On the Marxist Critique of Heidegger
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,…
Carlos L Garrido
Why Are Definitions Problematic? Ask Garrido #2
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…
‘Too Soon to Tell’: On Revolutionary Temporality
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…
Groundhog Day, Aristotle and Communism
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…
Paradise: A Dystopian Anti-Capitalist Gem
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…
Five of Lenin’s Insights That Are More Pertinent Than Ever
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:…
Absolute and Triple Exploitation: Capital Accumulation in the Information Age
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…
The Compatible Left’s Support for Genocide
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…
Santa Claus and the Contradictions of Bourgeois Ideology
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…
Why Are Intellectuals Divorced from Working People?
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 Left Must Unwaveringly Stand for Palestinian Freedom
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…
Review of Immanuel Ness’s Migration as Economic Imperialism
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…
Death, the Crisis of Meaning, and Capitalism
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…
120 Years of Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folk: Education and Progress in “Of the Meaning of Progress”
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…
Book Launch Presentation: The Purity Fetish and the Crisis of Western Marxism
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…
The US Censors Dissenting Voices: On the Attacks Against the Midwestern Marx Institute
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…
The Significance of the Paris Commune 152 Years After
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 US Blockade and Its Effects on Cuban Medicine
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…
Book Review: Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation. By: Marcello Musto
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
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 and the Dialectics of Nature By Kaan Kangal
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…
A Marxist Analysis and Critique of “Don’t Look Up”
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…
The World-Historic Shift Labor Undergoes in Hegel’s Philosophy
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 Real Reason why Socrates was Killed and why Class Society Must Whitewash his Death
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…
Hands off Cuba: Defend the Revolution!
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…
Thomas Hobbes – The Communist?
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…
Critique of the Misunderstanding Concerning Marx’s Base-Superstructure Spatial Metaphor
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…
The Relevance of Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man and its Failures
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…
Marxism and Intersectionality
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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