A Falling Rate of Learning? Commodification and Neoliberal Education, by Yanis Iqbal

Image by Glenn Halog via Flickr

by Yanis Iqbal
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Aligarh, India
January 12, 2022

Under neoliberal capitalism, the commodification of education has accelerated. Before the establishment of the current accumulation regime, the educational sector was predominantly controlled by an interventionist state, committed to countercyclical macroeconomic management. The labour process of teaching within a state-owned domain followed the general pattern of any other production process. According to Michael Heinrich, such a general form – which is independent of any social determinations – comprises a distinction “among functional activity (labour), the object of labour (which is modified by labour), and the means of labour (the tools with which this process of modification is made possible) as elements of the labour process.”

James Connolly – Marxist, Irish Republican Socialist, by Alex McGuigan

Image by William Murphy via Flickr

by Alex McGuigan
Guest Writer, Dandelion Salad
Belfast, Northern Ireland
November 18, 2021

James Connolly is one of Irish Republicanism’s best known revolutionary figures, and upwards of twenty political parties in contemporary Ireland claim Connolly as their primary ideologue. Many more claim Connolly as at least a significant figure in their own particular, and often unlikely, political tradition. Even successive right-wing, Free Stater administrations have paid tokenistic lip-service to Connolly’s legacy by christening utilities after him and commissioning grand statues, akin to corporate art, to the Marxist brought up in the slums of Edinburgh.

Chris Hedges and Henry Giroux: The Age of Manufactured Ignorance

Image by Allison Acosta via teachingforchange via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on Sep 9, 2021

On the show Chris Hedges discusses the age of manufactured ignorance with the scholar Professor Henry A. Giroux.

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Dandelion Salad
Originally posted Oct. 28, 2017

Greatest AudioBooks on Nov 2, 2012

The Communist Manifesto was conceived as an outline of the basic beliefs of the Communist movement. The authors believed that the European Powers were universally afraid of the nascent movement, and were condemning as “communist,” people or activities that did not actually conform to what the Communists believed. This Manifesto, then, became a manual for their beliefs.

The War on Wokeness, by Kenn Orphan

Image by Rob Larsen via Flickr

by Kenn Orphan
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Halifax, Nova Scotia
August 9, 2021

“I am human, and I think nothing of which is human is alien to me.” — Publius Terentius Afer, Roman playwright (195/185 – c. 159 BC)

Capitalism and Alienation, by Yanis Iqbal

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

by Yanis Iqbal
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Aligarh, India
August 3, 2021

Capitalism is deeply unjust. It is a system under which labour power has itself become a commodity and is bought and sold on the market like any other object of exchange. A condition of neo-slavery like this has been historically presupposed by the concentration of ownership of means of production in the hands of a minority class and the consequent emergence of a propertyless class for whom the sale of their power has been their only source of livelihood.

Michael Parenti: When you had the Crisis of Capitalism, Fascism is an Attempt at a Final Solution to the Class Struggle

Image by Henrik Ström via Flickr

with Michael Parenti
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Previously posted October 5, 2018
July 20, 2021

Our Hidden History on Oct 11, 2017

Michael Parenti interviewed by Dave Emory on the synergies between fascism and capitalism. [Interview in 1993]

Foretelling the End of Capitalism, reviewed by Pete Dolack

Image by Peter Burka via Flickr

by Pete Dolack
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Systemic Disorder, June 16, 2021
June 17, 2021

Predictions are difficult to make, especially, as the old joke goes, when they are about the future. Particularly fraught have been predictions of the demise of capitalism. Conventional wisdom would have us believe that because capitalism remains the world’s dominant economic system, predictions of the system’s demise are not only wrong, but destined to be wrong in the future.

The Revolutionary Dictatorship of the Proletariat, by Birrion Sondahl

Image by The All-Nite Images via Flickr

by Birrion Sondahl
Guest Writer, Dandelion Salad
May 13, 2021

“Only he is a Marxist who extends the recognition of the class struggle to the recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat.” — Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, The State and Revolution — Chapter 2

Caleb Maupin: The Definition of Socialism + What is Scientific Socialism?

Image by rdesign812 via Flickr

by Caleb Maupin
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Caleb Maupin (website)
Caleb Maupin (Facebook Page)
March 22, 2021

“We have seen above that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class to win the battle of democracy.

A New Strategy For The American Left, by Yanis Iqbal

Image by Jacob Anikulapo via Flickr

by Yanis Iqbal
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Aligarh, India
November 18, 2020

Joe Biden won the 2020 US Presidential Election after narrowly defeating the sitting president Donald Trump. This victory comes at a tremendous cost: the defeat of an incipient counter-hegemonic movement which embryonically expressed demands for an alternative future to capitalism. Even after the collective utterance of anger against police brutality and the nascent realization of the structural violence of capitalism, the electoral mechanisms of the American bourgeoisie state have been successful in thwarting the full-blown development of a distinctively socialist campaign. Following the ideological mutilation of massive protests against an inherently exploitative system, Americans have been rewarded with Biden – a dyed-in-the-wool bourgeoisie politician who once opposed de-segregation, called on police to shoot Black Lives Matter demonstrators in the leg, rejected the smallest of concessions to the working class, vehemently supported imperialist wars and refused to commit to even the minimal reforms of the Green New Deal.

Behind State Repression Looms A New Wave Of Socialist Revolutions, by Rainer Shea

Image by Hunter Desportes via Flickr

by Rainer Shea
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Rainer Shea: Anti-Imperialist Journalist, Aug. 1, 2020
August 3, 2020

The paradigm of capitalism and colonialism has naturally produced a long series of backlashes from those who haven’t benefited from these systems. The first time that the resistance efforts took an entire nationwide territory from these forces of oppression was during the first series of successful anti-colonial revolutions. Starting with overthrows like the 1804 Haitian liberation from the French empire, a period in history started which can be called the First Wave of anti-colonial and anti-capitalist revolutions.

Marx in the House: Episode 3: Rent Gap + Episode 4: Disinvestment

Image by Matt Brown via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

Space Babies on Jul 23, 2020

Marx in the House is a series that explores gentrification and housing from a Marxist perspective. In this episode we take a look at how the rent gap is the fundamental theoretical component explaining gentrification. We look at how Ruth Glass spotted and theorized the rent gap first and how Neil Smith elaborated on it.

Will Griffin: From Army Veteran to Global Activist

Image by Hunter Desportes via Flickr

with Will Griffin
Writer, Dandelion Salad
July 24, 2020

Regis Tremblay on Jul 21, 2020

This is Will Griffin’s account of his service in the U.S. Army with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, his subsequent questioning of why he was there and what America was really doing around the world. This led to traveling to a dozen countries, including Russia, to find out for himself what the effects of U.S. militarism were on people around the world. He created the Peace Report, a Youtube channel where he shares his views, stories, and insights.

Marx in the House: Episode 1: Intro: Gentrification and Housing + Episode 2: Exchange Value

Image by rdesign812 via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

Space Babies on Jul 9, 2020

Marx in the House is a series that explores gentrification and housing from a Marxist perspective. In this episode we take a look at the movement of capital, the ridiculousness of landlords, how it’s necessary to organize and the fundamentals of capitalism and the role of the state.