Originally published on the eve of the 1848 European revolutions, The Communist Manifesto is a condensed and incisive account of the worldview Marx and Engels developed during their hectic intellectual and political collaboration. Formulating the principles of dialectical materialism, they believed that labor creates wealth, hence capitalism is exploitive and antithetical to freedom. -/- This new edition includes an extensive introduction by Gareth Stedman Jones, Britain's leading expert on Marx and Marxism, providing a complete course for students of The Communist (...) Manifesto, and demonstrating not only the historical importance of the text, but also its place in the world today. (shrink)

The communist norm requires that scientists widely share the results of their work. Where did this norm come from, and how does it persist? Michael Strevens provides a partial answer to these questions by showing that scientists should be willing to sign a social contract that mandates sharing. However, he also argues that it is not in an individual credit-maximizing scientist's interest to follow this norm. I argue against Strevens that individual scientists can rationally conform to the communist norm, even (...) in the absence of a social contract or other ways of socially enforcing the norm, by proving results to this effect in a game-theoretic model. This shows that the incentives provided to scientists through the priority rule are sufficient to explain both the origins and the persistence of the communist norm, adding to previous results emphasizing the benefits of the incentive structure created by the priority rule. (shrink)

In section 1, I develop epistemic communism, my view of the function of epistemically evaluative terms such as ‘rational’. The function is to support the coordination of our belief-forming rules, which in turn supports the reliable acquisition of beliefs through testimony. This view is motivated by the existence of valid inferences that we hesitate to call rational. I defend the view against the worry that it fails to account for a function of evaluations within first-personal deliberation. In the rest of (...) the paper, I then argue, on the basis of epistemic communism, for a view about rationality itself. I set up the argument in section 2 by saying what a theory of rational deduction is supposed to do. I claim that such a theory would provide a necessary, sufficient, and explanatorily unifying condition for being a rational rule for inferring deductive consequences. I argue in section 3 that, given epistemic communism and the conventionality that it entails, there is no such theory. Nothing explains why certain rules for deductive reasoning are rational. (shrink)

This study uses an interdisciplinary perspective to shed light on Ukraine’s continuous problems with media independence, which to date have not allowed Ukraine to become a country with a truly free media: since Ukraine’s independence in 1991 its media have consistently remained only “partly free.” The approach proposed in the paper combines theoretical tools of post-communist media studies with advancements in political science research in regime change and state-building to explore the continuities and changes in the institutional environment for the (...) media in post-communist new democracies. The approach is applied to analyze two cases of post-communist media change, both problematic to explain within the framework of media studies alone: the case of incomplete media transformation in a hybrid regime and the incident of backsliding in independent media in an advanced new democracy. The paper is structured as follows: I first present the shortcomings in the way institutions, or more specifically the institutional environment for media freedom, were previously approached in post-communist media studies. I then propose a more advanced approach based on theories and concepts originating from comparative-politics studies of regime change and state and institution-building. I apply this approach to analyze the institutional environment for the media in Ukraine. Next, I explore the case of a radical reconstruction of media-related institutions in Hungary after Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party came to power in 2010. (shrink)

"The Communism of Thought takes as its point of departure a passage in a letter from Dionys Mascolo to Gilles Deleuze: "I have called this communism of thought in the past. And I placed it under the auspices of Hölderlin, who may have only fled thought because he was unable to live it: 'The life of the spirit between friends, the thoughts that form in the exchange of words, by writing or in person, are necessary to those who seek. Without (...) that, we are by our own hands outside thought.'"What, in light of that imperative, is a correspondence? What is given to be understood by the word, let alone the phenomenon? What constitutes a correspondence? What occasions it? On what terms and according to what conditions may one enter into that exchange "necessary," in Hölderlin's words, "to those who seek"? Pursuant to what vicissitudes may it be conducted? And what end(s) might a correspondence come to have beyond the ostensible end that, to all appearances, it (inevitably) will be said to have had?". (shrink)

In a recent paper in JVI, ‘An Anarchist Interpretation of Marx’s “Ability to Needs” Principle,’ Spafford has argued that: (i) the communist and anarchist traditions share an objection to a particular kind of exchange (which he calls quid pro quo exchange); (ii) the anarchist objection to quid pro quo exchange can be understood as opposition to conditional exchange; (iii) consequently, the objection motivates an opposition to conditional exchange as such (i.e. a commitment to unconditional exchange); and (iv) we can construct (...) a normative justification of this opposition by reference to the value of freedom, given that conditional exchange offers diminish the freedom of the recipients of the offers. In this reply piece I argue that (ii) is importantly mistaken, and that consequently (iii) also fails. Although all quid pro quo exchanges are conditional exchanges, the converse does not hold, and we have reason to believe that there will be instances of conditional exchange that are unobjectionable by the lights of the traditional anarchist and communist objection to such exchange. Consequently, an opposition to all conditional exchange rules out too much. However, I will argue that a suitably modified version of (iv) may nevertheless survive the counterexamples that defeat (ii). (shrink)

Since its birth in the mid-nineteenth century, Marxism has had a contentious relationship with religion and Christianity. From the Marxist critique of religion as the “opium of the people” to the secularism of the Soviet Union to the Catholic Church’s “Decree Against Communism, ” the two schools of thought have widely been considered incompatible. Despite this tension, many of the critiques leveled by both sides do not attack the real substance of their opponents’ ideas. As such, this paper sets out (...) to answer two questions: first, whether Christian morality and Marxist thought can be made consistent on the basis of their ideological foundations, and second, what a Christianity consistent with Marxism would look like. It finds that on the level of ideological foundation, there are important consistencies between Christian morality and Marxism. Given these consistencies, a Christianity aligned with Marxist thought is possible, and this paper will conclude by exploring Liberation Theology as a possible avenue for the actualization of that consistency. (shrink)

More than 30 years after the fall of the soviet block and because of the social and political crisis that have occurred in various places of the world in recent years, there have been important political and academic debates about the meaning of the concept of communism. The current article attempts to contribute theoretically to this discussion by highlighting the different becomings within which communism can be understood in the actual context. Among those are the performative importance of the word (...) “communism” in political and symbolic terms; communism as a process that precedes and modulates capitalist development; communism as a specter and multiplicity; and the relationship of communism with new forms of capitalist exploitation and political subjectivity. (shrink)

Should Marxists support universal basic income (UBI), i.e., a regular cash income paid to all without a means test or work requirement? This paper considers one important argument that they should, namely that UBI would be instrumentally effective in helping to bring about communism. It argues that previous answers to this question have paid insufficient attention to a logically prior question: what is Marx’s account of communism? In reply, it distinguishes two different accounts: a left-libertarian version that associates communism with (...) the freedom to live and work how one wants, and a perfectionist version that associates communism with the overcoming of alienated labour and self-realisation in work. It argues that UBI would make steps towards the left-libertarian account but not the perfectionist account. Ultimately, then, the question “should Marxists support basic income?” is shown to partly depend on which account of communism Marxists want to bring about. (shrink)

Karl Marx states in Capital that “man, if not as Aristotle thought a political animal, is at all events a social animal” (Marx, 1992, 444). That Marx draws from Aristotle’s work has been long-recognized, but one could argue that Marx’s very conception of man—what he calls “species-being”—is a derivative of Aristotle’s theory of the good life. This article explores the Aristotelian underpinnings of Marx’s political philosophy and argues that Marx’s theory of species-being and human emancipation supervenes upon Aristotle’s theory of (...) eudaimonia. The consequence of such a rethinking suggests that the Aristotelian good life itself is possible only in the communist society of Marx’s imaginings and, as such, is a state that must be realized—whether by nature or revolution—for human flourishing. Inspired by Aristotle’s assertion that “friendship exists to the extent that what is just exists” (Aristotle, 1991a, 527), this article draws from several of Aristotle’s and Marx’s texts to situate man as an inherently social being, whose need of other men serves both to edify and realize a common end toward which the state is oriented: the life of virtuous activity performed by and in an association of equals. (shrink)

The paper aims at tracing a collective portrait and the trajectories of a group of about forty women active in the communist movement after Poland had regained independence, and after the Second World War. I explore the relations between gender, communist activity, and the changing circumstances of the communist movement. I argue that interwar activities shaped women communists as radical, uncompromising, and questioning traditional femininity political agents, accepted as comrades at every organisational level. This image and identity, though, contributed to (...) the creation of the gender division of political work after the war, when women were assigned specific roles as guardians of revolutionary past. The post-war situation of state socialism with the communist party as the ruling party assigned women mainly to invisible, secondary positions. (shrink)

This article presents a fragment of the history of psychology in Poland, discussing its development in the years 1945–56, which saw sweeping political and geographical transformations. In that maelstrom of history, psychology was particularly affected by the effects of geopolitical changes, which led to its symbolic ‘arrest’ in 1952, when psychological practice was prohibited and all psychology courses were abolished at universities. Amnesty was declared only in 1956, with the demise of the so-called Stalinist ‘cult of personality’ and the onset (...) of a turbulent period when the crimes of the Stalinist era were prosecuted. We have adopted three time frames for our description and analysis of this dramatic period in the development of psychology in Poland. ‘The past’ is a story about the flourishing of Polish psychology before World War Two and the hopes for the discipline’s restoration after the war. ‘The present’, as the core of this narrative, represents the events of 1950–56. ‘The future’ refers to the period when Stalinist abuses were prosecuted during the Thaw, following the collapse of the Stalinist dictatorship, and the resurgence of Polish psychologists’ hopes for resurrecting their discipline. In all these periods, the narrative is interwoven with the story of the Polish psychologist Mieczysław Kreutz, who offers a model example of the hypothesized dependence of scientific research on sociopolitical change. (shrink)

L’article porte sur le rapport entre communisme et féminisme dans l’entre-deux-guerres en prenant comme point de départ un débat transnational entre chercheuses d’horizons divers, débat paru dans une revue sur l’histoire des femmes et du genre dans les pays d’Europe de l’Est fondée récemment. Trois approches différentes permettent d’éclairer la position ambiguë du féminisme dans les organisations communistes et l’Internationale communiste. Dans un premier temps, ce sont les opportunités et les limites de l’égalité formelle offerte aux femmes communistes qui sont (...) abordées, puis les positions théoriques les plus innovantes et leur réception. Enfin trois cas de femmes cadres serviront d’exemples pour illustrer les négociations nécessaires, dans la pratique, pour concilier les attentes contradictoires propagées par le régime stalinien et les organisations communistes. (shrink)

In A Philosophy for Communism: Rethinking Althusser Panagiotis Sotiris attempts a reading of the work of the French philosopher centered upon his deeply political conception of philosophy. Althusser's endeavour is presented as a quest for a new practice of philosophy that would enable a new practice of politics for communism, in opposition to idealism and teleology. The central point is that in his trajectory from the crucial interventions of the 1960s to the texts on aleatory materialism, Althusser remained a communist (...) in philosophy. This is based upon a reading of the tensions and dynamics running through Althusser's work and his dialogue with other thinkers. Particular attention is paid to crucial texts by Althusser that remained unpublished until relatively recently. (shrink)

Hodges (philosophy and political science, Florida State U.) contends that the immensely influential political tract is not, as it claims, a forthright and faithful expression of what communists believed in 1848. He explores its conspiratorial past in the French Revolution, Marx and Engel's informal amendments, and the adaptations and interpretations that have pulled it in different directions for the past century and a half. He shows how it played a key ideological role in both the rise and fall of the (...) Soviet Union. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

Feminist activist, novelist, literary critic, bio-ethnographer, legal autodidact, and political writer: Rebecca West was a 20th-century phenomenon. She was also a lifelong critic of communism’s appeal to the intelligentsia. Communism, West claimed, was attractive to three groups of intellectuals outside the Soviet bloc: a minority of scientists who viewed politics as merely a sum of technical problems to solve; the emotionally devastated for whom communism was a means of mental reorientation; and a déclassé segment of the middle class who envisaged (...) communism as a means of material and status advancement. I examine West’s three explanations for communism’s allure, and then proceed to evaluate her account. My assessment is both empirical, using sociological data on American and European communist parties, and methodological, examining the techniques of West’s style, a mix of novelistic empathy and unmasking political partisanship. This mixture I consider fatal because while the novel, like historical interpretation, allows a generous understanding of human agents, unmasking tends towards caricature and denunciation. (shrink)

Traversing the fields of pedagogy, philosophy, and political theory, this book develops a marxist theory of education that will be useful for academics and activists alike. The second edition includes two additional chapters as well as a new preface and revisions throughout.

Good theory; bad politics - this is how Zizek's works have been described. Now Chris McMillan argues that Zizek's reading of global capitalism could reinvent political subversion. He highlights the political consequences of Zizek's fundamental concepts, such as the Lacanian Real, universality and the communist hypothesis. He argues that Zizek's turn to Communism represents the ultimate significance of Zizek's work for the 21st century and a marked new direction for Zizekian theory. While Zizek's work attracts a lot of labels, most (...) of them pejorative - communist, conservative, anti-semantic - Chris McMillan identifies Zizek's unique and productive contribution to social and political theory, constructing his work as a response to the difficulties of contemporary social theory and the political deadlock of global capitalism. (shrink)

Having lost much of its political clout and theoretical power, communism no longer represents an appealing alternative to capitalism. In its original Marxist formulation, communism promised an ideal of development, but only through a logic of war, and while a number of reformist governments still promote this ideology, their legitimacy has steadily declined since the fall of the Berlin wall. Separating communism from its metaphysical foundations, which include an abiding faith in the immutable laws of history and an almost holy (...) conception of the proletariat, Gianni Vattimo and Santiago Zabala recast Marx's theories at a time when capitalism's metaphysical moorings--in technology, empire, and industrialization--are buckling. While Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri call for a return of the revolutionary left, Vattimo and Zabala fear this would lead only to more violence and failed political policy. Instead, they adopt an antifoundationalist stance drawn from the hermeneutic thought of Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, and Richard Rorty. Hermeneutic communism leaves aside the ideal of development and the general call for revolution; it relies on interpretation rather than truth and proves more flexible in different contexts. Hermeneutic communism motivates a resistance to capitalism's inequalities yet intervenes against violence and authoritarianism by emphasizing the interpretative nature of truth. Paralleling Vattimo and Zabala's well-known work on the weakening of religion, _Hermeneutic Communism_ realizes the fully transformational, politically effective potential of Marxist thought. (shrink)

The Communist Manifesto—rhetorical masterpiece of proletarian revolution—was published 69 years before the Bolshevik Revolution and had a complex reception history that implicated America and Russia in the long interval between. But once the Revolution shook the world, the Manifesto became indissolubly tied to it, forged together as constitutive moments of some supratemporal revolutionary dynamic. Its subsequent and further reception in America bore the marks of Bolshevik contagion, negatively in many quarters, positively in the early American communist movement. As various communist (...) parties morphed and multiplied in the 1910s and 1920s, they announced themselves in manifestoes—communist manifestoes that in form and content followed and kept centrally in view the original of 1848. This essay explores the symbioses and synergies between the Manifesto, its Anglophone reception in America, and the Bolshevik contagion that spread into an emergent medium, namely, the manifestoes of American communist parties that heralded the revolution in Russia, a century ago. (shrink)

In the Critique of Gotha Programme, Karl Marx famously argues that a communist society will be characterised by the principle, ‘From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!’ I take up a question about this principle that was originally posed by G.A. Cohen, namely: what makes communism (so conceived) possible for Marx? In reply to this question, Cohen interprets Marx as saying that communism is possible because of limitless abundance, a view that Cohen takes to be (...) implausible for ecological reasons. I develop a new interpretation of Marx's position. On this interpretation, people in communist society achieve self-realisation through providing others with the goods and services required for their self-realisation. Coupled with a reasonably high (but not immense) development of productive power, self-realisation generates conditions in which people can produce according to their abilities and receive according to their needs. I defend this view as an interpretation of Marx and I argue that it represents a more plausible account of what makes communism possible than Cohen's interpretation in which technological advance and limitless abundance play the predominant role. (shrink)