Marxism Archives | puntorojo

May 8, 2023

The American Way of Fascism

We are living through a period of reemergence, rise, and surge of far right and fascist forces internationally. This includes reconstructed fascist political parties and movements from the past, alongside novel and neo-fascist formations taking shape inside capitalist states and electoral systems in the present.
The miasma of fascist regeneration emanates from within the cascading crises of the capitalist system, increasing in both depth and frequency over the last two decades. This crises include recurring episodes of recession and stagnation; imperialist and inter-imperial conflict and war; distress, weakening, and collapse of traditional bourgeois political parties; and the rising frequency and intensity of class struggle, authoritarianism, culminating in both revolutionary and counter-revolutionary movements.

November 14, 2022

by Atlee McFellin

The Quantum Mechanics of Imminent Revolution

This article concludes a three-part series meant to explore a more sensuous, suffering, and passionate materialism rooted in quantum mechanics. The three articles are a continuation of a longer series that has attempted to articulate a revolutionary communist politics, one that learns from the failures of the German left against the Nazis, while paying particular attention to the voices of Marxists who were also Jewish and experienced the rise and rule of fascism first-hand. All this is meant to provide strategic direction in hopes of defeating a possible quasi constitutional fascist coup around the November 2024 elections, then on to our own path towards revolution thereafter.

September 21, 2022

by Zack Frailey Escobar

Marx Against Moloch

The fact that the real nature of capital has been completely and utterly mystified is evidenced by the currency of the phrase “human capital.” In the same way that legal titles to income or land become “capital” in the imagination of the landlord or the financial speculator, the liberal press and intellectual class imagine that the development of individual human beings can be classified as such, so that we are perpetually encouraged to see ourselves as little entrepreneurs investing in ourselves as we pay exorbitant costs for a university education and take out loans which only enrich the bankers. Today, however, this logic is being taken to a new extreme. A piece in the New Yorker about a delightful bit of innovation in financial technologies provides a glimpse into the idyllic future capitalism has in store for us: Soon, you will be able to sell yourself!

August 25, 2020

by Héctor Rivera

The Resurrection of José Carlos Mariátegui

The last couple of years have seen an increased interest in the life and work of the Peruvian Marxist José Carlos Mariátegui. Several left publications in the United States [1,2,3,4] have introduced readers to this original thinker and even the Economist [5] featured a sympathetic but characteristically bourgeois profile on the revolutionary. The global relevance of Mariátegui and his contributions to the art world were also featured last year in an exquisitely curated exhibition that travelled to Madrid, Spain, Lima, Peru, Austin, Texas, and Mexico City–which I was able to view firsthand [6].
This newfound interest in Mariátegui is a welcomed development, since this thinker hasn’t always enjoyed such popularity outside of Peru, the academy, or latinamericanist Marxist circles. However, translations of some of Mariategui’s key works have been available in the US since the 1970s. In 2011, Monthly Review Press published a lengthy anthology edited by Harry E. Vanden and Marc Becker that is bound to become a reference text for Mariátegui studies. [7] Nevertheless, the work of this pioneering Marxist is being slowly embraced, and he is rapidly gaining a following in the English-speaking world.

October 20, 2019

by Justin Akers Chacón

The Anti-Migrant International

In early December of 2017 the Trump Administration officially withdrew the United States from the UN Global Pact on Migration, claiming the 2016 accord “undermine[s] the sovereign right of the United States to enforce our immigration laws and secure our borders.” The aligned governments of Israel, Hungary, Poland, Australia, Austria, and several other countries followed suit in withdrawing their support, or by publicly repudiating the agreement. Rightwing parties in Germany, France, Italy and Denmark also vocalized their opposition, pledging to withdraw once in power.