Category Archives: ZEN-MARXISM SERIES

THE CAPITALIST SYSTEM VS. THE IMMUNE SYSTEM: TOWARDS A GREEN APPROACH TO FREE UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE IN THE U.S.

  by Mitchel Cohen The following was written a decade-and-a-half before the outbreak of the SARS COV2 Covid-19 pandemic. THE FIGHT FOR FREE, UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE is even more critical today than it was a decade ago when Hillary and Bill Clinton sacrificed it to the greed of the insurance companies and HMOs. Yes, health […]

ZEN-MARXISM 101: PHILOSOPHICAL ORIGINS

The question of freedom and determinism — or, in Rosa Luxemburg‘s prescient query: “Reform and Revolution” — is what got me started writing my zen-marxism series of pamphlets, of which the philosophical chapters in “The Fight Against Monsanto’s Roundup: The Politics of Pesticides” are the most current outgrowths. If conditions freely determine, can we be […]

THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF NEUROSIS

by Mitchel Cohen When 20-year-old Marja announced that she was joining the Red Balloon Col­lec­tive at SUNY Stony Brook in the mid-1970s, her Long Island sub­urban mother went bal­lis­tic: “This is the freest country in the world. If they don’t like it here, why don’t they go back to Russia?” Marja’s mom forbade her to […]

THOUGHTS ON “THE CAPITALIST INFESTO”

Marxists and the Ecological Dimension: Is Marx’s Critique of Science and Technology Radical Enough? By Mitchel Cohen FOR YEARS, AS I’VE BEEN ACTIVE IN SOCIAL JUSTICE MOVE­MENTS I’VE WORKED WITH PEOPLE WHO CALL THEMSELVES MARXISTS. I taught an underground course at Stony Brook for 16 years called “Marxism for Beginners”. And the group that I […]

THE CAPITALIST INFESTO (Part Two: What Is To Be Undone?)

What Is To Be UnDone? With all of this in mind, I offer the following six proposals for greening Marxism, which is essential if we are going to both save the planet and transform society in a socially and economically meaningful way. I call this framework “Deep Marxism”: (1) Oppose genetic engineering not only as […]

THE CAPITALIST INFESTO (Part One)

O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, That I am meek and gentle with these butchers!   – William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar A specter is haunting this planet — the specter of biological devastation and ecological catastrophe. It is ravaging the ecosystems sustaining life. Butterflies, frogs, bees, whole familiar species are in sudden danger […]

Z Magazine Publishes My Article On Lawrence Summers in February Issue

In February 2011, Z Magazine printed my article, Lawrence Summers, Goodbye and Good Riddance: Obama’s Winter of Neo-Liberal Discontent. You can view it at the link above or download it via the Z-Mag PDF version here: lawrence-summers-goodbye-and-good-riddance-by-mitchel-cohen. Check it out! Here’s the full article (before Z Mag edited out the parts about Al Gore and […]