The following readings are supposed to give you an idea of the perspective that our caucus is united around as well as some brief notes on strategy, structure, and procedure.

Key:

•   + Highly recommended
•   – Recommended

Socialist Politics

• + Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: [Manifesto Excerpt]: Ten Points
• + Karl Marx: Critique of the Gotha ProgrammeA brief tour of Marx’s critique of the 1870s German socialist movement.
• + Frederick Engels: Socialism: Utopian and ScientificAn accessible overview of the different kinds of socialism and goals of socialist politics.
• – Karl Kautsky: Class Struggle
  • + Chapters 1-3
  • – Chapters 4-5
  • A plainly written and straightforward overview of Marxism’s political and economic aspects.

Socialist Economics

• + Karl Marx: “Preface”, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
  • A statement of the general view of historical materialism.
• + Karl Marx: Wage Labour and Capital
  • An introduction to a Marxist understanding of wages, labor-power, profits, capital, and capitalist society.
• + Karl Marx: Value, Price and Profit
  • A description of what values, prices, wages are, how these concepts are related, and how profit is generated.
• + Karl Marx: Excerpts on Capital, Class and Labor
• + Oskar Lange: “The Political Economy of Socialism”
• + Michal Kalecki: “Political Aspects of Full Employment”

• – Michael Heinrich: An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital
  • An accessible overview of Marx’s critique of economics and his economic theory in Capital.

Economics of Contemporary Capitalism

• + Bret Christophers: “Rentier Capitalism”
• + Michael Hudson: “Finance Capitalism versus Industrial Capitalism—The Rentier Resurgence and Takeover”
• + Costas Lapavitsas: “The Financialization of Capitalism: Profiting without Producing”
• + Karl Marx: Excerpts on Class, Capital, Sectors of Capital and Unproductive Labor
• + [Excerpts] Marx, Hilferding, Lenin, and Trotsky: Excerpts on Finance Capital and Imperialism
• + Wolfgang Streeck: “How Will Capitalism End” (2014)

Identity-Politics and Class-Politics

• + Karl Marx: Excerpts on the so-called middle class
• + Barbara and John Ehrenreich: “The Professional-Managerial Class”
  • A detailed analysis of the so-called middle class in America.
• + Barbara and John Ehrenreich: “The New Left: A Study in Professional-Managerial Class Radicalism”
  • A detailed analysis of the effects of the middle class on the American left.
• + Barbara Fields: Racecraft, Chapter 4
  • A summary of the history of American slavery and the racism that slavery produced.
• + Barbara Fields: Whiteness, Racism, and Identity
  • On the important difference between racism and race
• + Mike Macnair: Intersectionalism, the highest stage of western Stalinism?
  • A critical historical account of the idea of intersectionality and self-censorship among leftists.
• + Walter Benn Michaels: “The Political Economy of Anti-Racism”
• + Adolph Reed Jr: Race, Class, Crisis: The Discourse of Racial Disparity and Its Analytical Discontents
  • A discussion of how racism is an incomplete explanation for racial disparity in America.
• – Cedric Johnson: The Panthers Can’t Save Us Now. Page 59.
  • On the inadequacy of 70’s black power politics.
• – E.P. Thompson: Preface, The Making of the English Working Class
  • A brief explanation of how class is a relationship, not a thing.
• – Eric Olin Wright: “Varieties of Marxist Conceptions of Class”
  • A general overview of Marxist conceptions of class.
• – Eric Olin Wright: “Class Boundaries in Advances Capitalist Societies”
  • An analysis of class in capitalist society.

Strategies

• + Marcie Smith:  Change Agent: Gene Sharp’s Neoliberal Nonviolence (Part 2)
  On the dangers of horizontalism, consensus decision making, and avoiding power.
• + Dustin Guastella & Jared Abbott: A Socialist Party in Our Time? Page 7.
  An in-depth look at one of CU’s central positions: the need for a party surrogate.
• – Marcie Smith: Change Agent: Gene Sharp’s Neoliberal Nonviolence (Part 1)
  Critically evaluates a central theorist of the protest left.

Procedure

• + Why Robert’s Rules are Important for Working People [To be added]
• + Introduction to Robert’s Rules [To be added]
• + Dustin Guastella: Caucuses, Conflicts and Convention
  • An explanation of the importance of organization for factions.