Occupy and Educate Denver Teach-In:
Capitalism, Crisis, and Occupy Economics 101
Chad Kautzer
7PM Thursday @ Deerpile(upstairs from City O City)
We’ve been suffering from not only the worst recession in the U.S. since the Great Depression, but also from a global crisis in capitalism. People took to the streets in the Occupy movement as a response to the crisis and to the state’s legitimation crisis that followed. Effective strategies of resistance, however, demand informed analysis and the right conceptual tools—not just to understand the present crisis, but to understand capitalism and class relations in general.
In this teach-in we will therefore begin with a brief overview of the more immediate causes of our current economic crisis, before taking up the fundamental concepts and relations necessary for a developing a critique. We will develop a basic understanding of capitalism, neoliberalism, class, and class’s relation to gender and race.
This is a lot to introduce in one teach-in, but it’s only the beginning. Subsequent teach-ins will take up several of these topics in greater detail.
The format of the teach-in will be approx. 30 minutes of lecture followed by a facilitated discussion for the remaining time. Handouts will be provided.
Chad Kautzer is a member of Occupy Denver’s education committee and foreclosure working group, and an associate editor for Radical Philosophy Review. He is also Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Social Justice Minor at the University of Colorado Denver, where he teaches courses on Frankfurt School critical theory, Marxism, Hegel, critical race theory, and feminism.
