Join us for dinner to discuss the second reading in our Socialist Fundamentals series, on historical materialism.

Dress to impress.

Register here

To prepare:

Reading: Elementary Concepts of Historical Materialism by Marta Harnecker, Chapter 5 “Base and Superstructure”, Chapter 6 “The ideological structure”, Chapter 7 “Juridico-Political Structure”, Intro, Chapter 4 “Economic Structure of Society”.

• Supplemental reading for context: The Philosophy of Marxism, the section titled “Materialism”.

This will be the second installment of the chapter’s new Socialist Fundamentals series, which was approved at our November 2023 chapter general meeting!The purpose of the Socialist Fundamentals series is to build a common language for socialists in our chapter – through the shared experience of reading and discussing the same texts as a group. The series is 11 self-contained parts and includes writing from famous socialists like Karl Marx and Ruth Wilson Gilmore, as well as less well-known but rigorous and important writers like Chilean Marxist Marta Harnecker, and East Bay DSA member Mike Parker.

The emphasis is on material that is either relevant for organizers in DSA today, presents or grapples with ideas that are historically significant for the socialist movement, or both.