MODULE 2:
how the ruling class rules
CLASS 1Class society and the state
instructor: manolo de los santos
What is the state, and whose interests does it actually serve? How do all the different institutions, the government, the standing army, the police, the prisons, the courts, and the bureaucracy, actually fit together, and what holds them in place as a single system of class rule? Using Lenin's State and Revolution, we will understand the state not as a neutral referee standing above society, but as a machine in which each of its parts reinforces the others to protect ruling class power.
CLASS 2the war at home and the war abroad
instructor: nazia kazi
Over the past three years, we have witnessed a surge in U.S. militarism abroad, in Palestine, Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba, alongside increasingly blatant attacks on the working class at home, from ICE raids to the expansion of detention centers. We will examine these phenomena not as isolated policies, but as a coordinated offensive by a ruling class intent on protecting its imperialist interests. We will clarify the material origins of this relationship, showing how the expansion of the weapons and war industry domestically, exemplified by projects like Cop City, is intrinsically linked to the projection of militarism globally. This is not a case of an “imperialist boomerang” coming home; it is a single, unified system of repression.
CLASS 2divisions in the u.s. ruling class today
instructor: ben becker
This class will offer a concrete analysis of the American ruling class today, identifying where they are united and where they are fracturing, and going beyond the nominal distinctions of ‘republican’ or ‘democrat’. We will study the actual functioning and influence of the ruling class, and examine the state of the right-wing movement. Is Trump an anomaly? We will probe the material and social conditions that have allowed him to ascend to power twice, and what his rise reveals about the nature of the state.