Economic Crisis Conference Featured Wide Participation and Debate

One hundred and fifty people came — from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California, and elsewhere — to participate in the “Economic Crisis and Left Responses” conference that took place at Pace University in lower Manhattan on November 6. The conference was convened by Marxist-Humanist Initiative (MHI).

MHI also received many communications from people in the United States and abroad who were unable to attend, but who indicated that they were eager to watch the video recording of the conference proceedings.

The participants included currently employed and retired workers, students, academics, and others. The three sessions of the conference featured ten speakers, some of whom are political activists and some of whom are academics.

During the conference, MHI announced that it was taking initial steps to form a “Network for the Circulation of Theoretical Struggles.” Mike Dola discussed the motivation behind the Network at the conclusion of the conference.

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Post-Conference Discussion: Add your voice now!

Marxist-Humanist Initiative convened a conference on “The Economic Crisis & Left Responses” on November 6, 2010 at Pace University in lower Manhattan. The conference was conceived as a way of promoting critical dialogue on both the Left’s theories of the recent crisis and recession and the practice that flows from these theories.

A number of materials have been gathered together on this website –- including conference papers and a video recording of the entire conference –- to help extend and deepen the dialogue opened at the conference. Click here for an article, “Economic Crisis Conference Featured Wide Participation and Debate,” which provides an overview of conference proceedings and links to these materials.

We make this space available for our readers to discuss conference presentations, theoretical controversies that emerged at the conference, and the themes of the conference broadly. We hope to have wide-ranging dialogue, not only so that all views can be heard but also so that we can test different ideas in debate and work out answers to the questions we face at this moment. Read More

The “New” South Africa: Poor People’s Movements Defy ANC Policies

I. Shack Dwellers Movement Fights for Land and Housing

S’bu Zikode, president of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the Shackdwellers Movement of South Africa, spoke in New York City Nov. 16 during his tour of the U.S. He described the five-year old organization’s origins in a Durban slum, when shack dwellers resisted the government’s attempt to demolish their shelters. “The Movement was organized by hunger and homelessness, and sparked when land that had been promised for housing was instead sold to businesses. When we protested, the government sent in police to kill and jail us,” Zikodes said. The government is run by the African National Congress (ANC), which has been in power since the fall of apartheid in 1994 (see editor’s note below).

Today Abahlali is the largest organization of the militant poor in South Africa. It assists communities to resist evictions when the government sells the land they are living on or tries to evict them simply so they won’t be an eyesore, as happened before the World Cup games last summer. The organization currently has 64 member communities around the country, and ties with rural landless and urban tenants’ organizations as well. Along with the Landless People’s Movement (Gauteng), the Rural Network (KwaZulu-Natal), and the Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign, it is part of the Poor People’s Alliance, a network of radical poor people’s movements. Read More

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