The Platypus Affiliated Society organizes reading groups, public fora, research and journalism focused on problems and tasks inherited from the “Old” (1920s-30s), “New” (1960s-70s) and post-political (1980s-90s) Left for the possibilities of emancipatory politics today.

Platypus San Diego

The Left is Dead! Long Live the Left! Come join our discussions on the history of the Left, current events, and the possibilities of emanipatory politics today. Every week, we host a reading group working through the crucial texts in the history of Marxism Wednesdays, 6PM @ Groundwork Books.


Primary Reading Group

Wednesdays 6PM @ Groundwork Books, syllabus

Sep 2 Mitchell Women: The Longest Revolution
Sep 9 Krakauer The Mass Ornament
Sep 16 Smith The Wealth of Nations vol. I
Sep 23 Radical bourgeois philosophy IV. The Third Estate
Sep 30 Radical bourgeois philosophy V. Bourgeois society
Oct 7 Radical bourgeois philosophy VI. Freedom in history
Oct 14 What is the Left? I. Captial in history
Oct 21 What is the Left? II. Utopia and critique
Oct 28 What is Marxism? I. Socialism
Nov 4 What is Marxism? II. Revolution in 1848
Nov 11 What is Marxism? III. Bonapartism
Nov 18 What is Marxism? IV. Critique of political economy
Break Supplementary readings
Jan 6 What is Marxism? V. Reification
Jan 13 What is Marxism? VI. Class consciousness
Jan 20 What is Marxism? VII. Ends of philosophy
Jan 27 Revolutionary Leadership
Feb 3 Reform or Revolution?
Feb 10 Lenin and the Vanguard Party
Feb 17 What is to be Done?
Feb 24 Mass strike and social democracy
Mar 3 Permanent revolution
Mar 10 State and revolution
Mar 31 Imperialism
Apr 7 Failure of the revolution
Apr 14 Retreat after revolution
Apr 21 Dialectic of reification
Apr 28 Lessons of October
May 5 Trotskyism
May 12 The authoritarian state
May 19 On the concept of history
May 26 Reflections on Marxism
Jun 2 Theory and practice



Panel Discussions