E. M. Wood, one of the main figures of political Marxism, is interviewed by Frédérick-Guillaume Dufour and Jonathan Martineau and discusses the different directions of her work. The main questions she is asked concern : her relationship to Marx ; her specific approach to history and how it differs from other Marx-inspired types of analysis ; the situation of contemporary capitalism ; the dead ends of intellectual debates in recent years and the challenges of the current political situation.

The theory of social-property relations, or political Marxism, has argued that in contradistinction with pre-capitalist forms of exploitation, capitalism is characterised by the separation of the economic and the political, which makes surplus appropriation under this system uniquely driven by economic coercion. In spite of political Marxism’s various strengths, this article argues that the paradigm puts forward an ahistorical and sanitised conception of capitalism typical of bourgeois economics, which is an outcome of its formal-abstractionist approach (...) to the concept of the mode of production and the separation between theory and history that it operates. A more satisfactory solution to political Marxism’s inability to make sense of past and present forms of coercion and violence under capitalism can be found in Jairus Banaji’s emphasis on Marx’s historical – rather than formal – conception of the mode of production. (shrink)

The theory of social property relations and its historical sociology The theory of social property relations (or Political Marxism) represents an important breakthrough in the renewal of Marxian historical sociology. Rooted in a specific reinterpretation of the transition from feudalism to capitalism grounded in a comparative history of social property regimes, the theory renews historical materialism through a deep historical, relational and geopolitical understanding of history. It offers an important epistemological shift in our understanding (...) of historical change. At the core of the theory is a decisive attempt to debunk the pitfalls of teleological and deterministic conception of history that litters most Liberal, Weberian and Marxist conceptions of history. The theory’s recent developments are also proposing a reinterpretation of the international and geopolitical developments of capitalism and modernity. The purpose of this article is to offer a general presentation of the core attributes, contributions and developments of the theory. (shrink)

Marx's Rebellion Against Lenin is a representative of the contemporary revitalization of the thought of Marx. It fulfils this task in three ways. First, it overthrows the dialectical materialism of Engels and of Stalinist Bolshevism by exploring 18th century historical thought and illustrating how these Enlightenment historians and political theorists first explored method of historical explanation that were later adopted by Marx. It is shown that contrary to the theory of Stalinist Bolshevism, Hegel was a vital influence on Marx. (...) Second, Levine's book represents Marx as an exponent of Classical Humanism. Marx did not define communism as a form of materialism, as economic egalitarianism, but rather related communism to the Classical ethics of Aristotle, to the Aristotelian ideas of polis citizenship and the ethics of distributive justice. Third, it is argued that the 17th and 18th Century Enlightenment was not simply a liberal center extolling property, individual rights and capitalism. Instead it is shown that the 17th and 18th century Enlightenment was divided between an Enlightenment Center and an Enlightenment Left, with the Enlightenment Left challenging the domination of capitalism and private property. Marx's Rebellion Against Lenin traces the flow of the theories of the Enlightenment Left into Marx and in doing so liberates Marxist thought from its imprisonment in 19th century materialism and relocates it within the traditions of Classical Humanism. (shrink)

Marxism has often been associated with two different legacies. The first rests on a strong exposition and critique of the logic of capitalism, grounded in a systematic analysis of the laws of motion of capitalism as a system. The second legacy refers to a strong historicist perspective grounded in a conception of social relations that emphasises the centrality of power and social conflict to the analysis of history. This article challenges the prominence of structural accounts of capitalism by showing (...) how the tension between these legacies has played out within Political Marxism, both orientations already having co-existed, somewhat uneasily, within Robert Brenner’s original contributions to the Transition Debate. Through this internal critique and re-formulation of Political Marxism, we wish to open a broader debate within Marxism on the need for a more agency-based account of capitalism, which builds more explicitly on the concept of social relations, to recover the historicist legacy of Marxism. (shrink)

Cohen states in the last sentence of his book that his analysis in no way presupposes the controversial labor theory of value. For him, the contradictions of capitalist production result from the fact that its function is to create exchange value. The statements themselves and the fact that they come very late in the book illustrate two distinctive characteristics of the work. First, Cohen espouses what he calls a technological interpretation of Marx. For him, the driving force of history is (...) the steady increase in the capacity of productive forces. Capitalism supersedes feudalism because of its ability to produce more. This technological interpretation of Marx is a theory of history because only certain production relations allow for the development and expansion of productive forces. For example, the levels of production attained by capitalism would be unthinkable within the context of lord and serf. Secondly, it is not really clear that Cohen is defending a theory of history until he formulates the primacy thesis in chapter 6 and elaborates upon it and the rise of capitalism in chapter 7. The primacy thesis states that the production relations of society are explained by the level of development of its productive forces. Cohen seems to dispense with what is often thought of as the philosophy of history in his discussion of the Hegelian roots of Marxism in the first chapter. He proceeds to analyze the distinction between productive forces and production relations and its consequences for the phenomenon of fetishism in chapters 2-5. These first chapters, and some later ones as well, seem to have the property of belaboring at great length elementary problems raised by the preface to the Critique of Political Economy, and Capital as well. For example, in his distinction between productive forces and production relations, Cohen says that the two must not be confused because relations hold between objects while forces are properties of objects. He says that a soldier who guards peasants tilling the soil is not part of the labor power because he fulfills a social rather than an economic need. Then he presents and elaborates upon a list of production relations. Cohen might have avoided the need for such involved analysis if he had clearly delineated the methodological import of his work in the introduction or the first chapter. I refer to his theory of functional explanation. It is, however, only after he has discussed the problem of base and superstructure in chapter 8 that he comes to examine functional analysis in chapters 9 and 10. Since functional explanation is the crux of his defence of Marxism as a theory of history, the reader deserves a more thorough preparation for it in an introduction. (shrink)

The capacity to provide satisfactory nursing care is being increasingly compromised by current trajectories of healthcare funding and governance. The purpose of this paper is to examine how well Marxist theories of the state and its relationship with capital can explain these trajectories in this period of ever‐increasing austerity. Following a brief history of the current crisis, it examines empirically the effects of the crisis, and of the current trajectory of capitalism in general, upon the funding and organization of the (...) UK and US healthcare systems. The deleterious effect of growing income inequalities to the health of the population is also addressed. Marx's writings on the state and its relation to the capitalist class were fragmentary and historically and geographically specific. From them, we can extract three theoretical variants: the instrumentalist theory of the state, where the state has no autonomy from capital; the abdication theory, whereby capital abstains from direct political power and relies on the state to serve its interests; and the class‐balance theory, whereby the struggle between two opposed classes allows the state to assert itself. Discussion of modern Marxist interpretations includes Poulantzas's abdication theory and Miliband's instrumentalist theory. It is concluded that, despite the pluralism of electoral democracies, the bourgeoisie do have an overweening influence upon the state. The bourgeoisie's ownership of the means of production provides the foundation for its influence because the state is obliged to rely on it to manage the supply of goods and services and the creation of wealth. That power is further reinforced by the infiltration of the bourgeoisie into the organs of state. The level of influence has accelerated rapidly over recent decades. One of the consequences of this has been that healthcare systems have become rich pickings for the evermore confident bourgeoisie. (shrink)

This text explores a set of key concepts in Marxist theory as developed and read by Lacan, demonstrating links and connections between Marxist thought and Lacanian practice. The book examines the complexity of these encounters through the structure of a comprehensive vocabulary which covers diverse areas, from capitalism and communism to history, ideology, politics, work, and family. Offering new perspectives on these concepts in psychoanalysis, as well as in the fields of political and critical theory, the book brings together (...) contributions from a range of international experts to demonstrate the dynamic relationship between Marx and Lacan, as well as illuminating 'untranslatable points' which may offer productive tension between the two. The entries trace the trajectory of Lacan's appropriation of Marx's concepts and analyses how they were questioned, criticized and reworked by Lacan, accounting for the wide reach of two thinkers and worlds in constant homology. Each entry also discusses psychoanalytic debates relating to the concept and seeks to refine the clinical scope of Marx's work, demonstrating its impact on the social and individual dimensions of Lacanian clinical practice. With a practical and structured approach, The Marx Through Lacan Vocabulary will appeal to psychoanalysts and researchers in a range of fields, including political science, cultural studies, and philosophy. (shrink)

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was trained as a philosopher and steeped in the thought of Hegel and German idealism, but turned away from philosophy in his mid-twenties towards politics, economics and history. It is for his these subjects Marx is best known and in which his work and ideas shaped the very nature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, Marx's engagement with philosophy runs through most of his work, especially in his philosophy of history and in moral and political (...) philosophy. In this outstanding introduction to Marx's philosophy Jaime Edwards and Brian Leiter begin with an overview of Marx's life and intellectual development, before examining and assessing the following important topics: Marx's theory of history: Hegel, dialectics, teleology, materialism functionalism and the causal explanation of historical change economics, history and the transition from communism to capitalism ideology, morality and religion human nature, alienation and the good life for human beings Marx's legacy and influence, including Western Marxism and the Frankfurt School. The addition of chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary of technical terms make this an indispensable introduction to Marx's philosophy. It will also be useful to those in related disciplines such as politics, sociology, history and economics. (shrink)

The gap between Marx’s theoretical writings on political economy and his historical writings arises out of certain limitations that Marx placed upon his political-economic enquiries. These limitations are outlined in the Grundrisse where Marx distinguishes between the universality of the metabolic relation to nature, the generality of the laws of motion of capital, the particularities of distribution and exchange, and the singularities of consumption. What an analysis of the content of Capital shows is that Marx largely confined his (...) efforts to identifying the law-like character of production to the exclusion of all else. While this allowed him to identify certain laws of motion of capital within any form of the capitalist mode of production, it did not and could not constitute a total theory of a capitalist mode of production. A better understanding of what it is that Marx can do for us through his identification of the general laws of motion leads to a far better appreciation of what it is that we have to do for ourselves in order to make Marx’s theoretical findings applicable to particular conjunctural conditions, such as those that have arisen throughout the economic crisis that began in 2007. (shrink)

After the initial formulation of the concept of reification in Georg Lukács’s History and Class Consciousness (HCC, 1923), a series of confusing uses of it within critical theory have contributed to blurring its contours. In his pre-Marxist work, while analyzing the social rationalization process, Lukács located the modern form of mediation between subject and object and connected it with certain effects on the level of human consciousness and behavior. This very scheme is repeated and refined in HCC. In the Reification (...) essay, Lukács uses the neo-Kantian concept of the “form of objectivity” to grasp the central constitutive form of all kinds of objects in bourgeois society. He interprets Marx’s commodity form as the “archetype” of all capitalist objectivity, which consists in converting qualitative contents into quantitative categories. Thus, the formal/calculative rationality of exchange penetrates all kinds of objectification in modern society. In Lukács’s view, only in its modern, universalized form does rational objectification bring about the phenomenon of reification, i.e. the de-historicization and political neutralization of the social relations that constitute the social system and the dominant forms of consciousness. This systemic, cultural, and political understanding of reification can prove to be fruitful in the context of contemporary discussions on democratic transformative praxis. (shrink)

At the present time, Europe, particularly eastern Europe, is still immersed in a major political transformation, the most significant such change since the Second World War, arising out of the rejection of official Marxism. This unforeseen rejection requires meditation by all those concerned with the relation of philosophy to the historical context. Marxism, that follows Marx’s insistence on the link between a theory and the context in which it arises, cannot be indifferent to the rejection of Marxist theory in (...) practice. In respect to the usual tendency to pass rapidly over practice for a theoretical analysis of social theory, Merleau-Ponty stands out for his concern to evaluate the theoretical claims of Marx and Marxism against practice. (shrink)

Jairus Banaji’s collection of essays is a stimulating and provocative assessment of recent Marxist history-writing on issues of social theory and historical development in both ancient as well as modern societies. It challenges the overly simplistic application of Marx’s categories of analysis, arguing for both complexity and a clearer theorisation of fundamental terminology and analytical tropes, including labour-process and mode of production. This review article suggests that, while the basic arguments represent a welcome corrective to some Marxist historical work, and (...) at the same time address in an accessible way non-Marxist historians, there remain some problematic issues, in particular in respect of the criteria for differentiating between different types of mode of production, the level at which this concept has heuristic application, and the distinction between the political/institutional and the modal instances of theorisations of social-economic relations. Some of these issues are exemplified by reference to particular historical cases. (shrink)

This article seeks to reinterpret the process of state and class formation in “peripheral” societies—notably Syria—through a contextualized reading of Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire influenced by the approach of Political Marxism (PM). In light of PM’s claim that capitalism did not emerge in France until the late nineteenth century, it draws a picture of post-revolutionary French society in which the legacy of the precapitalist Absolutist state still determined the nature of ruling class reproduction and class struggle, centered on the state (...) apparatus as the principal source of appropriation. These insights on the nature of ruling class appropriation and the centrality of the state are then applied to the case of post-Ottoman Syria, uncovering parallels with class struggles in post-revolutionary France rooted in the “Jacobin” politics of a state-dependent bourgeoisie of officials and officers. It proposes to rethink the contested moments of transition in terms of “alternative modernities” that developed in the absence of generalized capitalist relations of production. (shrink)

Alasdair MacIntyre’s relationship to Karl Marx and Marxism has been and remains fundamental in his work. Drawing on a number of important MacIntyrean texts, this paper shows how it has animated his Marxist early years, how it has been a crucial element in the epistemological crisis he experienced and how it has left him an important legacy. At the heart of the history of this relationship are the question of truth, the problematics of the right telos of human action, of (...) the achievement of the individual and common goods, of the desires, the role of the critique of both the capitalist system and the Marxist politics. Understanding how MacIntyre positioned himself in relation to all these issues helps us to understand the reasons that led him to switch from a Marxist to an Aristotelian narrative. Key concepts of Marx and the Marxist tradition find a new life today in the now Aristotelian-Thomist thought of Alasdair MacIntyre. (shrink)

Volume I is one of the most influential documents of modern times, looking at the relationship between labor and value, the role of money, and the conflict between the classes. The "forgotten" second volume of Capital, Marx's world-shaking analysis of economics, politics, and history, contains the vital discussion of commodity, the cornerstone to Marx's theories. The third volume was unfinished at the time of Marx's death in 1883 and first published with a preface by Frederick Engels in 1894, strove to (...) combine the theories and concepts of the two previous volumes in order to prove conclusively that capitalism is inherently unworkable as a permanent system for society. Here, Marx asserts controversially that - regardless of the efforts of individual capitalists, public authorities or even generous philanthropists - any market economy is inevitably doomed to endure a series of worsening, explosive crises leading finally to complete collapse. But he also offers an inspirational and compelling prediction: that the end of capitalism will culminate, ultimately, in the birth of a far greater form of society. (shrink)

Walter Adamson begins his study of Marx and contemporary neo-Marxism with a rehearsal Marxism's oft-cited problems: oppressive regimes which rule in the name of Marxism, the lack of a fully-developed Marxist morality, inaccurate descriptions of contemporary capitalism, and problems in the relation between the Marxian theories of history and society and visions of socialism. Fortunately, Adamson does not simply engage in another tedious demolition job or ideological denunciation of the god that failed in the manner of the French 'new philosophers' (...) and 'post-structuralists' or one-time American New Leftists like Isaac Balbus. Instead Adamson quickly asserts Sartre's position that '"there is no going beyond" a philosophy "so long as man has not gone beyond the historical moment" it expresses' (2) and that, as of yet, we have neither transcended this historical moment nor has a superior philosophy or political ideology appeared. (shrink)

Theory as History brings together twelve essays by Jarius Banaji addressing the nature of modes of production, the forms of historical capitalism and the varieties of pre-capitalist modes of production. Problematic formulations concerning the relationship of social-property relations and the laws of motion of different modes of production and his notion of merchant and slave-holding capitalism undermines Banaji’s project of constructing a non-unilinear, non-Eurocentric Marxism.

While he develops three different aspects of Lacan's “Real,” Slavoj Žižek does so only partially, in the end leaving an inconsistent and contradictory account. Here these three versions of the Real are outlined and clarified by showing their relation to Marx's account of capitalist exchange and socialist politics. This leads to a discussion of two other aspects of the Real that appear in Žižek's work: the pre-Symbolic Real and the “Sinthome.” Where the former is simultaneously the fear of a unified (...) working class and the fantasy of a world of “total enjoyment” without conflict, the latter is discussed here in terms of political struggle that takes on not only the form of a means to an end but also that of an end in itself. (shrink)

In their work The German Ideology, the founders of Marxism assert that the prerequisite of post-capitalist (defined by them as communist) society is the universal development of human abilities and all social relations. But then on the same page, contrary to this statement, it is alleged that the abolition of private property is not only highly topical but it is also an imperative history-making task. In Manifesto of the Communist Party, Marx and Engels explain that economic crises recurrently (...) shaking capitalist society expose an apparent contradiction between the productive forces and the capitalist relations of production – therefore, these relations must be eliminated for the preservation of society. Nonetheless, the same treatise affirms that the bourgeoisie cannot exist without revolutionizing not only the productive forces but also the relations of production. But in this case it stands to reason to recognize that there is no conflict between productive forces and production relations, and, therefore, there is no crisis of the capitalist system, either. Paradoxes in the communist theory of Marxism stem not merely from erroneous conceptions but reveal the fact that Marxism as an ideology comes into conflict with its scientific social theory. Hence, these paradoxes disclose the relative independence of the social theory of Marxism from its ideological postulates. (shrink)

In their work The German Ideology the founders of Marxism assert that the prerequisite of post-capitalist (defined by them as communist) society is the universal development of human abilities and all social relations. But then on the same page, contrary to this statement, it is alleged that the abolition of private property is not only highly topical but it is also an imperative history-making task. In Manifesto of the Communist Party Marx and Engels explain that economic crises recurrently (...) shaking the capitalist society expose an apparent contradiction between the productive forces and the capitalist relations of production - therefore, these relations must be eliminated for the preservation of society. Nonetheless, the same treatise affirms that the bourgeoisie cannot exist without revolutionizing not only the productive forces but also the relations of production. But in this case it stands to reason to recognize that there is no conflict between the productive forces and the production relations, and, therefore, there is no crisis of the capitalist system, either. Paradoxes in the communist theory of Marxism stem not merely from erroneous conceptions but reveal the fact that Marxism as an ideology comes into conflict with its scientific social theory. Hence, these paradoxes disclose relative independence of the social theory of Marxism from its ideological postulates. (shrink)

The readings collected here—of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Rosa Luxemburg, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Antonio Gramsci— reflect the experience of the labor, socialist, and communist movements that did so much to shape modern history. A dedication to working-class revolution gives coherence to the influential philosophical, economic, sociological, and historical works of these writers. Paul Le Blanc's introductory essay probes the structure and dynamics of Marxism as a political orientation, tracing connections among components that can be found in (...) the readings: the theory of capitalist development, the theory of the labor movement, the strategy of revolution, the conception of the transition to socialism. Others identified with the Marxist tradition—such as Plekhanov, Kautsky, Stalin, Mao—are also discussed, and attention is given to perspectives of such varied critics of Marxism as Sidney Hook, Bertram D. Wolfe, James Burnham, Daniel Bell, Robert Heilbroner, and C. Wright Mills. Historical reflections are blended with discussion of the durability of capitalism, the disappointment of hopes for workers' revolution, the "collapse of communism," issues of race and gender, the environment, and challenges of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Alain Badiou’s theoretical work maintains an ambiguous relation to Marx’s critique of political economy. In seemingly refusing the Marxian analytical strategy of displacement and referral across the fields of politics and economy, Badiou is frequently seen to be lacking a rigorous theoretical grasp of capitalism itself. In turn, this is often seen as a consequence of his understanding of political subjectivity. But the origins of this ‘lack’ of analysis of the social relation called ‘capital’ in his work can (...) also be investigated by means of a detour into the economic writings of theUnion des communistes de France marxiste-léniniste, the political organisation in which Badiou played a leading rôle throughout the 1970s in particular. By excavating this theoretical work of the 1970s, we can identify more precisely the historical and political reasons behind Badiou’s ambiguous relation to Marx and specifically to Marx’s systematic grasp of the logic of capital. This excavation will consequently lead us to a reflection on the limits and openings in Badiou’s thought for the Marxian critique of political economy. (shrink)

Lacan and Marx: The Invention of the Symptom provides an incisive commentary on Lacan's reading of Marx, mapping the relations between these two vastly influential thinkers. Unlike previous books, Bruno provides a detailed history of Lacan's reading of Marx and surveys his references to Marx in both his writings and seminars. Examining Lacan's key argument that Marx "invented the symptom", Bruno shows how Lacan went on to criticize Marx and contrasts Marx's concept of surplus-value with Lacan's surplus-enjoyment. Exploring the (...) division between Marxist and psychoanalytic perspectives on social and psychological need and Lacan's formalisation of the capitalist discourse, the book compares the positions of Althusser, Deleuze and Guattari, and Zizek on the relations between Lacan, Marx and capitalism, using a wide range of cultural examples, from Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to Brecht's Joan Dark and Pierpont Mauler. Through these readings, Bruno also elaborates an extended commentary on Lacan's central idea of the division of the subject. His focus is not only on showing how we can exit from capitalism but also, and just as importantly, on showing how we can make capitalism exit from us. This book will be of great interest to scholars and readers of Lacan and Marx from across the fields of psychoanalysis, philosophy and political economy, and will also appeal to Lacanian psychoanalysts in clinical practice. (shrink)

State capitalism has recently come to the fore as a transversal research object in the social sciences. Renewed interest in the notion is evident across several disciplines, in scholarship addressing government interventionism in economic life in major developing countries. This emergent field of study on state capitalism, however, consistently bypasses the remarkable conceptual trajectory of the notion from the end of the 19th century to the present. This article proposes an intellectual-historical survey of state capitalism’s many lives across different ensembles (...) of writing: early Marxist pronouncements on state capitalism at the time of the Second International; theories of state capitalism evolved in the first half of the 20th century in response to the European experience of war and fascism; dissident portrayals of the Soviet Union as state-capitalist; post-Second World War theories of state-monopoly capitalism in the Western Bloc; examinations of state capitalism as a development strategy in ‘Third World’ nations in the 1970s and 1980s; and finally, today’s scholarship on new patterns of state capitalism in emerging economies. Having contextualized each of these strands of writing, the article goes on to interrogate definitional and conceptual boundaries of state capitalism. It then maps out essential institutional features of state-capitalist configurations as construed in the literature. In sharp contrast to 20th-century theories of state capitalism, present-day scholarship on the topic tends to retreat from the integrated critique of political economy, shifting its problematics of state-market relations to meso- and micro-levels of analysis. (shrink)

Karl Marx has often been described as anti‐ecological, concerned about the exploitation of humanity, not of nature. But, conducting a careful review of Marx's writings and a survey of the intellectual context in which Marx lived and worked, John Bellamy Foster argues that, in fact, Marx had a deeply and systematically ecological view of the world.To make this argument, Foster traces the development of Marx's ideas. He finds in the materialist, antiteleological philosophy of Epicurus the partial origins of an ecological (...) perspective. Other elements of Marx's ecology emerged from his critique of Thomas Malthus's view that population would inevitably outstrip agricultural production—a conclusion that could justify social inequality. From this subject, Marx turned to a study of the agricultural chemist Justus von Liebig, drawing from him to formulate the notion of a “metabolic rift” in the human relation with nature. Armed with such ideas, Marx contributed to debates over soil “exhaustion,” the problems of agriculture, and the division between town and country. Ultimately, under Liebig's influence, Marx arrived at an ecological critique of capitalist agriculture and what he saw as its inevitable depletion of the natural fertility of the soil. Both he and Friedrich Engels would argue that ecological problems could be addressed only if human beings regarded nature rationally, through an understanding of nature's laws, and then organized production accordingly.Thus, engaged in nineteenth‐century discussions about science and nature, including those relating to Darwinism, Marx linked social transformation with the transformation of the human relation with nature: the alienation of human labor paralleled the alienation of human beings from nature. In other words, the domination of nature resulting from unequal ownership of land paralleled the domination of humans through economic power. Foster traces these ideas across each stage in the development of Marx's thought: in relation to agriculture, Darwinism, and, in his last years, ethnology, geology, and paleontology. Foster follows the course of Marx's ecological views even after Marx's death. For a time, Marx and Engel's ecological critiques influenced Marxist thought in the Soviet Union. Nikolai Bukharin, August Bebel, and other Marxist scholars built on the original foundation, and by the 1920s Soviet ecology was highly advanced—only to be crushed, in the 1930s, by Stalin.Seeking to place Marx within his context, Foster ranges widely, from Epicurus to the influence of Epicureanism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to Julien Offray de La Mettrie, Baron d'Holbach, Denis Diderot, and Darwin, and on to Hegel, political economy, and French socialism. He covers thinkers who influenced Marx as well as those whom Marx reacted against, including William Paley and, especially, Malthus, who represented for Marx the intrusion of natural theology into political economy. In attempting to reconstruct Marx's world, Foster largely follows the methods of traditional intellectual history, often interpreting ideas apart from their contexts. In his analysis of Darwin's ideas, for example, he considers Marx's debts to other scholars but not Marx's own research and observations of nature. Foster, however, does review in some detail society and politics in Marx's day, remarking on the social discontent and the perception of materialism as a threat to the established order, associated with both atheism and revolutionary France.Foster's ambition goes beyond illuminating Marx's thought to situating ecology within materialism and science. Foster thus takes issue, persuasively, with the idea, often encountered in Green thought, that modern science justifies exploitative attitudes toward nature. This view, according to Foster, is a misinterpretation of modern science and reflects a reduction of ecological questions to questions of values, obscuring the material interrelations between humans and nature. In fact, he finds no necessary contradiction between sustainability and the mastery of nature, noting that in the seventeenth century John Evelyn, among others, remained an advocate of modern science even as he defended trees and criticized London's air pollution. And he notes that in the nineteenth century ecological thought, in the work of Darwin and others, was grounded in materialist conceptions of nature.Foster's analysis is valuable both as a critique of the conventional wisdom about Marx's views of nature and as a thorough effort to place Marx within the context of his time. Scholars and readers interested in nineteenth‐century intellectual history will find Foster's acccount of an ecological revolutionary worth the study. (shrink)

Combining rigorous theoretical debate with a set of articles exploring Ernesto Laclau’s thinking of politics, leading international scholars of contemporary radical theory demonstrate the relevance of Laclau’s work to conceptualizing the Political and politics. Part 1 situates Laclau’s conceptualisation of the political in the past four decades, both before and after the publication of _Hegemony and Socialist Strategy_. In particular it reviews Laclau’s critique of Marx and Marxism, in order to explore questions not addressed at the time. Part (...) 2 addresses Laclau’s work on _Rhetoric and Affect_ developed in some detail over the past decade. These chapters emphasise the centrality of affect and rhetoric to Laclau’s conceptualisation of hegemony, thinking this in relation to the importance of rhetoric to neo-liberal politics, and arguing that rhetorical tropes are central to any thinking of the political. Part 3 positions Laclau’s work in relation to _Contemporary Political theory_ marking his distance and debt from/to Althussser, Schmitt and Wittgenstein respectively. Part 4 explores Laclau’s account of _Radical Democracy_ in relation to contemporary political concerns. Authors address the recent financial crisis; debt in relation to Greek and European politics; the analysis of contemporary capitalism; the politics of the Occupy movement and Latin American populism. (shrink)

This article aims to bring together post-Marxist discourse theory and the critique of political economy in the context of the debate on the Marxian theory of value. Although Laclau and Mouffe criticized Marxism for its economic reductionism, they did not connect this to a comprehensive critique of Marx's writings on value and labor. The merit of considering the theory of value in more detail is underscored by discourse theory's relative silence on the capitalist economy. By drawing on the work (...) of Postone and Elson, it will become clear that there are largely two ways to interpret Marx's theory of value: either as an essentialist theory of price and exploitation, or as a historically specific theory of the constitution of social labor relations in capitalist society. By teasing out Laclau's implicit understanding of Marx's value theory, the article argues that it is in fact his essentialist interpretation of the labor theory of value that constitutes an obstacle toward grasping the social relations of labor and commodity production from a discourse-theoretical perspective. This clears the ground toward approaching Marx's value theory from a post-Marxist perspective, which would grasp the social relations of abstract labor as a hegemonic formation. (shrink)

As austerity measures are put into place the world over and global restructuring is acknowledged by all as an attempt to bolster the economic system that lead to the crash, there is a great need to come to grips with the economic, political and philosophical legacy of Marx. Of particular interest are Marx's analyses of alienation and the cycles of boom and bust thought to be integral to the functioning of capitalism. Moreover, as the Cold War drifts into the (...) history books, it is possible to reconsider the lasting impact of Marx's analyses without the shadows cast by the Soviet version of communism. Equally, though, scholars are increasingly turning to Marx for insight into the rise of religion and the corresponding demise of political ideologies that seems to mark the contemporary age. Are we witnessing 'the return of Marx'? Few scholars have done as much to tease out the intricacies of Marx, ideology and religion and their overlapping concerns as the eminent writer and Marx biographer, Professor David McLellan. This book brings together a group of internationally renowned academics to reflect upon, develop and criticise McLellan's analyses of these three themes with a view to contributing more broadly to scholarly debates in these fields. This exciting and timely analysis will be of interest to scholars of political theory, the history of political thought, Marx and Marxism, sociology of knowledge, religion and theology more widely. (shrink)

This article seeks to contextualise Ellen Meiksins Wood’s recent survey of classical and medieval political thought within the context of some of the prevailing approaches to the history of political thought. After an initial elaboration of Wood’s ‘political-Marxist’ approach to issues of historical development and contextualisation, I emphasise what is significant about Wood’s specific contribution to the study of Greek, Roman and medieval political ideas in particular, as well as to the history of political thought (...) in general. (shrink)

This book contributes to the feminist reconstruction of political theory. Although many feminist authors have pointed out the ways in which women have been property, they have been less successful in suggesting how women might become the subjects rather than the objects of property-holding. This book synthesises political theory from liberal, Marxist, Kantian and Hegelian traditions, applying these ideas to history and social policy.

Large exchange markets, big money, interest-bearing credit, big landholdings, proletarian masses, imperial expansion and even ‘capital’ or ‘salaried workers’, are not in themselves specific, unique institutional features of Modern Capitalism. This article argues that the features that characterize Modern Capitalism are a massive emergence of ‘free’, monetized wage labour, a self-propelled rush to unbounded world expansion and the progressive conversion of expropriated and privatized land into a monetized commodity, as well as a radically new use of the ancestral social institutions (...) of money and credit as an instrument for financing the production of commodities to obtain a surplus in the form of monetary profit, but also to generate expropriatory social debt relations. This article explains these dynamic historical forces and their importance for political philosophy and for legal and economic history and economics and sheds some light on the relationship between ‘capitalism’ and ‘modernity’. (shrink)

In economic history value theory is simply one paradigm amongst others. It refers to an ensemble of economic ideas developed by classical political economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo. In the works of Karl Marx, however, value theory takes on a new meaning. It is charged with political significance and relates directly to class struggles in modern society. In this paper we will explore some aspects of Marx’s critique of capitalism as interpreted by Harry Cleaver, Isaak (...) Illich Rubin, Roman Rodolsky and several other scholars. (shrink)

_The Revenge of History_ is a frontal assault on the widely accepted idea that the East European revolutions of 1989 mark the death of socialism. Alex Callinicos seeks to vindicate the classical Marxist tradition by arguing that socialism in this tradition can only come from below, through the self-activity of the working class. Stalinism from this standpoint was a counterrevolution, erecting at the end of the 1920s a state capitalist regime on the ruins of the radically democratic socialism briefly achieved (...) in October 1917. Callinicos argues that the collapse of Stalinism at the end of the 1980s is one aspect of a worldwide transition from nationally organized to globally integrated capitalism. The result is likely to be greater economic and political instability. Against this background socialism—in Marx's sense—is all the more necessary. Callinicos contends that Marx's vision of a classless communist society would be both practically feasible and profoundly democratic. He concludes that the collapse of Stalinism should be less the moment to abandon socialism than to resume unfinished business. (shrink)

In this groundbreaking work, Ellen Meiksins Wood rewrites the history of political theory, from Plato to Rousseau. Treating canonical thinkers as passionately engaged human beings, Wood examines their ideas not simply in the context of political languages but as creative responses to the social relations and conflicts of their time and place. She identifies a distinctive relation between property and state in Western history and shows how the canon, while largely the work of members or clients (...) of dominant classes, was shaped by complex interactions among proprietors, labourers and states. Western political theory, Wood argues, owes much of its vigour, and also many ambiguities, to these complex and often contradictory relations. In this new edition, incorporating both volumes, the book takes us from classical antiquity to the age of enlightenement. In the first volume, Wood traces the development of the Western tradition from classical antiquity through to the Middle Ages in the perspective of social history--a significant departure not only from the standard abstract history of ideas but also from other contextual methods. In the second volume, Wood moves on to explore the formation of the modern state, the rise of capitalism, the Renaissance and Reformation, the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment. In her focus on canonical thinkers through the ages, Wood illuminates a rich and provocative legacy of political ideas unmatched in Western history"--Publisher's website. (shrink)

In this book, the most thorough account of Marx's theory of alienation yet to have appeared in English, Professor Ollman reconstructs the theory from its constituent parts and offers it as a vantage point from which to view the rest of Marxism. The book further contains a detailed examination of Marx's philosophy of internal relations, the much neglected logical foudation of his method, and provides a systematic account of Marx's conception of human nature. Because of its almost unique concern (...) with helping readers understand Marx's unusual use of language, Alienation has proven very popular in university courses on Marxism on both undergraduate and graduate levels. The first edition was widely reviewed, and in this new edition Professor Ollman replies to his critics in 'More on internal relations,' published here as Appendix II. In addition to this new appendix the author now provides a more systematic discussion of Marx's theory of ideology, elements of which were formerly dispersed throughout the book. He also attempts to set the treatment of political alienation within the broader framework of Marx's theory of the state as a model of how an approach based on internal relations can be used to integrate various apparently contradictory interpretations of Marx's views. (shrink)

Karl Marx, the revolutionist philosopher, interpreted history as a world view which is the dimension of social development. His dialectic effort and materialistic conception are intended to preserve the rights of social being particularly of the working people who are repeatedly being oppressed. Class struggle is the ultimate solution of distinctions among classes through which there will be no class and the existing working class will revolt against capitalist economy and, as a result, they will control means of production which (...) will create the situation of the dictatorship of the working people. These class distinctions will be removed through the establishment of scientific communism referred by Marx. This article shows how Marx’s life and thought changed the course of history and how he influenced society to make a better place for living. I intend to show the reasons behind the worldwide acceptance of Marxism theoretically. My aim is to show how his theories and ideas are significant in socio-political aspects of philosophy. Philosophy and Progress, Vol#73-74; No#1-2; Jan-Dec 2023 P 259-279. (shrink)

SUMMARYTo be Marxist at the turn of the twentieth century was highly contested. During this crisis of Marxism, identity politics were acute, exemplified by the private and public debate between Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky. With Bernstein's celebrated turn away from the Marxist theory of his day, the grounds for being Marxist were at stake. Was it possible to criticise Marx's analysis of industrial capitalism, his account of historical change and his hard-nosed class politics, and yet still be in a (...) position to carry his name forward? Moreover, the springing-up of another identity, Revisionist, suggested that being Marxist was ambiguous. If one accepted Bernstein's and the Revisionists' point that Marxists had become too orthodox, leaving Revisionists as the true heirs of Marx's critical socialist spirit, then the Marxist identity was so open as to be meaningless. In this article, I contend that the name-calling of this period, the Revisionismusstreit, should be seen as creative. In contrast to politico-ideological perceptions of the Streit, which construe the clash of Marxist and Revisionist as representative of foundational Social Democratic party political realities, I highlight the manner in which being Marxist—the veneration of Marx's and Friedrich Engels's word into a Marxology of sorts by Marxists and Revisionists alike—held a certain epistemic value in its own right. (shrink)

Este trabajo pretende dejar de manifiesto la existencia de una figura o estructura teórica dentro de la obra del marxista latinoamericano Bolívar Echeverría, que muestre su organicidad interna y lógica argumental. A través de cuatro momentos, se recorre la totalidad de su producción teórica, siguiendo dos elementos estructurales; por un lado, el modo especifico en que el autor leyó la "crítica de la economía política" de Karl Marx, y, por el otro, su intento por desarrollar una crítica a la modernidad (...) capitalista desde la cultura política, a partir de los fundamentos de su lectura de Marx. This work tries to show the existence of a figure or theoretical structure within the work of the Latin American Marxist Bolívar Echeverría, which shows its internal organicity and logical argument. Through four moments, the entirety of its theoretical production is covered, following two structural elements; on the one hand, the specific way in which this author read Karl Marx's critique of political economy, and, on the other, his attempt to develop from it, a critique from political culture to capitalist modernity. (shrink)

Historians don’t seem to be concerned by the “back to Marx” trend observed in many fields during the last decade. After an initial, very limited breakthrough in the inter-war years, Marxism irrupted in the academy in the 1960’s, when it established its hegemony on historical studies, merging with a multiplicity of social sciences. This “golden age” was followed by an epoch of decline, the climax of which was reached in 1989, with the fall of the Berlin’s wall. Since this turning (...) point, historiography has being shaped by the return to neoconservative tendencies as well as by the emergence of postmodernism, which marginalized the traditional Marxist paradigms. Instead of reducing this change to a theoretical battle, the author interprets the decline of Marxist historiography as the result of a political defeat. The absence of any utopian horizon at the beginning of the twentieth first century explains the persistence of this decline. Once liberated from both teleology and Eurocentric views – its secret tendencies from the time of its transformation into a “science” – Marxist historiography could reinvent itself and redefine its goal, which does not consist in the “application” a preformed theory but, according to E.P. Thompson, in “recovering, explaining and to understanding its object : real history”. Such a reinvention means, in the wake of W. Benjamin, to conceive the past not as definitely closed but as a whole of experiences and recollections to “reactivate” in the struggles of the present. (shrink)

The relationship between Marxism and ecology has been sullied by Martinez-Alier's influential interpretation of Engels's reaction to the agricultural energetics of Sergei Podolinsky. This introduction to the first English translation of Podolinsky's 1883 Die Neue Zeit piece evaluates Martinez-Alier's interpretation in light of the four distinct but closely related articles Podolinsky published over the years 1880–3. This evaluation also emphasises the important but previously underrated role of energy analysis in Marx's Capital. Engels's criticisms of Podolinsky are found to be quite (...) justified from both political-economy and ecological perspectives. From the standpoint of Marx and Engels's metabolic and class-relational approach to production, Podolinsky's attempt to reduce use-value to energy is fraught with problems. Podolinsky's energy reductionism does not even come close to representing an alternative value analysis – let alone a groundbreaking perspective on ecological history – as was suggested by Martinez-Alier. Far from Marx and Engels's vision of communism as an ecologically sustainable and coevolutionary human development, Podolinsky's conception of human labor as an energy accumulation machine seems to uncritically mimic the standpoint of the capitalist interested in using nature only to extract as much energy throughput as possible from the labour-power of the worker. (shrink)

In "Finance Capital" (1910), Rudolf Hilferding put forward a theory of capitalist development and imperialism that exerted a powerful influence on Marxist thinking throughout the Twentieth Century. After the First World War, however, Hilferding radically altered that theory. Instead of global capitalist development fueling rivalries among the capitalist states that would likely lead to war, he postulated that mutual economic interests, buttressed by close political and cultural affinities, would be more likely to promote cooperative relations among the western (...) powers which would seek to maintain international peace. Hilferding believed that the “unbridled competition of individual sovereign states” was gradually giving way to a “community of interests.” He suggested that international treaties, the expansion of democracy, and the construction of the League of Nations, would reduce the importance of national sovereignty and would pave the way for peace and socialism. The Second World War and the Cold War seemed to relegate Hilferding’s ideas to the dustbin of history, but the collapse of the communist world and the “triumph of capitalism” have, once again, radically altered the international terrain. This paper argues that important elements of Hilferding’s theory apply to the present capitalist order in which, though imperialism remains alive and well, war among the major powers seems improbable. (shrink)

This article discusses how the way in which post-Enlightenment humans tend to relate to material objects is a fundamental aspect of modern capitalism. The difficulties that conventional academic disciplines have in grasping the societal and political aspect of ‘technology’ stem from the predominant Cartesian paradigm that distinguishes the domain of material objects from that of social relations of exchange. This Cartesian paradigm has constrained the Marxian analysis of capital accumulation from extending the concept of fetishism to the domain (...) of technology. Both Marxian and mainstream thought represent technological objects as empowered by their intrinsic properties, which derive from human ingenuity and tend to progress over time. To transcend this paradigm will be possible only through the kind of post-Cartesian perspective on material artefacts that has been championed by Bruno Latour. However, Latour’s own neglect of technological systems as social strategies of exploitation reflects his lack of concern with global inequalities. (shrink)

This book examines the origins of philosophy in Greek Antiquity and considers key moments of philosophic history as related to revolutionary change, from the French Revolution of 1789 to the May Events of 1968 and beyond. David Black reads Hegel's philosophy--which seems to come to the fore at various "birthtimes in history"--as anticipating Marx's critique of capital, in which the logic of the system intimates a realm beyond it.

Werner Bonefeld is Emeritus Professor in the Department of Politics at the University of York, UK, and Adjunct Professor at the Postgraduate School ZRC SAZU (Ljubljana, Slovenia). He has published on topics as varied as the development of the British state during the 1980s and 1990s, Europe’s monetary union, ordoliberalism, and Marx’s critique of political economy. A ground-breaking critical theorist, Bonefeld’s contribution to an ‘open’ Marxism developed a rigorous critique of capitalist social relations without omitting the significant themes (...) of lived experience and class antagonism. The following interview marks the publication of a recent monograph titled A Critical Theory of Economic Compulsion: Wealth, Suffering, Negation. Bonefeld discusses his reading of Frankfurt School critical theory and its relation to heterodox and open Marxist social theory with Alex Alvarez Taylor, whose research focuses on early critical theory. (shrink)

Montesquieu: politics and history.--Rousseau: the social contract.--Marx's relation to Hegel.

An ongoing point of contention within political philosophy—particularly among those on the Left—is to what extent, if at all, Marxist theory is useful in addressing certain forms of oppression found under capitalism, such as racist oppression. Leftist critics of orthodox Marxism, prominently including Nancy Fraser, often claim that Marx’s critique of capitalism is class-essentialist and unduly narrow and that his theory of exploitation—which these critics allege is the essence of Marx’s theory—is inadequate for the purposes of understanding “extra-economic” forms (...) of oppression. I disagree with these critics. Focusing on Fraser, my aim is to show precisely why the critics are wrong and, moreover, to offer at least an outline for a positive account of a Marxist theory of race and racism, particularly as situated within capitalism. (shrink)

In The Specter of Materialism Petrus Liu examines what "materialism" means for progressive queer theory and Marxist approaches to China's postsocialist economy. Liu recasts the history of queer theory in light of the Beijing Consensus, arguing that North American queer theory's inability to sustain a materialist analysis is the result of its positioning of the United States, rather than China, as the focal point of contemporary global capitalism. Analyzing relations of gender and sexuality that have been reconfigured by China's (...) global capitalist accumulation-such as dagongmei (female migrant laborers in China's export-oriented sunbelt) and money boys (rural-to-urban sex workers)-Liu argues for a materialist queer theory that positions China at the center. (shrink)

According to Marx’s unfinished critique of political economy, capitalist relations of production rely on what Marx refers to in Capital as ‘the mute compulsion of economic relations’. The aim of this article is to demonstrate that this constitutes a distinct form of economic power which cannot be reduced to either ideology or violence, and to provide the conceptual groundwork for a systematic theory of capital’s mute compulsion.