By Jonathan Michael Feldman, Stockholm University February 18, 2021, Updated February 19, 2021 Just Trash All Intellectuals In a recent essay on Herbert Marcuse, Matt Taibbi argues the following.  He recounts a professor telling him, that intellectuals as intellectuals “can justify anything.”  Then he elaborates by writing that “impactful lunacy is always exclusive to intellectuals,”…

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By Jonathan Michael Feldman, January 30, 2021; Revised January 31, 2021 When Controlling the Means of Production is Not Enough Once upon a time, left intellectuals argued that the masses or working class should control the means of production or even the economy. Of course this proposition must have assumed that the masses or working…

Continue readingCoop Naysayers as “Religious” Thinkers Who Keep the System Going

By Jonathan Michael Feldman, June 16, 2020, Revised “Transcendence….the unique capacity of human beings for transcending the immediate situation…depends on man’s self-awareness. This is man’s essential freedom: to reflect on past and future, to symbolize, to take responsibility for designing one’s own world…The essential human freedom of taking responsibility for one’s own ‘world-formation’ or ‘world-design’…

Continue readingLysekil: A License to Kill and an Intersectional Cliche

Webinar: Monday, June 15, 2020 The coronavirus crisis has aggravated an austerity politics rooted in the unequal distribution of economic and political power. Key challenges have emerged in how work is organized, who has access to wealth and the provision of basic goods and services. In this webinar we will explain three different kinds of…

Continue readingReclaiming Urban and Rural Power: Models for Wealth Accumulation in an Age of Austerity

By Jonathan Michael Feldman May 28, 2020 “The communes of the next revolution…will trust the free organization of food supply and production to free groups of workers—which will federate with like groups in other cities and villages not through the medium of a communal parliament but directly, to accomplish their aim.” P. A. Kropotkin, The…

Continue readingIt’s Time to Democratize the Crisis: Join a Global Community of Countries Mobilizing to Do Just That

“Transnational Social Production Networks,” Social Europe, May 6, 2020. “The Corona Virus and the Limits of the Market: Convert Defense and Other Industries to Fight New Security Threats,” Portside, March 28, 2020.

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By Jonathan Michael Feldman, April 26, 2020 Overview The Global Teach-In is a globally mediated event involving multiple countries and locations. The goal is to advance: a) knowledge and resource sharing among organizers and local communities; b) advancement of short-term solutions; c) promotion of long-term structural reform; d) creating organizing bridges through reconstructive institutions, e)…

Continue readingWhat are the goals of the Global Teach-In 2020? How do we #democratizethecrisis?

Here are some recent news reports on the corona crisis and its impact on Africa. On the growing cases in Cameroon, see this link. See Job Shipululo Amupanda’s analysis of Namibia here. On South Africa, see Patrick Bond’s analysis here. The spread of the virus in Zambia is noted here. A general report explaining the…

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By Jonathan Michael Feldman, March 28, 2020 In an interview with Vox, Adam Tooze correctly explains that both the right and the left make mistakes in their understanding of the corona crisis and its solutions. He argues: “The left wants reformist change and the right wants to allow the market process to operate unencumbered. Both…

Continue readingAdam Tooze and the Corona Crisis: The Limits of Big Thinkers

March 21, 2020; Updated March 27, 2020 By Jonathan Michael Feldman A Crisis of Supply and Demand The Corona Virus crisis is a crisis of both economic supply and economic demand. The supply crisis is triggered by factories closing to protect factory workers and other businesses doing the same (to protect workers or consumers). The…

Continue readingThe Corona Virus and the Limits of the Market: Convert Defense and Other Industries to Fight New Security Threats