Das, Raju. Marxist Class Theory for a Skeptical World. Chicago: Haymarket, 2018
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
The End of Middle Class Politics?
The End of Middle Class Politics? The End of Middle Class Politics? By Sotiris Rizas The End of Middle Class Politics? By Sotiris Rizas This book first published 2018 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2018 by Sotiris Rizas All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-0654-1 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-0654-1 CONTENTS Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 What makes the middle classes? ............................................................ 8 The middle classes in mass politics: the lower middle classes as a bone of contention ................................................................... 10 Chapter One ............................................................................................... 23 Emergence of the Middle Classes and Middle Class Politics in America and Europe, 1890–1914 The middle classes and the Progressive Movement in America, 1900–14 .......................................................................................... 28 The public policies of Progressivism ................................................... 29 Middle-class -
Communist Parties Have Inherited from Lenin and Other Great Bolsheviks an Ideal-Logical Paradigm
The Bolshevik Ideal-logical Paradi!! Communist parties have inherited from Lenin and other great bolsheviks an ideal-logical paradigm. In terms of this paradigm the bolsheviks understand themselves and the world, which they try to disqualify ideologically and to change through revolutionary activity. Apart from the ideal of a communist society, the following ideas exerted key influence on the Bolsheviks' (self)understanding: proletarian revolution; a party of (professional) revolutionaries organized in a democratic-centralist manner; dictatorship of the proletariat; the party as the representative of the objective and historical interests of the proletariat; the transition period between capitalism and communism. As Marxists the Bolsheviks faced the problem of how to explain to them selves and others the possibility of proletarian, socialist revolution in backward Russia. The idea of a centralized party of professional revolution aries did not suffice; they needed a radical revision of the Marxist vision of revolution. This revision transformed a revolutionary philosophical-social theory into a revolutionary ideal-logy. Admittedly, Marx himself was ambivalent: He'saw a real chance for the revolution and the subsequent development of a new society in developed capitalism, but from time to time he lost his patience, hoping that the revolution would soon break out even though capitalism was still i rather undeveloped. Characteristically, Bolshevik ideal-logues believed tliat Marx's goals could be achieved under radicallY changed conditions and through radically 1 2 Changed means.* One could almost say that revolution sets only those goals it cannot aChieve. Two ideas were of key import~nce for the Bolshevik ideal-logical revision of Marx's concept of revolution: the weakest link of imperialism and the permanent revolution. -
Marxism and the Solidarity Economy: Toward a New Theory of Revolution
Class, Race and Corporate Power Volume 9 Issue 1 Article 2 2021 Marxism and the Solidarity Economy: Toward a New Theory of Revolution Chris Wright [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/classracecorporatepower Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Wright, Chris (2021) "Marxism and the Solidarity Economy: Toward a New Theory of Revolution," Class, Race and Corporate Power: Vol. 9 : Iss. 1 , Article 2. DOI: 10.25148/CRCP.9.1.009647 Available at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/classracecorporatepower/vol9/iss1/2 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Arts, Sciences & Education at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Class, Race and Corporate Power by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Marxism and the Solidarity Economy: Toward a New Theory of Revolution Abstract In the twenty-first century, it is time that Marxists updated the conception of socialist revolution they have inherited from Marx, Engels, and Lenin. Slogans about the “dictatorship of the proletariat” “smashing the capitalist state” and carrying out a social revolution from the commanding heights of a reconstituted state are completely obsolete. In this article I propose a reconceptualization that accomplishes several purposes: first, it explains the logical and empirical problems with Marx’s classical theory of revolution; second, it revises the classical theory to make it, for the first time, logically consistent with the premises of historical materialism; third, it provides a (Marxist) theoretical grounding for activism in the solidarity economy, and thus partially reconciles Marxism with anarchism; fourth, it accounts for the long-term failure of all attempts at socialist revolution so far. -
The Peasant Question and the Russian Revolution
The Peasant Question and the Russian Revolution: Revisiting Old Orthodoxies 1 By Paul Kellogg Professor, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies, Athabasca University March 31, 2019 Prepared for the conference, “Marx and Marxism 2019: Marxism without taboos – confronting oppressions” Núcleo Interdisciplinar de Estudos e Pesquisas sobre Marx e o Marxismo August 2019, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Draft only Not for publication Citation with permission of author [email protected] Bio Paul Kellogg is professor and chair of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies at Athabasca University in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He is the author of Escape from the Staple Trap: Canadian Political Economy after Left Nationalism (2015: University of Toronto Press) and Truth Behind Bars: Reflections on the Fate of the Russian Revolution (Forthcoming 2019: Athabasca University Press). 1 Revised version of this paper forthcoming as a chapter in Kellogg, Truth Behind Bars – Reflections on the Fate of the Russian Revolution. 2 Outline Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1 The Patriarchal commune (mir) ...................................................................................... 1 Petty producers and the Petit-bourgeoisie ...................................................................... 5 Mistaken theory, catastrophic Practice ......................................................................... 15 War on the Kulaks and socialist Consciousness .......................................................... -
SOCIOLOGY 9191A Social Science in the Marxian Tradition Fall 2020
SOCIOLOGY 9191A Social Science in the Marxian Tradition Fall 2020 DRAFT Class times and location Wednesday 10:30am -12:30pm Virtual synchronous Instructor: David Calnitsky Office Hours by appointment Department of Sociology Office: SSC 5402 Email: [email protected] Technical Requirements: Stable internet connection Laptop or computer Working microphone Working webcam “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways. The point, however, is to change it.” – Karl Marx That is the point, it’s true—but not in this course. This quote, indirectly, hints at a deep tension in Marxism. If we want to change the world we need to understand it. But the desire to change something can infect our understanding of it. This is a pervasive dynamic in the history of Marxism and the first step is to admit there is a problem. This means acknowledging the presence of wishful thinking, without letting it induce paralysis. On the other hand, if there are pitfalls in being upfront in your desire to change the world there are also virtues. The normative 1 goal of social change helps to avoid common trappings of academia, in particular, the laser focus on irrelevant questions. Plus, in having a set of value commitments, stated clearly, you avoid the false pretense that values don’t enter in the backdoor in social science, which they often do if you’re paying attention. With this caveat in place, Marxian social science really does have a lot to offer in understanding the world and that’s what we’ll analyze in this course. The goal is to look at the different hypotheses that broadly emerge out of the Marxian tradition and see the extent to which they can be supported both theoretically and empirically. -
Reconstructing Structural Marxism
REVIEWS Reconstructing Structural Marxism Ted Benton, The Rise and Fall of Structural Marxism; The charge of Stalinism, together with the current Althusser and his Influence, Macmillan, London, 1984, state of disarray amongst Althusserians, provides 259pp lI8.00 hc, 1.6.95 pb Benton with one of the two major reasons for writing Rise and Fall; namely to defend Structural Marxism Benton's book has many facets: it is an introductory against post-structuralist and other critics (the other text, a re-evaluation and reconstruction of Structural reason being the need for an introductory text in the Marxism, an argument for theoretical progress lying area). One way in which .8enton accomplishes this def through the synthesis of Structural Marxism with do ence is by laying bare Structural Marxism'S sociological mains such as the ecological, biological and psycho complexi ty. This completely appears as the obverse side logical. Of immediate political relevance is its claim of the process of displacement,· as decentr ing, of human that theorisation of socialist strategy requires a recog agency by the Althusserian paradigm. The stratagem of nition by the Marxist tradition of non class-based decentring, an anti-reificatory device, denies that the emancipatory social movements. AU these strands are individual agent is onto logically prior to social. struc brought together in the major objective of the book - a tures, events and processes. This refutation of the critical defence of Structural Marxism. 'social substantiality' of the individual subject is the Rise and Fall is divided into three thematic parts. basis of Althusser's anti-humanism. The first centres on questions of epistemology as they surface in Structural Marxism: the science-ideology dis Sociological complexity tinction, the epistemological break, the concept of a problematic, Marxism and philosophy. -
Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and Class Struggle: a Critical Analysis of Mainstream and Marxist Theories of Nationalism and National Movements
NATIONALISM, ETHNIC CONFLICT, AND CLASS STRUGGLE: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF MAINSTREAM AND MARXIST THEORIES OF NATIONALISM AND NATIONAL MOVEMENTS Berch Berberoglu Department of Sociology University of Nevada, Reno Introduction The resurgence of nationalism and ethnonationalist con ict in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and its associated Eastern European states in their transition from a form of socialism to a market- oriented direction led by bourgeois forces allied with world capitalism during the decade of the 1990s, has prompted a new round of discus- sion and debate on the origins and development of nationalism and the nation-state that has implications for contemporary nationalism and nationalist movements in the world today. This discussion and debate has been framed within the context of classical and contemporary social theory addressing the nature and role of the state and nation, as well as class and ethnicity, in an attempt to understand the relationship between these phenomena as part of an analysis of the development and transformation of society and social relations in the late twentieth century. This paper provides a critical analysis of classical and contemporary mainstream and Marxist theories of the nation, nationalism, and eth- nic con ict. After an examination of select classical bourgeois statements on the nature of the nation and nationalism, I provide a critique of contemporary bourgeois and neo-Marxist formulations and adopt a class analysis approach informed by historical materialism to explain the class nature and dynamics of nationalism and ethnonational con ict. Critical Sociology 26,3 206 berch berberoglu Mainstream Theories of the Nation and Nationalism Conventional social theories on the nature and sources of national- ism and ethnic con ict cover a time span encompassing classical to con- temporary statements that provide a conservative perspective to the analysis of ethnonational phenomena that have taken center stage in the late twentieth century. -
Petty Bourgeoisie’
Comments on the Term ‘Petty Bourgeoisie’ (S.H. — 4/28/19) Introduction First, I apologize for the length of this essay; as I got into the issue I kept thinking of additional aspects and related topics that should be mentioned. (Of course there are no doubt many more aspects not mentioned here!) And of necessity a discussion about how the petty bourgeoisie is defined must also discuss just how the proletariat and the bourgeoisie should be defined. These are not totally separate issues. Second, in this discussion I am not going to make any distinction between the various English and French spellings: I am taking the most common English term, ‘petty bourgeoisie’ to be the same thing as the ‘petit bourgeoisie’ and the ‘petite bourgeoisie’. Third, it is certainly true that the term ‘petty bourgeoisie’ is used in different ways by different people; i.e., it means different things to different people. Although some other conceptions will be mentioned, I am not setting out to catalog all the many different conceptions and to treat them all with equal validity, as a general lexicographical study would do in creating entries in a standard (bourgeois!) general-purpose dictionary. Instead, I am setting out to say 1) how I think the term has been used within Marxist-Leninist-Maoist theory, and 2) how I think it should be used within that theory in the U.S. today. In other words, I am setting out to define a technical term within MLM theory, but to also talk about a number of additional issues that come up in this regard. -
Educational Philosophy: from Classical Marxism to Critical Pedagogy
Marxian Perspectives on Educational Philosophy: From Classical Marxism to Critical Pedagogy By Douglas Kellner (http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/) It is surely not difficult to see that our time is a time of birth and transition to a new period. The spirit has broken with what was hitherto the world of its existence and imagination and is about to submerge all this in the past; it is at work giving itself a new form. To be sure, the spirit is never at rest but always engaged in ever progressing motion.... the spirit that educates itself matures slowly and quietly toward the new form, dissolving one particle of the edifice of its previous world after the other,.... This gradual crumbling... is interrupted by the break of day that, like lightning, all at once reveals the edifice of the new world. Hegel 1965 [1807]: 380. The theory associated with Marxism was developed in mid-19th century Europe by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Although Marx and Engels did not write widely about education, they developed theoretical perspectives on modern societies that have been used to highlight the social functions of education and their concepts and methods have served to both theorize and criticize education in the reproduction of capitalist societies, and to support projects of alternative education. In this study, I will first briefly sketch the classical perspectives of Marx and Engels, highlighting the place of education in their work. Then, I lay out the way that Marxian perspectives on education were developed in the Frankfurt School critical theory, British cultural studies, and other neo- Marxian and post-Marxian approaches grouped under the label of critical pedagogy, that emerged from the work of Paulo Freire and is now global in scope. -
REVISITED Capitalism, Higher Education and Ecological Crisis
REPRODUCTION REVISITED Capitalism, Higher Education and Ecological Crisis TONI RUUSKA REPRODUCTION REVISITED Published by MayflyBooks. Available in paperback and free online at www.mayflybooks.org in 2019. © Toni Ruuska 2019 Cover photo and design by Risto Musta ISBN: 978-1-906948-42-9 (Print) 978-1-906948-43-6 (PDF) 978-1-906948-44-3 (ebook) This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. REPRODUCTION REVISITED Capitalism, Higher Education and Ecological Crisis TONI RUUSKA may f l y www.mayflybooks.org iv CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………1 2. MARX AND MARXISM…………………………………14 Philosophy, ecology, education 3. CAPITALISM AND FINITE PLANET………………… 56 The Absolute Contradiction 4. REPRODUCTION OF CAPITALISM…………………115 5. CAPITALISM, HIGHER EDUCATION………………156 AND ECOLOGICAL CRISIS 6. HIGHER EDUCATION AS A FACTORY……………180 OF COMPETITIVENESS AND INNOVATIONS The Finnish Context 7. REPRODUCTION REVISITED…………………………240 Conclusions 8. REFERENCES……………………………………………256 v vi 1 INTRODUCTION t is warmer now. The climate is changing. Somewhere rains Iare heavier, somewhere they are non-existent. Storms are more intense. The weather is unstable. Recurring heat waves and floods torment the livelihoods of humans and other earthly beings. Ice melts, and ocean levels are on the rise, as are ocean temperatures. Worse still, climate change is only one part of the ongoing ecological crisis (see e.g. Steffen et al., 2015), although perhaps the most critical part of it together with biodiversity loss. This crisis, for one, is human-induced. -
Sociology 621 Lecture 8 the Classical Marxist Theory of the History Capitalism’S Future October 3, 2011
Sociology 621 Lecture 8 The Classical Marxist theory of the history Capitalism’s future October 3, 2011 The fundamental objective of historical materialism is to develop a theory of the probable trajectory of capitalism into the future. Why should we care about the grand narrative of historical transformations from feudalism to capitalism unless this helped informed our efforts to grapple with the problem of transforming capitalism itself? Few things would be of great value to revolutionary critics of capitalism than having a solid understanding of the course of history and what the obstacles and possibilities for challenging capitalism would be like in the future. The better the theory of those prospects, the longer the time horizon would be for strategic thinking and action. The Classical Marxist account of the theory of capitalism’s future – or what could be called the theory of capitalisms destiny – can be summarized in five theses: Thesis 1. The long-term nonsustainability of capitalism thesis: In the long-run capitalism is an unsustainable economic system. Its internal dynamics (“laws of motion”) systematically undermine the conditions of its own reproducibility, thus making capitalism progressively more and more fragile and, eventually, unsustainable. This prediction is based on four principle observations about empirical trends Marx observed in the 19th century combined with a theoretical argument about the underlying mechanisms which generate these trends. The empirical trends are these: 1. In the course of capitalist development the level of productivity increases enormously, particularly because of the productivity gains from the increasing capital intensity of production. 2. Capitalism expands relentlessly in a double sense: more and more domains of production are commodified and organized by capitalist firms, and capitalist markets extend to ever-wider reaches of the world. -
Karl Marx's Conception of International Relations
Knrl Marx's Conception of International nelations Karl Marx's Conception of International Relations Regina Buecker Even though Marx was not widely read during his own time and Marxism, as a political system may be outdated, at least from the present perspective, Karl Marx remains an iconic figure of the 19th century. One of its most influential and controversial philosophers, his thinking has influenced not only the ideology of former and present communist countries, but also the international system as a whole. His theories have had a deep impact on academic studies, and while he did not address the field of international relations directly, much may be derived from his writings on certain phenomena, such as colonialism and nationalism, which are crucial in international relations. The purpose of this paper is to provide a better understanding of Marx's notions of international society. In the following essay, a short overview of Marx's world, concept of man, the state, class and international relations will be given. Finally, the relevance and contributions of Marx's thought to the theory and practice of international relations is analyzed. Historical Context Europe, during Marx's life, was a place "of tremendous social, political and economic change".1 Until Bismark declared on "18th January 187l...the foundation of the German Empire ... " Germany was divided into 38 states of different size and power, and was economically underdeveloped. Almost within one generation, Germany overtook Britain, with respect to 'dynamic development'. The Prussian government, the major political and military unit in Germany, in Marx's time, was conservative and opposed to most reforms.2 Marx was born in 1818 in Trier, a Prussian city near the French border.