Marx Conference in Havana, May 2004

["michael a. lebowitz" <mlebowit@xxxxxx>]

Dear Friends and Comrades,

        

I have
pasted below the invitation to attend the 2nd Marx Conference in Havana
in May 2004. For those who attended this year's conference, let me call
your attention to some significant changes.

        

Whereas
this year's conference was organised on a shoe-string basis and began at
the facilities of the Cuban Workers Federation and subsequently shifted
to the Palace of Conventions (where only plenary session were possible at
that point), next year's conference will take place entirely at the
Palace of Conventions. Following the successful format of the annual
Globalisation Conference in Havana, the Marx conference will have 4
commission sessions (all with simultaneous translation) occurring in the
mornings. Afternoons will be set aside for plenary panels; as the closing
time will be flexible, in the event of extraordinary interventions in the
plenaries, it will not produce havoc with the presentation schedule.
Further, arrangements for translations both at the conference and in
advance are well in hand. Another change you will see in the invitation
below is that the length of papers to be presented is severely limited to
10 pages. This-- together with advance translation (much easier with
short papers)-- is intended to permit far more interaction and
discussion, which was a desire on the part of almost all participants
this year.

        

I think
those are the main changes. Again, participants will be invited to be
there for the May Day ceremonies, and there will be seminars focusing on
Cuba in the days before the Conference.

        

Finally,
if you have any questions about the conference at all, please contact
Jesus Garcia Brigos, coordinator of the Academic Committee (address noted
below)--- ie., not me. Please circulate this to all lists that may be
relevant. Thank you, and I hope to see you next year in Havana.

        

        

in
solidarity,

        

        

michael

------------------------------

Second International Conference
Marxism and the challenges of the 21^st century

Second notification

The permanent workshop 'Karl Marx and the Challenges of the
21st
Century', established by the Philosophy Institute of Cuba's Ministry of
Science, Technology & the Environment, announces the Second
International Conference on Marxism and the challenges of the
21st
century, to be held in Havana on
4th-8th
May, 2004. All those interested in analyzing the basis of the current
world order and finding ways of achieving its progressivist replacement,
thereby contributing to a strengthening of early
21st-century
revolutionary thought, are invited to attend.

The Conference marks the
20th
anniversary of the Institute of Philosophy's foundation, the
45th
anniversary of the victory of the Cuban Revolution and the
65th
anniversary of the Cuban Workers Federation (CTC).

Conference's sponsors (in alphabetical order):

-       

Cuban
Society for Philosophic Research

-       

Cuban
Workers Federation (CTC)

-       

Department of Marxist-Leninism and history  at the Ministry of
Education.

-       

Department
of Marxist-Leninism at the Ministry of Higher Education

-       

Empresa
de Servicios de Traducción y Interpretación

-       

Faculty
of Philosophy, Sociology & History, University of Havana

-       

Higher
Council of Social Sciences (Cuba)

-       

Higher
Institute of Art (Ministry of Culture)

-       

Higher
Institute of Foreign Affairs (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

-       

Juan
F Noyala Centre for Economic & Planning Studies (Ministry of
Economics & Planning)

-       

Latin
America Popular Memory Research Group (MEPLA)

-       

Latin
American Council for the Social Sciences (CLACSO)

-       

'Madres
de la Playa de Mayo' University, Argentina

-       

Martian
studies Centre (Centro de Estudios Martianos)

-       

National
Association of Economists & Accountants (ANEC)

-       

Ñico
López College (Cuban Communist Party)

-       

'Pasado
y Presente XXI' Centre

-       

Social
Sciences Council of the Ministry of Science, Technology & the
Environment

-       

Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País

The event will build on work based on the guidelines approved for the permanent workshop 'Karl Marx and the Challenges of the 21^st Century', which are also the subject areas proposed for the Conference:

1.      The reality and contradictions of today's capitalism. Their social, political, ideological and cultural impact on society
2.      The social actors and the forms of revolutionary struggle generated within capitalism's system of multiple domination
3.      Limits and contradictions of socialist experience during the 20^th century: new theoretical developments for the improvement of the emancipator paradigm.

Drawing on the results of the working sessions in May 2003, as the central theme for this debating and proposal-generating meeting of social activists, politicians and scientists, we propose the following:

"Class and revolutionary power: theory and practice".

Applications to attend the Conference are now being received at the offices of the Organizing Committee. Prospective speakers should send  their papers, together with an abstract , by 31^st January 2004.

Papers should be no longer than 10 sides, Letter or A4 size, 12-point and double spaced. Synopses should adopt the same formatting and not exceed a page in length. The relevant files must be Microsoft Word 6 or higher, and sent on diskette or via E-mail. All papers received will be published in advance of the event, in the Conference websites (Cuba Siglo XXI and Portal de Filosofía Cubana), unless the author specifically requests otherwise. The Conference's working languages will be Spanish and English.

The working sessions in the Havana International Conference Centre (Palacio de las Convenciones) during 4^th-8^th May will take the form of committee meetings in the mornings and plenary sessions in the afternoons. Presentations of papers to committees will be restricted to 10 minutes, to maximize discussion time. The plenary sessions will be dedicated to the central theme of the conference and will be based on interactive panels.

The four committees will respectively address:
1.      Capitalism, imperialism and globalization: current limits and contradictions
2.      Class and revolutionary power: experience, present challenges and proposals
3.      Socialism and communism in today's world
4.      Marxist thinking and human development.

Issues planned for debate at the working sessions include:

Communist revolution and human emancipation:

·       Need, possibilities and realities, near-future and strategic

·       The subject of revolution in the context of the new world order

·       Classes in the revolutionary subject

·       Vanguard-party-classes-social movements-the masses.

The proletariat in today's world

·       The unions and neoliberal globalization

·       The world of labour, social movements and power in contemporary capitalist states

·       The union movement and building socialism.

State and economy under present world conditions

·       Nation state, global state and neoliberal non-state

·       New multinational powers

·       International institutions

·       State intervention and antitrust policies in relation to production and technological incentives

·       The capitalist accumulation model under the present conditions of globalization: contradictions and perspectives.

Underdevelopment and capitalism

·       Periphery-centre relations

·       Third World and hegemonic influences on development

·       State terrorism against the peoples of the so-called Third World. United States, Zionism: Palestine and the peoples of the Middle East

·       The South within the North

·       "Modernity" and underdevelopment.

Globalization and sustainable human development

·       New technologies as a means of domination and as a means of emancipation: civilization and sense of humanity

·       Man-nature contradiction

·       Global and demographic environmental problems and their impact on contemporary society

·       The rapid pace of the scientific-technical revolution and the notion of a "knowledge-based society"; implications for various aspects of the natural reproductive and socio-economic cycle at world level

·       The hegemonic global imperialism crisis, militarism and war.

Latin America and the Caribbean: the FTAA, the United States of
America and recolonization

·       Latin America and the Caribbean - integration versus ultimate disintegration.

Property and social development

·       Cooperativism vs. Capital

·       Socialist ownership

·       The individual and ownership under communist transformation.

Those attendees wishing to do so will be able to participate in the
traditional Mayday celebrations and in meetings the following day with
Cuban and foreign trade unionists, to be attended by the Cuban Workers
Federation (CTC), while interactive sessions on "Cuba in the
21st century - socialism, politics and
economics" will be held on 3rd May.
These latter sessions will be attended by distinguished Cuban specialists
in the subjects under discussion. Those interested should notify the
Organizing Committee accordingly by 30th
March 2004.

The conference fee is US $100 for speakers and other participants except
students; the student fee is $50. The corresponding fees for Cuban
participants are 80 pesos and 50 pesos respectively. Travel to and
accommodation in Cuba, including transfers between the various conference
activities, can be arranged with Rumbos, the event's official tour
operator (E-mail: eventos@xxxxxxxxxxxx). Those interested in attending or
in the Permanent Workshop's activities generally can keep abreast of
developments by visiting the Cuba Siglo XXI website
(www.nodo50.org/cubasigloXXI/)
and the Cuban philosophy portal
(www.filosofia.cu).

We shall be working to achieve the widest possible attendance from among
those interested in bringing about a better world - which is not only
possible, but essential to the very existence of mankind.

Permanent workshop 'Karl Marx and the Challenges of the
21st Century'

Chairman of the Organizing Committee: Dr Romelia Pino Freyre, Director of
the Institute of Philosophy. E-mail: filosof@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
General Coordinator: Roberto Lima Ferrer. E-mail:
filosof@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Coordinator of the Academic Committee: Dr Jesús Pastor García
Brigos
E-mail: jpastor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx;
filosof@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Nchamach Miller,
iac@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Members of the Academic Committee  (in alphabetical order
of surname):

Cuba:

Dr Esther Aguilera, Dr Rafael Alhama Belamaric, Dr Talia Fung
Riverón, Dr Carmen Gómez García, Dr Norma Gálvez, Marta Harnecker, Dario
Machado, Luís Marcelo Yera
Dr Ernesto Molina Molina, Dr Isabel Monal, Haydée Montes, Dr Concepción
Nieves;
Dr Hugo Pons, Dr Rigoberto Pupo, Isabel Rauber, Daysi Rivero Alvisa, Dr
Ramón Sánchez Noda, Dr Jorge Luís Santana, Luís Suarez, Prof. Raúl Valdés
Vivó.

International Academic Committee:

Prof. Robert Albritton, Canada; Luciano Alzaga, Sweden; Prof. Samir
Amin, Senegal; Prof. Atilio Borón, Argentina; Dr Alexander Buzgalin,
Russia; Prof. Al Campbell, USA; Prof. Ken Cole, UK; Prof. Theotonio Dos
Santos, Brazil; Prof. Georges Labica, France; Prof. Lau Kin Chi, Hong
Kong; Prof. Néstor Kohan, Argentina; Professor Emeritus Michael Lebowitz,
Canada; Professor Emeritus István Meszárós, UK; Nchamach Miller,
Colombia.

---------------------

Michael A. Lebowitz

Professor Emeritus

Economics Department

Simon Fraser University

Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6

Office Fax:   (604) 291-5944

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