Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library

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Sunday July 27th, 2008
2:00 PM
May 68: the return of the working class after 40 years of counter-revolution

May 68, the student riots. Ah, the idealistic 60s, all that talk about class struggle and revolution - it's all a bit out of date now, no? No: May 68 in France was not a student riot. The brutal repression handed out to the students in the Latin Quarter was just the spark that lit a far wider movement a movement of the working class, the most massive unplanned general strike in history. It was an event of historic importance. For over four decades the international working class had been dragged through the depths of defeat and counter-revolution as the bourgeoisie attempted to wipe out all remnants of the international revolutionary wave which shook the world in the wake of October 1917 in Russia. Stalinism, fascism, the 'war for democracy' of 1939-45, the cold war between the eastern and western imperialist blocs, the propaganda about the alleged integration of the working class into 'consumer society' All these were the difference faces of that counter-revolution.
Location: NPML 6501 Telegraph Ave. Oakland, CA 94609

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Sunday July 27th, 2008
11:00 AM
Special Summer Seminar I: 4 lectures on the Grundrisse

Special Summer Seminar I: 4 lectures on the Grundrisse* Facilitated by Bruno Gulli, Guest Lecturer & Visiting Scholar, Institute for the Critical Study of Society Session I: Sunday, July 27th - 11am to 1pm Session II: Tuesday, July 29th 7pm to 9pm Session III: Thursday, July 31st 7pm to 9pm Session IV: Sunday, August 2nd at 11am to 1pm The *Grundrisse ("Outlines") or "Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen Ökonomie"* (*Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy*) is Marx's voluminous manuscript, completed in *1858*, that is generally seen as the preparatory "groundwork" for Das Kapital. It also stands alone as a powerful and essential work of Marxist theory, illuminating, elaborating and dialectically clarifying the key ideas of Marx. Coming out of the period of Marx's most intense, in-depth scholarship of economics and political philosophy, this series of seven notebooks, develops key Marxist concepts including production, distribution, exchange; value, money & commodities; labor, capital & surplus value; machinery and automation; the transformation problem; pre-capitalist forms of socialorganization, and the preconditions for revolution. With the guidance of Bruno Gulli, we will look at some of the most important sections of this 900 page opus, starting from the Introduction, and traversing through to the so-called Fragment on Machinery towards the end of it. We will combine close reading with dialogue, discussion and debate, cultivating both philosophical rigour and poetic insight as we engage dialogically and analytically with this deep, rich and rewarding text. We will cross-reference Capital and other texts from time to time as necessary. The Institute invites students, scholars, thinkers, activists of all stripes and persuasions to join us in this rare opportunity for a profound and stimulating engagement with this foundational work of Marxism. Note: Particpants should have some prior knowledge Marxism. *Bruno Gulli,* scholar-in-residence, the author of *Labor of Fire: The Ontology of Labor between Economy and Culture,* is known for his ground-breaking scholarship on the *Grundrisse* and his pioneering work on the reconceptualization of art and labor.
Location: NPML 6501 Telegraph Ave. Oakland, CA 94609

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Saturday August 2nd, 2008
10:00 AM
Overcoming Unscientific Concepts of 'Working Class

The Communist Party USA (Oakland/Berkeley) invites you to the Political Affairs Readers Group. Political Affairs Readers Group Gathers the First Saturday of Each Month from 10:00 to Noon at the Niebyl-Proctor Library. We will discuss the article by Erwin Marquit entitled: “Overcoming Unscientific Concepts of 'Working Class'” Available in the April/May 2008 edition of Political Affairs. A copy of the article is available on-line at http://politicalaffairs.net/article/view/6687/1/325/
Location: NPML 6501 Telegraph Ave. Oakland, CA 94609

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Saturday August 9th, 2008
1:00 PM
What Can Be Learned From Karl Marx

Please note new date. What Can Be Learned From Karl Marx: 2008-08-02 1:00 PM Ruthless Criticism invites you to a discussion meeting on the topic: What Can Be Learned From Karl Marx Speaker: Frank Winter, editor of Gegenstandpunkt Capitalism, which Marx analyzed and criticized in the phase of its emergence, has changed since his day in this way and that, but in nothing really essential: the accumulation of money is still the dominant purpose of work; working people are still a cost factor, thus the negative variable of the company’s goal; the development of the productive power of labor, the greatest source of material wealth, still takes place exclusively to save money on wages and lay off employees -- thus making workers poorer. Because of this reality, and only because of this, the long-ago faded thinker deserves to be remembered. His books help to explain economic reality today. This talk will demonstrate this. It offers unusual thoughts about use value and exchange value, concrete and abstract labor, money and benefit, work and wealth – paired together, terms that our modern world can no longer distinguish, when they really contain the hardest opposites.
Location: NPML 6501 Telegraph Ave. Oakland, CA 94609

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