(1996). Marxism and British socialism. The European Legacy: Vol. 1, Fourth International Conference of the International Society for the study of European Ideas, pp. 545-549.

Modern socialist economic reforms which center on the establishment of a commodity based economic system, demand a reconsideration of human nature. Marxism and human sociobiology give different answers to questions about human nature, but neither is complete in itself. It seems timely, therefore, to suggest that a combination of biological understanding with a Marxist-based social understanding would produce a more adequate notion of human nature, thereby helping us to resolve a number of problems posed by reforms currently taking place (...) in socialist countries. We might also hope to face new challenges posed in the future. (shrink)

Existentialism became one of the most fashionable philosophical currents in postwar Czechoslovakia. Whereas the orthodox Marxism of the 1950s, following Lukács’s Marxism or existentialism?, hastily condemned existentialism as an offshoot of bourgeois idealism, Marxists of the 1960s viewed existentialism as a philosophical current that deserved, at the least, serious examination. During the subsequent era of Czechoslovak “real” socialism of the 1970s and 1980s, existentialism was, as a result, interpreted as one of the sources of the 1968 “counterrevolution.” (...) This article maps and analyzes the official Marxist reception of existentialism in the course of the Stalinist, post-Stalinist and so-called real socialist periods of Czechoslovak history. However, its main focus is on the post-Stalinist period, when Czechoslovak philosophy benefited from a lively debate between Marxism and existentialism. Some participants in this debate considered existentialism to be an important rival to Marxism, one that posed the very same questions yet offered slightly different answers. At the center of the polemics lay the existentialist categories of being, existence, and freedom. (shrink)

Existentialism and existentialist thinkers enjoyed sustained interest in Hungary under communist rule. From the late 1940s to the late 1980s, this branch of “bourgeois philosophy” never ceased to generate renewed attention. However, this reception was not subsumed into the ideological orthodoxy, nor was it simply destined to fuel Marxist–Leninist criticism. Whereas Georg Lukács’s polemics with existentialism in the 1940s set the agenda to embrace a highly critical reception, it was precisely Sartre’s influence in the 1960s that had opened the door (...) for a more open-minded Marxist reading of existentialist thinkers in Hungary. This paper seeks to reconstruct the intellectual motifs and contexts that underlie this uncommon development. In focusing predominantly on the period of the 1960–1980s, I am particularly interested in exploring Lukács’s role in the changing attitude towards existentialism in Hungary; the controversies between various Marxist approaches dealing with existentialist thinkers and the ways which the influence of Sartre, de Beauvoir, and Camus in literary circles influenced the tenor of their philosophical reception. Through this exploration, I will seek to provide a deep insight into one of the richest intellectual landscapes of the philosophical culture in state socialist Hungary. (shrink)

I recently visited the Soviet Union. I was there for only one week, as a tourist: time to get only a very limited and superficial impression of life there. Nevertheless, it was a sobering and thought-provoking experience. For even such a brief visit forces one to confront the problems raised by the evidently unideal character of the Soviet Union and other `actually existing' socialist societies. These are amongst the greatest problems facing socialists in the world today.

Despite being a major theorist of post-war Marxism in the German-speaking world, Leo Kofler remains largely unknown outside of it. This volume introduces his work and life and presents six of Kofler’s essays in English for the first time.

COMMUNISM AND DEVELOPMENT by Robert Bideleux New York: Methuen, 1985. 315 pp., $39.95 (paper) MARXISM, SOCIALISM, FREEDOM: TOWARDS A GENERAL DEMOCRATIC THEORY OF LABOUR?MANAGED SYSTEMS by Radoslav Selucky New York: St. Martin's Press, 1979. 237 pp., $22.50 UNORTHODOX MARXISM: AN ESSAY ON CAPITALISM, SOCIALISM AND REVOLUTION by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel Boston: South End Press, 1978. 379 pp., $8.50 (paper).

The late Alec Nove explores the relationship between Marxist ideas and the Soviet reality and presents a methodology for understanding Soviet type societies.

Reviews : Gregor McLennan, Marxism and the Methodologies of History,, pp. 272. Anthony Giddens, A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism,, pp. 294. Raphael Samuel, ed., People's History and Socialist Theory. History Workshop Series,, pp. vi + 417. G. Osborne and W. F. Mandle, eds., New History Studying Australia Today,, pp. 216.

I think it is impossible to adhere to the plan of this book and to follow a chronological sequence.

Media and computer technologies are creating dramatic changes that are producing an explosion of rhetoric and hype touting the benefits of the new information superhighway where individuals will supposedly get data and entertainment on demand, hook up into new virtual communities, and even create new identities. Such ideological hyperbole has accompanied the introduction of all new technologies, but this time the structures of contemporary capitalist economies, politics, society, culture, and everyday life are dramatically changing, requiring radical social theory to rethink (...) its assumptions, models of society, and politics. In this article, I wish to argue that if Marxism is to have a future it must theorize the new media and computer technologies and revise its analyses of contemporary capitalist societies and socialist politics accordingly. I will also argue that the Marxian theory provides powerful perspectives to make sense of the momentous changes currently transforming every dimension of social reality, but that it needs to be reconstructed and updated as well. (shrink)

This volume examines various points of contact between Marxism and phenomenology. Although these traditions can appear conceptually incompatible, the contributors reveal productive complementarities on themes such as alienation, reification, and ecology, which illuminate and can help to resolve the crises of contemporary capitalism.

In 1980 Alvin Gouldner identified two traditions of Marxist thought—Marxism as science and Marxism as critique. This book is concerned with the first and by far the most politically influential of those traditions—Marxism as science. It analyzes the claim, first made by Marx and Engels themselves, that Marxism is some kind of "hard" natural science of society able to identify laws of social development and to provide a scientific guide to revolutionary activity. _Marxism and Science_ breaks (...) new ground by using Wittgensteinian analysis of Marxist discourse to construct a totally different conception of Marxism appropriate to the postmodern world. In this conception, Marxism is a point of view that can be advanced, rationally defended, and made convincing and persuasive to others, but that is as partial in some respects as any other political point of view. Reconceiving Marxism thus requires not only understanding language in a different nonobjectivist way but also adopting a new political practice and program, which the book proceeds to outline. _Marxism and Science _concludes that, intellectually, Marxism as hard science is fairly obviously and profoundly untenable. But it goes on to argue that the purely intellectual grounds for this claim are much less interesting than the political and psychological purposes that such a claim has always served for Marxists in particular and scientific socialists in general. The most important of these purposes has been to provide a sort of psychological and emotional certitude to set against the overwhelming existential domination of capitalism in the world. Claiming this certitude to be as spurious as the arguments used to sustain it, the author calls upon Marxists and socialists to admit this and accept the doubt and uncertainty that come with a frank avowal of an open and unforeclosed future. (shrink)

How is one to set about the task of comparing capitalism and socialism in a systematic fashion? The contest between capitalism and socialism has many facets. It is both an intellectual debate about the relative merits of models of hypothetical social systems and a real and substantive historical struggle between two groups of states seen as representing capitalism and socialism. Perhaps the intellectual challenge to capitalism thrown down by Marxist thinkers and the “cold war” contest between the (...) U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. are such diverse phenomena that it is pointless and even misleading to try to treat them as part of a single problem. However, I believe that the dieoretical and historical aspects of the capitalism/socialism issue are directly related. I would argue that a full understanding of, say, the cold war is not possible without understanding the socialist critique of capitalism – and that a purely abstract comparison of capitalist and socialist models would fail to do justice to the historical and empirical essence of these two grand conceptual schemas. In Section I, I expand upon these arguments, seeking to convince Utopian socialists that they should not continue to rely upon invocations of a hypothetical future, but must come up with some empirical examples of what socialism is and how it works. After all, it is more than a hundred years since Marx and Engels railed against Utopian socialists in favor of socialist arguments based on empirical reality. This is not to say that Marx and Engels were crude empiricists, accepting “facts” at face value. (shrink)

The relationship of Marxism to the "Jewish Question" is far more complex than many have assumed. Despite the Jewish backgrounds of several Marxists, many showed a sense of indifference toward a sense of "Jewishness." Yet an increasingly virulent anti-Semitism - affecting sections of the working class and culminating in the Holocaust and in the growing strength of Zionism - became a problem that numerous Marxist thinkers were compelled to consider. In addition to examining the works of Marx, Karl Kautsky, (...) Leon Trotsky, Ber Borokhov, Abram Leon, and figures associated with the Frankfurt School, Traverso also investigates the actual policies in the socialist and communist movements and sensitively explores the unique history of the Jewish workers' movement in various countries. (shrink)

Perlo's engagement with the complex and ambiguous relationship between Marxism (and, more broadly, the socialist traditions) and the moral status of animals is very much to be welcomed. This sort of engagement is valuable for three main reasons. First, the more narrowly focused social movement activitywhether committed to animal rights, social justice in the workplace, or advancement for womenis liable to cut itself off from critical insights created in the context of other movements. I became aware of this, particularly (...) during the 1980s in relation to radical green politics, as both deepening and widening the already existing socialist case against neo-liberal capitalism, just as the women's liberation movement had done a decade or more earlier. Second, this sort of analysis is valuable because without it "single-issue" movements run a serious risk of advancing the claims of their own preferred social group at the cost of (usually unknowingly and unintentionally) deepening the oppression or exploitation of other groups. Third, where radical social movements campaign for changes that conflict with the interests of wealthy and powerful interests, and are committed to democratic values, they need to be able to bring public opinion with them. Single-issue movements rarely can do this on their own: Broad-based coalitions are needed. Moreover, the sources of radical thought and the range of justified grievances are now so diverse that the notion of a single, unified political party as the centralized vehicle of change is no longer viable (if it ever was). So, the broadly based coalition has to be diverse and difference-respecting. But can it be this while still maintaining enough unity of purpose and coordination of its actions to be effective? ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR Copyright of Society & Animals is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to alls); Perlo's engagement with the complex and ambiguous relationship between Marxism (and, more broadly, the socialist traditions) and the moral status of animals is very much to be welcomed. This sort of engagement is valuable for three main reasons. First, the more narrowly focused social movement activitywhether committed to animal rights, social justice in the workplace, or advancement for womenis liable to cut itself off from critical insights created in the context of other movements. I became aware of this, particularly during the 1980s in relation to radical green politics, as both deepening and widening the already existing socialist case against neo-liberal capitalism, just as the women's liberation movement had done a decade or more earlier. Second, this sort of analysis is valuable because without it "single-issue" movements run a serious risk of advancing the claims of their own preferred social group at the cost of (usually unknowingly and unintentionally) deepening the oppression or exploitation of other groups. Third, where radical social movements campaign for changes that conflict with the interests of wealthy and powerful interests, and are committed to democratic values, they need to be able to bring public opinion with them. Single-issue movements rarely can do this on their own: Broad-based coalitions are needed. Moreover, the sources of radical thought and the range of justified grievances are now so diverse that the notion of a single, unified political party as the centralized vehicle of change is no longer viable (if it ever was). So, the broadly based coalition has to be diverse and difference-respecting. But can it be this while still maintaining enough unity of purpose and coordination of its actions to be effective? ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR Copyright of Society & Animals is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts). (shrink)

"Francis Klingender died young, at the age of 48. He left behind a pioneer work: Art and the Industrial Revolution, and published a stimulating and original work of art criticism entitled Goya in the Democratic Tradition. His exhibition of English political caricature marked the starting point of a long overdue reappraisal of this wealth of English political art. This was only part of his contribution to Marxist thought. The essay reprinted here was first published in 1943."--.

A number of interrelated questions about Jewry, collectively referred to as 'the Jewish question', have been discussed by many Marxists, beginning with Marx himself in his essay, 'On the Jewish Question'. Perhaps the phrase has been forever discredited by those who not long ago offered the world its final solution. Names aside, the substantive issues are still of great importance for historical materialism. For example, we still have no plausible comprehensive account of the causes of anti-Semitism, an account without which (...) we cannot fully understand the nature of the Soviet Union today. In this paper, there are two other questions that 1 wish to discuss. The case of the Jewish people provides an extremely interesting test for the explanatory and political adequacy of historical materialism, and it is in this fact among others that one can find more than a merely parochial interest in the Jewish question. There is at least a prima facie inability to account for the survival of Jewry in terms available to historical materialism, for historical materialists explain in terms of classes and class relations, and Jewry does not appear to constitute a class. So the first of the two questions I shall discuss is this: Can historical materialism show that appearances here, as so often elsewhere, are deceptive, that the Jews do constitute a class, and that it was as such that they were able to survive as a distinct grouping? (shrink)

The question of the relation of Marxism to utopianism is first of all the question of its relation to Utopian socialism and communism. However, the concepts of Utopia and utopianism are much broader than the substance of the particular socialist and communist teachings that preceded Marxism or existed alongside it. For precisely this reason the concept of Utopia must first of all be examined separately from Marxism. Only such an approach can reveal the real content and, (...) in a sense, the enduring significance of the Utopian element in people's consciousness, thinking, and worldview. (shrink)

The Twenty-fifth Congress of the CPSU emphasized that under present-day conditions, problems of ideological struggle and conflict between the two social systems are assuming increasing importance. In this connection, particularly significant for us are questions pertaining to the deepening confrontation of socialism and capitalism in the realm of social philosophy, which, with the relaxation of international tensions and strengthening of scientific and cultural contacts, is in many respects acquiring new sharpness and assuming new forms. It is precisely in the (...) sphere of the theory of social philosophy that bourgeois and revisionist thought strives the most for some kind of "infiltration of ideas," because this sphere is falsely regarded as "remote" from politics and the class struggle going on in the world. In this sphere attempts are being made to find new methods of struggle against Marxism-Leninism, but in fact these are often only modernized variants of the old ones, which have become decrepit and obsolete in the extreme. Of particular significance under present conditions is criticism of bourgeois Marxology as one of the basic and principal trends in the theoretical struggle of capitalism-oriented philosophy against Marxism. To reveal all this convincingly it is necessary to turn to history. (shrink)

This essay reconstructs Alasdair MacIntyre’s engagement with Marxism with a view both to illuminating the co-ordinates of his mature thought and to outlining a partial critique of that thought. While the critique of Marxism outlined in After Virtue is well known, until recently Marx’s profound influence on MacIntyre was obscured by a thoroughly misleading attempt to label him as a communitarian thinker. If this erroneous interpretation of MacIntyre’s mature thought is now widely discredited, the fact that he has (...) distanced himself from several of the arguments he previously gave for rejecting Marxism both reduces the theoretical space between his mature thought and his early Marxism and highlights a consistent theme in his critique of Marxism since the 1960s to which this essay is addressed: his dissatisfaction with the ethical dimension of Marxist attempts to theorise the relationship between socialist militants and the working-class movement from below. (shrink)

RESUMEN Juan Marinello Vidaurreta, eminente trabajador de las letras, que no cambió la pluma por la política, sino que hizo de la política incesante gestión de creación espiritual. Vivió tres etapas decisivas de Cuba: los rezagos de la colonia española; la República mediatizada, que combatió; y el socialismo, que ayudó a consolidar. El objetivo es demostrar la confluencia del pensamiento martiano y marxista desde el análisis de la cultura en la obra de Juan Marinello Vidaurreta. Se asumió la concepción dialéctica (...) materialista como metodología general para conocer el objeto de investigación en sus antecedentes y tendencias actuales. Además permitió ampliar el conocimiento sobre el tema objeto de estudio, a través del análisis de texto, el contenido y el discurso; la crítica de fuentes posibilitó extraer inferencias a partir de la teoría preexistente y la información empírica acopiada. El pensamiento marinelliano se fue formando como resultado de la influencia del movimiento progresista cubano, del pensamiento martiano y marxista-leninista, lo más avanzado del pensamiento latinoamericano y universal. Subyace en su obra una concepción integradora y totalizadora de la cultura, de base martiana y marxista. ABSTRACT Juan Marinello Vidaurreta eminent worker of the letters that did not change the pen by the policy, but that made of the policy, incessant management of spiritual creation. He lived three decisive stages of Cuba: the lags of the Spanish colony; the mediated Republic, which fought; and socialism, which helped to consolidate. The objective is to demonstrate the confluence of Marti's and Marxist thinking from the analysis of culture in the work of Juan Marinello Vidaurreta. The dialectical materialist conception was assumed as general methodology to know the object of research in its antecedents and current trends. In addition it allowed expanding the knowledge on the subject under study, through the analysis of text, content and discourse; the critique of sources made it possible to draw inferences from the preexisting theory and the empirical information collected. Marinellian thought was formed as a result of the influence of the Cuban progressive movement, of Marti and Marxist-Leninist thought, the most advanced of Latin American and universal thought. It underlies in his work an integrative and totalizing conception of the culture, of Marti base and marxist. (shrink)

Idealism and ideologies -- Historical inevitability -- On human rights -- Marxism and liberty -- Marxism and ethics -- The marxist answer to the challenge of our time -- Marxist humanism -- Sartre and society -- Berdyaev, socialist and heretic -- Communism the heir to the Christian tradition.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels believed that their political project involved a commitment to democracy, and many subsequent Marxists have claimed that Marxism’s conception of socialism and communism represents a supremely democratic social arrangement. Many of Marxism’s critics, however, reject this belief, holding that the Marxist conception of socialism and communism entails anti-democratic policies, practices and institutions. While the position of Marxism’s critics is, without question, the predominant view today, it turns out that the arguments (...) used to support this position are highly problematic, insofar as they proceed from certain liberal-democratic assumptions about democracy that Marxists can reasonably reject. (shrink)

The institutional guarantees of modern labour law, that provide the keystone of progressive liberalism, are often only reactionary to the entrenched concepts of socialist law. Adoption of institutions of “workers rights”, and employment protection based upon contract, inevitably nullify the ideological promise of the inalienable “right to work”. China, among the last bastions of theoretical Marxist socialism, and among the first socialist countries ready to accept that it has been in desperate need of reforming uneconomical state enterprises, seems willing (...) to sacrifice ideological purity for economic development. Yet, if economic turnaround requires enterprise rationalisation in a market economy, it is understandable that Chinese labour requires the same kinds of protection against unbridled capitalism as progressive labour movements elsewhere. Doubtless, for those who have enjoyed no such institutional guarantees in the past, official commitment to improvement of labour conditions is better than no acknowledgment of need for reform of social policy whatever. Yet, the real question for students of social change is “Are these legislated reforms effective policy guides for local administration and the courts?”“|Or are they merely regulations for licensing compliance – primarily for foreign invested enterprises?”. In brief, “... to what extent are the new ‘workers’ rights’ realistically attainable sources of judicial remedies for individual workers?”. (shrink)

Marxist thinking can offer a critical understanding of education in an international context. Jones tackles these issues from a variety of angles and perspectives, taking advantage of recent theoretical innovations in Marxist analysis as well as the personal experiences of educational practitioners with Marxist commitments. With a specific focus on pedagogical practices as cultural practices, this book combines detailed case studies of local situations with broad, critical overviews of global development and challenges.

This article brings together the history of the social sciences and the history of social thought in Socialist Romania. It is concerned with the development of ideas about the social beyond collectivism, especially about the relationship between individual and society under socialism, from the early 1960s to the end of the 1970s. The analysis speaks to three major themes in the current historiography of Cold War social science. First, the article investigates the role of disciplinary specialization in the advancement (...) of new ideas about the social in the postwar period. Specifically, it asks how the debate over the relationship between sociology and Marxism-Leninism has challenged ideas about collectivism from Stalinist social science. Second, the article shows how social practice, individual and collective agency, and people's subjectivities became theoretically relevant in the 1960s, and how they were integrated, via empirical sociological research, into the reworked conceptual apparatus of post-Stalinist Marxism-Leninism. This complicates accounts about the role of quantification and theorization in postwar social science by foregrounding the intense reflection on the role of empirical research in sociology under state socialism. Third, the article shows how the relationship between individual and society became a topic of interest across social sciences in the 1960s and 1970s. The Marxist humanist approach to the social, although it never achieved the institutional status of a distinct discipline, adds an important perspective from East Central Europe to the existing historiography of the ‘thinning’ of the social in social sciences and social thought beginning in the 1950s. (shrink)

There is no serious work of which I am aware that does not consider the artistic and literary doctrine of “socialist realism” an intellectual disaster. When Zhdanov announced this doctrine as official Soviet policy at the First Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934, his words put an end to a variety of artistic experiments which had taken place within the context of the Russian and European Left during the previous two decades. Suddenly socialist realism, or Zhdanovism, became the only “correct” (...) Marxist approach to the question of what art in general, and literature in particular, should say, and how it should say it. (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 (...) class='Hi'>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)

Between the two World Wars, in Belgrade and Serbia, seven musical journals were published:?Musical Gazette?,?Music?,?Herald of the Musical Society Stankovic?,?Sound?,?Journal of The South Slav Choral Union?,?Slavic Music? and?Music Review?. The influence of marxism can be observed in?Musical Herald?,?Sound? and?Slavic Music?. A Marxist influence is obvious through indications of determinism. Namely, some writers observed elements of musical art and its history as consequences of sociopolitical and economic processes. Still, journals published articles of domestic and foreign authors who interpreted the relation (...) between music, society and economy in a much more moderate and subtle manner. Editors and associates of these journals also had proscriptive ambitions - they recommended and even determined regulations for composers about what kind of music to write according to social goals and needs. According to tendencies in Marxism, there was a follow up of musical work in the Soviet Union. Editors tried not to be one-sided. There were writings about the USSR by left orientated associates as much as emigrants from that country, and articles of Soviet authors were translated. Also, there were critical tones about musical development in the first country of socialism. Serbian musical periodicals recognized the enormous threat from fascism. Also, there were articles about influence of Nazi ideology and dictatorship on musical prospects in Germany. Since Germany annexed Sudetenland in 1938,?Musical Herald? expressed support to musicians and people of that friendly country by devoting the October and November 1938 issue to Czechoslovak music, along with an appropriate introduction by the editor, Stana Djuric-Klajn. (shrink)

One of the few things modern liberals, classical liberals, and conservatives can agree on is the charge that some of the worst features oftotalitarian socialist regimes have their origins in the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Nevertheless, the nature of this claim, and therefore the reasons for accepting or rejecting it, are oftenleft obscure. If it is understood simply as a causal statement, then it must be confirmed or disconfirmed by empirical social science. The political philosopher can at (...) most assist by providing a clear characterization of the conceptual content of the beliefs which constitute the independent variable in the alleged causal relation: those beliefs concerning Marx's and Engels's thoughts which are said to have exerted the causal influence in question. Even if empirical research did showthat beliefs about Marxist theory were a significant causal influencein the rise of certain features of totalitarian socialism, this wouldbe of limited philosophical interest if the beliefs in question were misunderstandings of the theory and if the correct explanationof why these misunderstandings occurred appealed to factors external to the theory itself. However, it would be of considerable philosophical interest if correct beliefs about Marxist theory exerted a causalinfluence on some of the more undesirable aspects of totalitarian socialism, or if incorrect beliefs did and the existence of thesemisunderstandings could be traced to ambiguities or gaps in the Marxist theory itself. The political philosopher has a legitimate interestin the relationship between the writings of Marx and Engels on the rise of totalitarian socialism, not because he is interested in articulating and testing causal connections between beliefs and social phenomena in general, but because Marxist theory is supposed – by its authors – to inspire and guide change toward a better society. (shrink)

The article aims to introduce the works of eminent Iranian Marxist theoretician, Kamal Khosravi, to Western readers. Over the past few decades, Khosravi has written extensively on Marx, Marxism, and Marxist methodology. Through translations and his own writings, he has worked tirelessly to introduce Iranian readers to the rich debates on Marxist methodology and value theory that have developed in the West since the 1960s. More recently, as the lead editor of the Iranian journal Critique, his writings are having (...) an influence on the ongoing social movements as they are being disseminated and discussed amongst activists and labour leaders. In this article, we situate his writings within the developments of Iranian and Western Marxism. (shrink)

The Communist Manifesto’s salient point was set out in Critics of the Gotha Program as “From Each According to Their Abilities, to Each According to Their Needs”. The demise of communism in the former Soviet Union has caused its critics to claim that ‘revolutionary’ political theory has no basis for legal or philosophical development. The contention of those who oppose radical socialism achieved by the levelling of the classes proclaim that this is an unattainable goal. They argue that a (...) ‘withering of the state’ is not possible for the implementation of Marx’s theory because of the centralisation that is inevitable in socialism which leads to an aggregate of relationships that redistributes power at the apex of the hierarchy. However, this appraisal has to be viewed with reference to the adoption by Marxists of socio legal theory as an analytical tool that has spawned arguments based on legal realism. This article examines the construction of these arguments within the sociology of law and looks at the inception of critical race theory which projects historical injustices towards a racial minority and seeks to transform society by exposing law as an instrument of oppression. (shrink)

Th is work is a companion piece to "The American Worker," Karl Kautsky's reply to Werner Sombart’s Why Is There No Socialism in the United States? (1906), first published in English in the November 2003 edition of the journal Historial Materialism. In August 1909 Kautsky wrote an article on Samuel Gompers, the president of the American Federation of Labor, on the occasion of the latter's first European tour. Th e article was not only a criticism of Gompers’s anti-socialist "pure-and-simple" (...) unionism but also part of an ongoing battle between the revolutionary wing of German Social Democracy and the German trade-union officials. In this critical English edition we provide the historical background to the document as well as an overview of the issues raised by Gompers' visit to Germany, such as the bureaucratisation and increasing conservatism of the union leadership in both Germany and the United States, the role of the General Commission of Free Trade Unions in the abandonment of Marxism by the German Social-Democratic Party and the socialists’ attitude toward institutions promoting class collaboration like the National Civic Federation. (shrink)

Summary This article discusses the development of German Social Democratic Party strategy in the fourth quarter of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth, as a result of the works of Friedrich Engels and Karl Kautsky. It ties the evolution of Marxist orthodoxy to the emergence of parliamentary democracy in different European societies. In particular, it discusses the way parliamentary conditions impacted on how the proletarian revolution was imagined. Revolution was newly defined as the establishment through parliamentary (...) means of a new government representing a new social class. Also, the early Marxist strategy of ?permanent revolution?, which had allowed proletarian-socialist minority rule, was abandoned. (shrink)

Upon its publication in 1976, Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis? Schooling in Capitalist America was the most sophisticated and nuanced Marxian social and political analysis of schooling in the United States. Thirty-five years after its publication, Schooling continues to have a strong impact on thinking about education. Despite its unquestionable influence, it has received strikingly little historical attention. This historical article revisits the scholarship of Bowles and Gintis and the milieu in which Schooling was conceived. Specifically, it contextualizes the production (...) and reception of Schooling to better understand the emergence of Marxist thought in the field of education in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. It also seeks to understand how the emergence of Marxist thought in the field was connected to the rise of an Academic Left?an intellectual shift in the academy toward Marxist social and political theory as a framework to theorize democratic socialist movement-building against capitalism and concomitant state sponsored oppression in the 1960s and 1970s. This history suggests that as we engage in historical and contemporary work on radical ideas in the field of education, we need to push ourselves continually to think about the intersection of education with other fields and disciplines. The article also pushes back against a widespread depiction of Schooling as crudely mechanistic. (shrink)

Understanding the true nature of the human being is no doubt a sine qua non for developing an ideology for a desirable praxis. This paper examines the pitfalls of Marxist-Leninist scientific socialism and African socialism. It argues that a critical analysis of both ideologies reveals a lack of clear understanding of the nature of man by their proponents. An exhaustive account of the nature of man must explain self-consciousness, the urge to avoid pain, the desire for a purposeful (...) life and for freedom from external interference, the passion for distinction, and, most importantly, the desire to acquire personal property. The paper further contends that socialism , does not allow room for the pursuit of personal ambition. This accounts for the failure in the implementation of both Marxist-Leninist socialism and African socialism. The paper avers that there is need to understand that the human being cannot simply be seen as a socio-economic or historical being; rather, consideration of the intrinsic elements which constitute the true nature of personhood is quintessential to achieving a well-ordered society. (shrink)

Resumen: El arte y la literatura socialistas se construyen sobre la base de la filosofía marxista. El “carácter popular” de la literatura y el arte socialistas se basa en el hecho de que la filosofía marxista abandona el individualismo y se centra en la libertad y la felicidad de una población más amplia. Por lo tanto, el arte y la literatura socialistas toman como sujeto de expresión a las personas y no a los individuos. El realismo, principio fundamental de la (...) creación literaria y artística socialista, se basa en el materialismo de la filosofía marxista. El “ambiente típico y los caracteres típicos” propuesto por los escritores clásicos marxistas para la creación literaria y artística socialista es el método y el principio formado por la aplicación de los conceptos filosóficos de la combinación orgánica del mundo objetivo y la subjetividad humana, y la combinación orgánica de la naturaleza y la historia social a la creación literaria y artística concreta en la teoría marxista. La filosofía marxista considera la sensibilidad y la estética como elementos importantes para que la literatura y el arte jueguen un papel práctico. Cree que la sensibilidad y la estética no se limitan al mundo subjetivo de las personas, sino que tienen la posibilidad de conectarse con el mundo objetivo externo. Por lo tanto, el arte y la literatura socialistas deben prestar atención a la estética. (shrink)

Reference to the commented article: LIU, Zijie. The Marxist philosophical basis of socialist literature and art. Trans/Form/Ação: Unesp Journal of Philosophy, v. 46, n. 3, p. 255- 274, 2023.