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Paul Mattick

An interview with Paul Mattick, Jr. in New York, 1991

An interview conducted in New York on November 17, 1991, by Hannu Reime with Paul Mattick Jr about his father, Paul Mattick Snr and his ideas on council communism and the Bolsheviks against the background of the demise of the Soviet Union.

HR: Your father1 belonged to the relatively little known tradition of council communism that was born after the First World War. What was, briefly, their analysis of the nature of Bolshevism?

  • 1. Paul Mattick (1904-1981).

Paul Mattick Snr bibliography

Bibliography of texts by council communist Paul Mattick.

These are the English language citations from the complete Paul Mattick Sr. bibliography, grouped alphabetically beginning with A and ending with LE. The numbers correspond to the citations in the full bibliography; omissions in numbering indicate a text in another language.

Marxism: Last refuge of the bourgeoisie? - Paul Mattick

Extracts of Paul Mattick's book on Marxism.

Review of James Burnham's The Modern Machiavellians - Paul Mattick

Paul Mattick's critique of The Modern Machiavellians. by James Burnham. Published by John Day Co., New York, 1943.

James Burnham’s second attempt to purge himself of the misunderstood Marxism of his earlier years is slightly more successful than his first effort, The Managerial Revolution. In the latter book, he still tried to explain the problem of power in economic terms, although no longer from the social point of view of Marx but from that of the technocrats.

Introduction - Paul Mattick

1970 introduction to the book, by Paul Mattick.

The collectively written book presented below, The Fundamental Principles of Communist Production and Distribution, is now being published for the first time in forty years. Its authors, members of the Group of International Communists of Holland (GIKH), participated in the council movement.

Translator's introduction to the 1948 Chilean edition of Anton Pannekoek's Lenin as Philosopher - Lain Diez

A brief introduction to Pannekoek’s book on Lenin that defines the council communist tendency of Marxism as the long awaited bridge between Marxism and anarchism that promises to heal the rift of the Bakunin-Marx split in the First International. Written in the form of short “theses”, the text begins with a critical assessment of Trotsky’s opposition to Stalinism, supports Luxemburg’s and Mattick’s anti-Leninist critiques with regard to spontaneity and ends by agreeing with Karl Korsch’s negative identification of Leninism with social democracy as both being opposed to emancipatory socialism.

Translator’s Introduction to the 1948 Chilean Edition of Anton Pannekoek’s Lenin as Philosopher – Laín Díez

1

A few years before falling victim to an assassin’s blade, Trotsky placed the stamp of his opinion on Marxist literature in the following terms:

Crisis theory/theories: a discussion - Bruno Astarian

Bruno Astarian dissects Theorie Communiste's text 'Crisis Theory/Theories'.

In his text, RS tries to reconcile two opposing explanations of crises. In my opinion, he fails. He doesn’t demonstrate the need for such a reconciliation (To me, Mattick’s theory remains sufficient – though I admit that I didn’t read it for quite a time).

Crisis theory/theories - Roland Simon

Roland Simon of TC attempts to reconcile the underconsumptionist crisis theories of orthodox Marxism with those theories based on the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.

Schematically, the Marxist tradition separated into two large tendencies: on the one side, underconsumptionist theories linked or not to theories of disequilibrium between departments of capitalist production in the reproduction of capital; on the other, theories of the value-functioning of capital founded on the overaccumulation of capital vis-à-vis its valorisation, that is to say on the tendenc

Paul Mattick and Council Communism - Claudio Pozzoli

Notes by Claudio Pozzoli on Paul Mattick, council communism and in particular its differences with left communism.

The following pages do not constitute an attempt to provide an exhaustive analysis and interpretation of “council communism”, nor are they intended to situate Paul Mattick within the context of the current discussion concerning capitalism’s structural changes and the limits of the “mixed economy”.

Economics of the war economy - Paul Mattick

Mattick looks at state intervention in the post-war American economy.

Ever since Lord Keynes’ dictum that wars—like pyramid-building and earthquakes—may serve to increase wealth, it has been increasingly recognized that war and preparation for war are necessary aspects of the prevailing economy and a condition of its proper functioning.