The American political philosopher, Michael Parenti, said that the only thing about regular working people that the ruling class cares about is what they think. The owners of capital spend…
In societies fractured by class antagonisms, the ruling elite who control the means of production, and hence, the politics, judicature, education, etc. of society, requires that those whom they extract…
All around the country normal working-class Americans are asking themselves one question: why? Why is it that I am struggling to make ends meet at the end of the month?…
“The gradual crumbling that left unaltered the face of the whole,” writes the German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel in his Phenomenology of Spirit, “is cut short by a sunburst which,…
by Carlos L Garrido and Edward Liger Smith The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre once called Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara the “most complete human being of our age.” Today, 96 years after…
Last week, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Charles Q. Brown told the NYT that US/NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine is 'inevitable'.This is despite the fact that…
In his early writings against censorship, Karl Marx proposed that it is insufficient to simply criticize censorship on the basis of how it depicts a limitation of our freedoms and…
How Marxists should approach the critique of Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger is undoubtedly one of the most creative and influential philosophers of the 20th century. Virtually all areas of philosophy,…
Hey y’all. This post is part of my series called ‘Ask Garrido’, where subscribers can shoot me questions on philosophy, Marxist theory, and geopolitics to answer through Substack. You can…
It is said that Zhou Enlai once, when asked about the impact of the French Revolution, replied that it was still ‘too soon to tell’. We tend to assume…
Exploring Aristotle's virtue ethics and Marx and Engels's communist individual through the 1993 movie, Groundhog Day. Groundhog Day (1993) is a classic of philosophical cinema. I was first asked to watch…
The 2023 German film Paradise went virtually unnoticed by commentators on the socialist left. Yet, it is amongst the best dystopian anti-capitalist films produced in the decade. The film follows the life…
The day Lenin passed awayA soldier of the death watch, so runs the story, told his comrades: I did not want toBelieve it. I went inside, andShouted in his ear:…
As the technological revolution (and especially the recent developments in artificial intelligence) progresses, the discussions surrounding its dystopic potential are abundant. However, there is a desert of analysis as to…
A radical is no more than this: he who goes to the roots. Let him who fails to arrive at the bottom of things call himself not a radical; nor…
A comrade recently pointed my attention to a comedy skit by Foil Arms and Hog called “Santa is Captured by the Russians,” where for two minutes Mr. Clauss is interrogated by the…
This article is a transcript of a presentation for a panel on the subject, hosted by the International Manifesto Group, the Critical Theory Workshop, and the Midwestern Marx Institute, with…
The US “socialist” left currently playing the bothsides-ism game with Israeli genocide of Palestinians in the name of some bullshit notion of ‘nuance,’ must remember the words of Howard Zinn: “You can’t…
The traditional Marxist critique of ideology has understood both the functional and epistemological dimensions of bourgeois ideologue’s claims. This tradition has always emphasized how ideas are both conditioned by the…
The Moving finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out…
Aristotle famously starts his Metaphysics with the claim that “all men by nature desire to know.”[1] For Dubois, if there are a people in the U.S. who have immaculately embodied this statement, it…
In an 1875 letter to Wilhelm Bracke, Marx would say that “Every step of real movement is more important than a dozen programmes.” This is the living spirit of Marxist…
by Edward Liger Smith, Carlos L. Garrido, and Noah Khrachvik The First Amendment of the United States Constitution says that “Congress shall make no law… Abridging the freedom of…
I would like to thank the International Manifesto Group for hosting this event, and for inviting me to say a few words about the relevance of that heroic experiment in…
The Cuban socialist healthcare system is internationally recognized as one of the best in the world.1 It is innovative, preventative, people-oriented, comprehensive, community-centered, internationalist, and, of course, de-commodified—treating healthcare as a…
Marcello Musto, Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan (2021). 164 pages Marcello Musto’s anthology of Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation[1] is both comprehensive and concise, containing within…
The Last Years of Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography. By: Marcello Musto Marcello Musto’s The Last Years of Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography provides an illuminating glance at the work…
Friedrich Engels’ Dialectics of Nature has been arguably the most polemic ‘book’ within the corpus of classical Marxist literature. It is fair to say that since its initial 1925[1] publication in German and…
Capitalism is a form of life riddled with social antagonisms. Every Marxist knows this well. Most have been using the effects these antagonisms produce to predict the fall of capitalism…
For most of civilization physical labor, that labor which creates a tangible object, has been seen as an unfortunate task done merely for the sake of acquiring the necessaries of…
The killing of Socrates left a stain on the fabric of Athenian society, a stain it nearly expanded 80 years later with similar threats of impiety towards…
by Carlos L. Garrido & Edward Liger Smith Yesterday, the Midwestern Marx co-founders got together to discuss the recent imperialist attacks on Cuba. In the podcast below, Carlos and Edward…
The British materialist philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) is one of the fathers of social contract theory and modern political philosophy. His magnus opus – Leviathan[i] – is a text which…
Karl Marx’s 1859 preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy[i] represents one of the clearest reflections of the development of his and Engels’ thought. In what amounts…
Posing the Question This year marks the 57th anniversary of Herbert Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man (1964). This text, although plagued with a pessimistic spirit, was a great source of inspiration for…
In her 2020 text Marxism and Intersectionality: Race, Gender, Class and Sexuality under Contemporary Capitalism, Ashley J. Bohrer sets out to demystify the erroneous conception that the traditions of Marxism and…
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