Activity: External talk or presentation › Invited talk
Description
The opening presentation of a discussion evening hosted by the Marxism and Disability Network (MDN) on capitalism and assisted suicide. In this presentation, I reconstruct Marx's analysis of the social determinants of suicide in his 1844 review of Peuchet's Memoirs in Voerwarts. For Marx, I argue, suicide only appears as an individual decision, but is dually determined by the aggregate movements of capitalist economies and the interpersonal alienation of subjects across classes. Rather than a moment of agency or choice, therefore, it appears as a dialectical symptom of the impossibility of human freedom within bourgeois society. I contrast this view of Marx's with those of 'Marxist' advocates for assisted suicide - including David Leston and the Young Communist League of Canada.
Period
10 Sept 2024
Event title
Marxism and Assisted Dying: September Meeting of the Marxism and Disability Network