Occupy Strategic Planning Reading Resources

This is a page with suggested reading.

GOAL OF THE READINGS

The goal of these readings is to have a "solid basis" for the group's understanding of existing theory...a shared understanding.

SUGGESTED LEARNING METHOD

You can start out by reading the first couple of paragraphs and the last couple of paragraphs in each of the recommended articles in Monthly Review. These essentially summarize the ideas and concepts professed in the articles.

READINGS/LECTURES/VIDEOS

1. Monthly Review Magazine

[Monthly Review Magazine]

For full access to Monthly Review Magazine's resource list go to the link above, and choose the search bar on upper right hand side. Please pay particular attention to these suggested readings:

1. a. "The Trajectory of Historical Capitalism and Marxism's Tricontinental Vocation," by Samir Amin, February 2011. This is a seminal historical analysis of capitalism which is a key to grasping the comptemporary global anti imperialist struggle that has emerged since the late 1990s in Latin America and in recent years in the Arab Spring.

1. b. "Structural Crisis Needs Structural Change," by Istvan Meszaros, March 2012. Istvan Meszaros is the leading contemporary Marxian theoretician, according to John Bellamy Foster, Editor, Monthly Review. This is a definitive analysis of the structural crisis of the capital system.

1. c. "Endless Crisis," by John Bellamy Foster & Robert W. McChesney, May 2012. Foster, as indicated above, is the Editor of Monthly Review and McChesney is its former co-editor. Foster and McChesney analyze the Great Financial Crisis and the Great Recession with great accumen based on the economic stagnation theory pioneered by Paul Baran and Paul Sweezey, a founding editor of Monthly Review. Baran and Sweezy are the authors of the seminal essay, Monopoly Capital (NY: Monthly Review Press, 1966).

1. d. Ravi Bhandari, "Rise of the Global Corporatocracy: Interview With John Perkins," Monthly Review, March, 2023.

2. Noam Chomsky Lecture

Noam Chomsky's 1970 Lecture entitled, "Governments in the Future" Full Audio (56 minutes) http://archive.org/details/NoamChomskyOnGovernmentsInTheFuture. Chomsky the leading US dissident and most prominent scholar in this role since the 1960s is always worth reading/listening to for fundamental analysis.

3. World Forum for Alternatives Weekly Bulletin for May 7, 2013

World Forum for Alternatives "The Economic and Social Crisis: Contemporary Capitalism & Class Struggle," Weekly Bulletin for May 7, 2013. Search: World Forum for Alternatives. According to Karl Marx class struggle is "the motor force of history." This is an overview of the levels of class struggle the world around in the present historical era. Raising our collective level of class consciousness is essential to being able to fight as effectively as possible against the corporatocracy or global corporate capitalist ruling class.

4. Legal History of "Corporate Rights" (10 min video)

Text form: [Legal Defense Fund] Since the early 1800s, corporations have gained "rights" and protections under the United States Constitution. While we never find the word “corporation” in the Constitution, corporations are able to invoke constitutional “rights” and protections under the Commerce Clause and Contracts Clause, as well as under the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments. These pages/videos share the history, as well as what people are doing to challenge these court-bestowed "rights".

[Short Form Video] (10 minutes)

[Full One Session Lecture] (45 minutes)

[Series of Four Hour Democracy School Lectures]

The above videos are focused on the enacting laws at the local level and how corporate law impacts municipal control. Below find a national/international treatise, which doesn't promote a specific solution, but rather aims to educate, so that we actually understand WHY corporations have the rights that they have, and why the rights should be deemed illegal.

5. Legal History of "Corporate Rights", called "The Corporation" (60 min video)

A more comprehensive look at the history of corporations and corporate law than the CELDF video above. The above videos are focused on the enacting laws at the local level and how corporate law impacts municipal control. "The Corporation", is more of a national/international treatise, which doesn't promote a specific solution, but rather aims to educate, so that we actually understand WHY corporations have the rights that they have, and why the rights should be deemed illegal.