#1: Anti-Capitalist Economics: from Marx to Piketty
Chaired by Avneet Johal
In 2020, our Vancouver reading group is looking at key canonical texts about capitalism and its alternatives. We are again printing a reader which includes articles by Stuart Parker, G E Rickman, Mohameden Ould-Mey, Jedrzej Frynas and Miguel Teubal, and begins with an analysis of the Roman Empire’s employment of many practices we associate with modern capitalism, such as maintenance of a reserve currency, underpinned by an exchange rate mechanism that favours the Global North.
In addition, we will be looking at excerpts from key texts, classical and modern:
Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (1776)
Capital by Karl Marx (1867)
“Imperialism: the Highest Stage of Capitalism” by Vladimir Lenin (1917)
Capitalism and Underdevelopment by Andre Gunder Frank (1967)
All Our Kin by Carol Stack (1974)
Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty (2017)
Our discussions will focus on what features make capitalism distinct from other theories of exchange and trade and how we can begin thinking outside not only its economic doctrines but the cultural assumptions that underpin it.
#2: Urbanization, Disinhabitation and Eco-socialist Perspectives on Cities
Chaired by Tom Ewasiuk and Stuart Parker (co-sponsored by Proudly Surrey)
We are bringing back a modified version of our original 2016 reading group on Urban Studies for the 2020 season, with groups meeting in Surrey and Prince George.
Both Surrey and Prince George have faced what Stuart Hall termed “moral panics” around homelessness, policing and cultural expectations of a “downtown.” We are offering a reader comprising Stuart’s writing on municipal governance and urban studies, along with electronic copies of our three major texts:
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The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs (1961)
City Trenches by Ira Katznelson (1978)
Everyday Law on the Street by Mariana Valverde (2012)
Central to our discussions will be the relationship between local democracy and the “progressive” project of technocratic rule, the legitimacy and processes of local governance and decision-making. In particular, we will problematize the very notion of public consultation, whom it addresses and whom it benefits.
#3: Speculative Fiction: The Base Unit
Chaired by Alannah New-Small
A key concept on which our institute works is what our founder terms “the base unit.” Liberal societies see the individual person as the base unit of organization. A family, a political party, a state is understood to be a collection of individuals. But this is a relatively novel idea. Other societies have seen units like Indian jatis, Andean allyus and or extended families as the base unit and individual human beings as fractions thereof.
This year, our speculative fiction reading group will dive into this topic, looking at the following texts:
Ancillary Justice by Anne Leckie
Bold as Love by Gwynneth Jones
A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge
Fisherman of the Inland Sea by Ursula K Leguin
Dune by Frank Herbert
And other texts we will be announcing later in the year
