With exactly one month to go, 3,000 people from no less than 110 countries have now registered for the International Marxist University (#IMU22). This unmissable four-day festival promises to be an event like no other. Register now, and join one of dozens of watch parties being organised all around the world!
Marxism is often disparaged by its enemies (who evidently have not taken the time to understand it) for its supposed ‘economic reductionism’. It is alleged that Marxists reduce all political and social development to pure economics – from the rise of empires to trends in art. This caricature of Marxism has nothing in common with the genuine article. It is merely a straw man that its enemies erect in order to knock it down with ease.
Of course, Marxism has a great deal to say about economics. The Marxists understand capitalism far better than the capitalists themselves. As Niklas Albin Svensson will show in ‘Competition, Monopoly and Planning: The Market vs Socialism’, while the apologists of capitalism spin fairy tales about ‘free competition’, Marxists long ago explained how competition inevitably leads to monopoly, which in turn sets the stage for socialist planning.
But Marxism also has a great deal to say about every other field of human activity and of nature, as will become clear at #IMU22. In ‘Oppression, Inheritance, Private Property: Marxism and the Family’, Fred Weston will discuss how revolutionaries can fight to end not only economic exploitation, but every form of oppression. In ‘The Permanent Revolution in Europe: 1848’, Josh Holroyd discusses what was not just a pivotal year in European and world history, but a year whose events are key to understanding the genesis of Marxism. And in one very special session with Alan Woods on ‘Marxism and Art’, we will look at what Marxism has to say about how men and women satisfy not only their material needs, but also their spiritual and aesthetic needs.
We include a preview and some suggested reading for a few of these sessions below. Don’t believe what you hear about Marxism from its enemies. Come to #IMU22 and find out what the Marxists themselves have to say!
Momentum is growing for a unique event!
Comrades across the world are now gearing up for this unique event. In Pakistan, comrades have been running registration camps across the country, and you can spot our posters in several continents.
Camp sites and community halls are being booked for watch parties. With the International Marxist Tendency organising in over 50 countries, there may well be one going on near you! So don’t miss out – click here to register, and let us know where you are based so that we can put you in touch with your nearest watch party organisers.
Here we publish three speakers introducing their respective sessions, on: ‘Oppression, Inheritance, Private Property: Marxism and the Family’; ‘The Permanent Revolution in Europe: 1848’; and ‘Competition, Monopoly and Planning: The Market vs Socialism’.
You can also dive into these topics TODAY by checking out the reading guide for each session, with texts available to buy at Wellred Books, our Marxist publishing house. Titles include Engels’ ‘The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State’; Lenin’s ‘Imperialism: The highest stage of capitalism’; Marx’s ‘The Class Struggles in France: 1848-1850’, and many more.
Fred Weston, editor of marxist.com, introduces his talk on ‘Marxism and the Family’. Fred will explore how we have gone from egalitarian relations between men and women, to class society, with the oppression of women and the nuclear family structure. It is vital for revolutionaries to understand these historical developments in order to uncover how we can return to genuine egalitarian relations between humans.
Recommended reading:
- Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State - Friedrich Engels
- Origin of the family: In Defence of Engels and Morgan
Josh Holroyd, editor of socialist.net and author of the introduction to the latest Wellred copy of Marx’s ‘The Civil War in France’, introduces his talk on ‘The Permanent Revolution in Europe: 1848’. This was one of the most revolutionary years in history, with revolution spreading across the whole of Europe, marking an important development in the class struggle. The democratic gains won were destroyed in subsequent counter-revolutions, helping Marx and Engels to perfect their understanding of socialist revolutions as a means to permanently change society. To this day, this remains a crucial lesson for revolutionaries to grasp, as the ruling class – in its everlasting bid for profits – destroys the basic democratic gains of the past.
Recommended reading:
- The Class Struggles in France - Karl Marx
- The 1848 Revolutions: the hoped-for prelude to the proletarian revolution
- The Revolutions of 1848 - Karl Marx
- Revolution and Counter-revolution in Germany - Friedrich Engels
Niklas Albin Svensson, editor of marxist.com, introduces his talk on ‘Competition, Monopoly and Planning’. Contrary to the claims of capitalism’s apologists, the global economy is not driven by ‘free competition’. The largest corporations, such as Amazon and Walmart, are household names precisely because they dominate the global economy and undercut competitors. As Niklas explains, this requires a huge level of planning within corporations; a potential which could be properly harnessed in a society producing on the basis of need rather than profit.
Recommended reading:
- Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism - V.I. Lenin
- Capitalism is dying – and a new socialist society is trying to be born
