Understanding the Arab right #HM2018
Lisa L reports from a session at Historical Materialism conference that included perspectives on Lebanon, Morocco, Egypt and the Syrian civil war.
Revolutionary organising in non-revolutionary periods #HM2018
Two sessions at Historical Materialism conference 2018 addressed questions of strategy for the left, each taking very different approaches.
Working-class strategy #HM2018
In the superb final session at the 2018 Historical Materialism Conference, Katy Fox-Hodess and Amanda Armstrong discussed how the left should relate to workers with different sorts of potential power and strengthen connections with struggles against oppression and imperialism: the structural power of workers such as dockers does not exist in isolation from the wider […]
Notes From Below: Workers’ Inquiries #HM2018
Ian Allinson reports from Historical Materialism conference on the Notes From Below project
What strategy for labour in the US? #HM2018
Ian Allinson reports from a debate at the Historical Materialism Conference about strategy for the US labour movement, with useful lessons for the UK.
HM2015: Where is Britain going?
Joe Sabatini summarises three sessions about Britain at Historical Materialism conference. He concludes that there are opportunities for revolutionaries in the rest of Britain to follow those in Scotland, and shape debates about how we fight for reforms. This article is a report based on three sessions at this year’s Historical Materialism conference that covered the […]
HM 2015: How the West Came to Rule
Marxist scholars have long debated the origins of capitalism. Bill Crane reports on a fruitful debate at this year’s Historical Materialism conference about the recent book ‘How the West Came to Rule’. The question of how capitalism emerged and became the basis of the international system has generated a number of incredibly fruitful debates among […]
HM 2015: Financialisation and the Built Environment: A Response to or a Cause of Crisis?
Tom Haines-Doran reports from the Financialisation and the Built Environment: A Response to or a Cause of Crisis? session at the Historical Materialism conference in London in November 2015 This panel pulled together three papers looking at financialisation and the built environment in the case of Turkey. Somewhat disappointingly, and in common with some other talks at […]
HM 2015: Social reproduction and intersectionality
The Historical Materialism conference that took place in London earlier this month continued important debates around social reproduction and intersectionality. Here, Colin Wilson introduces the concept of social reproduction and summarises the discussions that took place in meetings with Tithi Bhattacharya, Alan Sears, Hester Eisenstein, Kate Davies and Lise Vogel. What is “social reproduction”? The first plenary of Historical Materialism, […]
Historical Materialism 2014: Reversing the decline
In the third of three articles, UNITE union activist Ian Allinson reports from four very useful sessions[i] learning from the North American Labour movement at this year’s Historical Materialism conference. Several speakers presented evidence of the serious decline in union membership density (the proportion of workers in a union), collective bargaining coverage (the proportion of […]
Historical Materialism 2014: Migration, the Labour Market and Social Reproduction
The second of three articles by UNITE union activist Ian Allinson, reporting from four very useful sessions[1] on learning the North American Labour movement at this year’s Historical Materialism conference. We’re all busy fighting to stop “blame the migrants” arguments from politicians from UKIP to Labour and from the press getting a hold in our […]
Historical Materialism 2014: Marxist-feminist challenges to neoliberalism
Lois JC reports on the session entitled “Marxist-feminist challenges to neoliberalism” that took place at the London Historical Materialism 2014 conference earlier this month, with Hester Eisenstein, Estelle Cooch and Catherine Rottenberg. The meeting on neoliberalism and feminism at the Historical Materialism conference was a timely and serious contribution towards analysing feminist movements today. Feminism seems […]
Historical Materialism 2014: Mobilise or organise
This year’s Historical Materialism conference included four[1] very useful sessions reflecting on the North American Labour movement. In the first of three articles, Unite activist Ian Allinson reports on discussions about alternative organising strategies. Workers in the North America face similar challenges to us in the UK, but generally worse: low and declining union density; […]
Historical Materialism 2014: Getting somewhere better?
The winners of the 2013 Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Prize, Sam Gindin and Leo Panitch, gave their award lecture on 7 November, as part of the Historical Materialism conference. They had been awarded the prize for their book The Making of Global Capitalism and the title of their lecture was ‘Marxist theory and strategy: getting […]