Kickoff for The Long Retreat Reading Group on April 13th

Next discussion circle will be chapters 1-5 of The Long Retreat: Strategies to Reverse the Decline of the Left by Boris Kagarlitsky. Sunday April 13th at 2pm:

Past readings / good places to start:

Introduction to Capital - Michael Heinrich‌‌‌‌
See our discussion guide/zine for more resources: ‌‌
https://libcom.org/article/beyond-money-commodities-and-state-discussion-guide-heinrichs-introduction-capital‌‌

Family Abolition - M.E. O'Brien‌‌‌‌
Optional stuff/critique: ‌‌
The Welfare State and the Bourgeois Family-Household - Kirstin Munro‌‌

“We are brown, we are short, we are fat … We are the face of Oaxaca”: Women Leaders in the Oaxaca Rebellion - Lynn Stephen‌‌

The Communes of Rojava: A Model In Societal Self Direction - Neighbor Democracy (40 minute video)‌‌

‌‌‌‌Analytic Social Psychology as Critical Social Theory: A Reconstruction of Erich Fromm’s Early Work - J. E. Morain (See section #4: The Family as Mediator)‌‌

Fetishism, Money and the State Readings:

Fetishism - John Holloway ‌‌
(Chapter 4 of Change the World Without Taking Power)‌‌
John Holloway had a huge impact publishing the book Change the World Without Taking Power in 2000. Here he outlines the concepts of commodity fetishism and reification. Fetishism can also be extended to the state and money.

Money - Samuel Chambers ‌‌
Chambers writes that all money is a credit-debt relationship of trust and representation of value. Building on concepts of fetishism, Chambers claims money has no value itself.

Fetish Speaks Comic Zine - Freddy Perlman ‌‌
Perlman's short zine on commodity fetishism and reification. Enjoy the restored art from this 1973 comic.
Updated translations of fetishism and trinity formula to go along with comic here.

Towards A New State Theory Debate - Chris O'Kane
‌‌O'Kane outlines a critical theory of the state by bringing together the work of Johannes Agnoli, Werner Bonefeld, and Simon Clarke. Agnoli is known as a leading voice in extra-parliamentary opposition in Germany in 1968 and coined the term "open Marxism" as an anti-state critical theory which Bonefeld, Clarke, Holloway and others are a part of.

Abolition Geography by Ruth Wilson Gilmore. Race, Prison Abolition and the State:

5. Race and Globalization (2002, 18 pages)

6. Fatal Couplings of Power and Difference: Notes on Racism and Geography (2002, 15 pages)

12. Restating the Obvious (w/ Craig Gilmore) (2008, 24 pages)

20. Abolition Geography and the Problem of Innocence (2017, 22 pages)