Law is an important part of Althusser's thought. He profoundly criticized the mechanism of capitalist law from the perspective of 'reproduction.' First, the law cannot be separated from the relations of production. In order to maintain capitalist relations of production, the law covers up the exploitation in the process of capitalist production.…

The antagonism between "class" and "race" have plagued educational theory for decades. As a communist organizer seeking to move Marxist educational theory out of the stagnant waters of theoretical debates, I turn to recent CRT scholarship, which I find much more in line with the communist project. Yet, this literature omits…

This essay places Paulo Freire in dialogue with a Black Radical Tradition (BRT) in three distinct yet interrelated ways. First, the paper situates the significance of Cedric's Robinson's articulation of a BRT while exploring how contemporary scholars are troubling his disputatious relationship with Marxist social thought. Second, the paper…

This article insists that solidarity with nonhumans is not only a fundamental aspect of symbiotic existence, but a key aspect of resistance to global imperialism. Whilst Indigenous communities have long nurtured and maintained a rich symbiosis and solidarity with nonhumans, modern western thought and social theory must seriously expand its…

The critical race theory concept of 'White supremacy' continues to be a major locus of disagreement between Critical Race Theorists and Marxists regarding both how it operates as a general descriptor of racial power dynamics in the Western world and for its explanatory power in accounting for the multiple forms in which racism manifests.…

This article deploys a materialist theoretical and methodological framework to analyse and discuss capitalism's disabling phenomena. It is my intention to demonstrate how Marx's concept of a "relative surplus population" may be used to scrutinise capitalism's symbols, meanings, images, and practices which reproduce ableism as the norm.…

This essay expands on the concept of educational life and builds on an autonomist Marxist framework that better allows us to understand neoliberalism's parasitic operations. Following this, the last section will confront the limits of the progressive educational imaginary and offer up for consideration postschool imaginaries. Drawing on Kathi…

On October 16, 2017, over 12,000 faculty, librarians, and counsellors in 24 independent postsecondary colleges in Ontario, Canada went on strike for the fourth time since they organized in 1971 as members of the Civil Service Association of Ontario and won their first collective agreement the next year. Begun as an apolitical, self-consciously…

In this interview, Curry Malott and Derek R. Ford discuss their new book, "Marx, Capital, and Education: Towards a Critical Pedagogy of Becoming." The interview begins with a general inquiry into their intellectual backgrounds as scholar-activists and, importantly, comrades. The authors then discuss the process of collaborating together…

Among the most important questions critical educators can ask today are the following: Can schools play a role in making a more just society possible? If not, why not? If so, what can they do? These questions provide the basis for this article by Michael Apple, as well as for the books under discussion here. The books by David Blacker, John Marsh,…

In this essay Malott traces his journey to critical pedagogy focusing on a significant element of his family's ethnic and class background and its connection to his own educational experiences from public schooling to university. Drawing on Marx's historical discussions at the end of Volume 1 of "Capital" Malott traces his own…

Catherine Walsh is senior professor and director of the doctoral programme in Latin American Cultural Studies at the Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar in Ecuador. Her present work is focused on the political, epistemic and ethical project of critical interculturality, and on concerns of decoloniality, taking as key the themes of knowledge,…

The scholarship of teaching and learning increasingly recognizes that active and dynamic instructional models promote better, more holistic, and lasting educational outcomes. This article summarizes an in-class engaged learning activity based on the popular playing card game, "President". This game requires players to exchange cards with each…

In revealing the transformatory moment of learning technology, a holistic and ongoing critique that is related to a range of socio-cultural factors is required. This critique further uncovers the social relations that frame the place of learning technology in bourgeois capitalist work and the development of the knowledge economy. This article…

There was only one Karl Marx, but there have been a multitude of Marxisms. This concise, introductory book by internationally renowned scholar Jean Anyon centers on the ideas of Marx that have been used in education studies as a guide to theory, analysis, research, and practice. "Marx and Education" begins with a brief overview of basic Marxist…