack as extending Marx’s materialist conception of history as applied to humans, into nature in a non-Marxist way. And yet, in his book, Engels could not be clearer on the dialectical relation between humans and nature. it's time to revise the revisionists.
Engels and Ecology The Urban Political Ecology of Friedrich Engels - Camilla Royle
This paper takes the 200th anniversary of Engels’s birth in November 1820 to rethink his contribution to what we might today call urban political ecology. Marxist thinkers within critical environmental geography, have long argued for a focus on the natural processes that constitute the urban environment, demonstrating how the urban is shaped by both social and ecological processes. Their approach is rooted in a dialectical rather than a mechanistic materialism. While some have cited Engels as an early advocate of these views, others – such as Neil Smith in Uneven Development – have been more critical of his views on nature, seeing them as representing a dualist approach alien to Marx’s understanding. This paper will address these debates by highlighting Engels’s work on housing conditions, air and water pollution as well as his writings on infectious disease pandemics of the time such as typhus and cholera. It will show how Engels’s approach to public health and his accusations of “social murder” perpetuated by the ruling class predates the analysis of structural violence developed by critical theorists of global health over a century later. It will suggest that Engels’s understanding of how capitalist social relations produced an urban environment detrimental to workers aligns with Marx’s views.
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More Episodes
May 19, 2021
Organizing for Power: Building a 21st Century Labor Movement in Boston
Join Avi Chomsky and Steve Stiffler as they discuss their new book, Organizing for Power, with Eric Loomis.
Boston 's economy has become defined by a disconcerting trend that has intensified throughout much of the United States since the 2008 recession. Economic growth now delivers remarkably few benefits to large sectors of the working class -- a phenomenon that is particularly severe for immigrants, people of color, and women. Organizing for Power explores this nation-wide phenomenon of "unshared growth" by focusing on Boston, a city that is famously liberal, relatively wealthy, and increasingly difficult for working people (who service the city 's needs) to actually live in.
Organizing for Power is the only comprehensive analysis of labor and popular mobilizing in Boston today, the volume contributes to a growing body of academic and popular literature that examines urban America, racial and economic inequality, labor and immigration, and the right-wing assault on working people.
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Speakers:
Steve Striffler is the Director of the Labor Resource Center at UMass Boston and author of Solidarity: Latin America and the US Left in the Era of Human Rights.
Aviva Chomsky is Professor of History and Coordinator of Latin American Studies at Salem State University in Massachusetts. She is the author of numerous books; and has been active in Latin America solidarity and immigrants’ rights movements for several decades.
Erik Loomis is associate professor of history at the University of Rhode Island. His latest book is A History of America in Ten Strikes, published by The New Press in 2018.
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Order a copy of Organizing for Power: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1559-organizing-for-power
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Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/hs6WMuzwmzA
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May 20, 2021
Revolutions Book Launch with Michael Löwy
Join Michael Löwy, Marianela D’Aprile, and Aline Klein for a multi-media discussion of Löwy’s new book, Revolutions.
Michael Löwy’s Revolutions presents a startling visual documentation of a wide range of seminal revolutionary events, from the Paris Commune of 1872 through to the Zapatista uprising of the mid-1990s. The immediacy and dynamism of the book’s images tells the story of these upheavals in a way that texts rarely can, offering a rare glimpse of these complex and messy events and the real human beings who drove them.
This celebration of the book’s release will showcase dozens of these stirring photos as the participants discuss what the images tell us about their moments, and how today’s socialist movement can draw lessons from the revolutionary struggles of the past.
Get a copy of Revolutions here: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1476-revolutions
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Speakers:
Marianela D’Aprile is a writer in Chicago. She is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America’s National Political Committee.
Aline Klein is on the editorial board of Jacobin Brasil and is an activist in the Party for Socialism and Freedom (PSOL).
Michael Löwy is emeritus research director at the CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research). He is the author of numerous books, including Revolutions; On Changing the World; the Politics of Combined and Uneven Development; and the War of the Gods: Religion and Politics in Latin America; Fire Alarm: Reading Walter Benjamin’s “On the Concept of History.”
Todd Chretien (moderator) is an organizer, author, translator, and high school Spanish teacher. He has contributed to several books, including Socialist Strategy and Electoral Politics, and is editor of Eyewitnesses to the Russian Revolution.
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Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/-gdjTK7V2f0
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May 21, 2021
The Global Fight for Abortion Rights: Lessons from Argentina and Ireland
Join us for a conversation about the global struggle for abortion rights featuring lessons from Argentina and Ireland.
In recent years, global movements for abortion rights have made incredible breakthroughs. In late 2020, feminists in Argentina won their decades-long fight to legalize abortion. In 2018, Ireland’s victorious movement to repeal the 8th amendment led to a historic referendum vote that marked an enormous shift in public support for safe, legal abortion.
In the decades following the landmark 1973 Roe V. Wade decision, the abortion rights movement in the United States has endured a wave of setbacks and sustained conservative backlash. Following years of clinic closures and restrictive state laws, an estimated 11 million people seeking abortion in the US now live more than one hour’s drive from an abortion clinic. Abortion activists fear that the political landscape is heading toward a “post-Roe America”.
What lessons can we learn from the global struggle to inspire us to build a fighting movement in the U.S. to defend Roe and assure abortion access to all who need one?
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Speakers:
Clare Daly is an independent member of the European Parliament elected from Dublin Ireland, former member of the Irish Parliament and mover of multiple pieces of legislation for Abortion Rights in Ireland, and long standing activist on the issue.
Sarah Leonard is the publisher of Lux, and a member of its editorial collective. She is a contributing editor to Dissent and The Nation.
Camila Valle is an editor, translator, and writer in New York. She is a member of NYC for Abortion Rights.
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This event is being sponsored by Lux Magazine, Chicago for Abortion Rights, Chicago Abortion Fund, Chicago DSA Socialist Feminist Working Group and Haymarket Books.
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/q-d84uG_i7E
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May 24, 2021
America on Fire w/ Elizabeth Hinton & Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Join Elizabeth Hinton and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor for a conversation on themes from Hinton's new book, America on Fire.
From one of our top historians, American on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s is a groundbreaking story of policing and “riots” that shatters our understanding of the post–civil rights era.
What began in spring 2020 as local protests in response to the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police quickly exploded into a massive nationwide movement. Millions of mostly young people defiantly flooded into the nation’s streets, demanding an end to police brutality and to the broader, systemic repression of Black people and other people of color. To many observers, the protests appeared to be without precedent in their scale and persistence. Yet, as the acclaimed historian Elizabeth Hinton demonstrates in America on Fire, the events of 2020 had clear precursors—and any attempt to understand our current crisis requires a reckoning with the recent past.
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Elizabeth Hinton is associate professor of history and African American studies at Yale University and a professor of law at Yale Law School. The author of America on Fire and From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime, she lives in New Haven, Connecticut.
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor writes and speaks on Black politics, social movements, and racial inequality in the United States. She is author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation and editor of How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective. Her third book, Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership, published in 2019 by University of North Carolina Press, was a finalist for a National Book Award for nonfiction, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for History.
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To support our partnering indie bookstore, pre-order your signed copy here: https://www.midtownscholar.com/preorders/america-on-fire-signed
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This event is co-sponsored by Liveright Publishing, Midtown Scholar Bookstore and Haymarket Books.
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/p3njQGGxK_g
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May 25, 2021
Border Abolition Now w/ Harsha Walia, Gargi Bhattacharyya, & Maya Goodfellow
Harsha Walia, Gargi Bhattacharyya and Maya Goodfellow discuss the global migration crisis, racial capitalism, and the ascendant far-right.
How do borders divide the international working class and consolidate imperial, capitalist, and racist rule?
Amidst a global pandemic, governments around the world have accelerated border closings, imposed more barriers to asylum seekers, and expanded immigrant detention. In Border and Rule: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism, Harsha Walia disrupts easy explanations for the migrant and refugee crises, instead showing them to be the inevitable outcomes of conquest, capitalist globalization, and climate change generating mass dispossession worldwide.
Join Harsha Walia, Maya Goodfellow and Gargi Bhattacharyya for a discussion about this timely book.
UK readers, purchase Border and Rule here: https://housmans.com/product/border-and-rule-global-migration-capitalism-and-the-rise-of-racist-nationalism/
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Speakers:
Gargi Bhattacharyya is one of the UK's leading scholars on race and capitalism. She is the author of Rethinking Racial Capitalism (2018), Dangerous Brown Men (2008), Traffick (2005) and co-author of Empire's Endgame (2020).
Harsha Walia is the award-winning author of Undoing Border Imperialism (2013) and, most recently, Border and Rule. Trained in the law, she is a community organizer and campaigner in migrant justice, anti-capitalist, feminist, and anti-imperialist movements, including No One Is Illegal and Women’s Memorial March Committee.
Maya Goodfellow is a Research Fellow at SPERI, University of Sheffield. She is also a regular broadcast commentator and writer, having written for the New York Times and the Guardian, among others. Maya is the author of Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became Scapegoats (2020).
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This event is sponsored by Housmans Bookshop and Haymarket Books.
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/dSETYvreYZI
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May 26, 2021
Black Lives Matter at School: Iowa Edition
Education activists Lisa Covington, Jesse Hagopian, Denisha Jones, Lucket Kiche, and Matè Muhammad, in conversation about the struggle against systemic racism in schools, how we can win real educational justice and other lessons from Black Lives Matter at School organizing in Iowa and beyond.
Order your copy of Black Lives Matter at School: An Uprising for Educational Justice from Prairie Lights Bookstore here: https://www.prairielightsbooks.com/book/9781642592702
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Speakers:
Matè Muhammad is an activist, organizer and cultural worker from Des Moines, IA. Matè is a passionate writer, graffiti artist and musician and began his activism in 2014 after the tragic police murder of Michael Brown. In 2019 Matè created @theblackartivist - a revolutionary creative vehicle - and in 2020 Matè co-founded the Des Moines Black Liberation Movement of which he is currently the Field Operations Director.
Lucket Kiche (He/They) is a Black, Queer, Non-Binary Transman teaching in the Iowa City Community School District. Born in Nairobi, Kenya, he came to Iowa City as an infant and has yet to leave. He spends time serving as an At-Large Board member for Iowa City Pride. As an educator, Lucket pushes and advocates for the equitable treatment of all minorities and strives to teach about as many intersectionalities that time will allow. They also continue to remind others that we can no longer be complacent with a system that has superficial protections for marginalized people.
Denisha Jones is a member of the national Black Lives Matter at School steering committee and Director of the Art of Teaching, graduate teacher education program, at Sarah Lawrence College. She is the co-editor of Black Lives Matter at School.
Jesse Hagopian is a member of the national Black Lives Matter at School steering committee and teaches Ethnic Studies at Seattle’s Garfield High School. He is the co-editor of Black Lives Matter at School, an editor for Rethinking Schools magazine and is a co-editor of Teaching for Black Lives.
Lisa Covington, M.A. is a youth development professional, curriculum developer and PhD Candidate at The University of Iowa studying Sociology of Education, Digital Humanities and African American Studies. In 2020, Lisa received the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Award from the Iowa Department of Human Rights. As the Director of the Ethnic Studies Leadership Academy in Iowa City, Lisa works with Sankofa Outreach Connection to provide an educational leadership program for African American girls to learn Black history and advocacy strategies through developing competencies in digital humanities, social sciences and the arts. Lisa also works with teachers across the state through Black Lives Matter at School-Iowa.
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This event is sponsored by Prairie Lights Bookstore, Black Lives Matter at School-Iowa and Haymarket Books.
Watch the live event recording: https://youtu.be/QIALE2cLpb0
Buy books from Haymarket: www.haymarketbooks.org
Follow us on Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/haymarketbooks
