Episode 140: Reading Dunayevskaya’s “Form and Plan” in 2025 (Part II)

Co-hosts Andrew Kliman and Gabriel Donnelly continue their dive into the archives! This is the second part of a two-part discussion of the text of a presentation that Raya Dunayevskaya gave in the early 1950s, titled “Form and Plan.” She argues that the alternatives are not whether or not to plan, but the “despotic” plan of capital vs. the cooperative plan of “freely associated men.” The despotic plan is a form of capitalism that reveals its despotic essence.

Thus, Dunayevskaya sees “form” in a new light, not as something opposed to and less important than “essence,” but as something that forms and reveals essence. This insight gives her a new appreciation of volume 3 of Capital, which deals with the forms that capitalism takes in the market and in thought. She argues that “we” (the Johnson-Forest Tendency) “have greatly underestimated” that volume, because the JFT focused on counterposing form and essence in order to combat opponents who regard private property and markets, not capitalist production, as capitalism’s distinctive feature. The discussion continues on these themes and also looks at Dunayevskaya’s analysis of Lenin’s State and Revolution within the presentation.

Plus current-events segment: The co-hosts discuss Zohran Mamdani’s unexpected, decisive victory in the New York City Democratic mayoral primary election, the big youth turnout, and what his victory means for the broader struggle against Trumpism..

Radio Free Humanity is a podcast covering news, politics and philosophy from a Marxist-Humanist perspective.
It is co-hosted by Gabriel Donnelly and Andrew Kliman. We intend to release new episodes every two weeks.
Radio Free Humanity is sponsored by MHI, but the views expressed by the hosts and guests of Radio Free
Humanity are their own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and positions of MHI.

We welcome and encourage listeners’ comments, posted on this episode’s page.
Please visit MHI’s online print publication, With Sober Senses, for further news, commentary, and analysis.

Click here for more episodes.