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2017 Syllabus

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2017 Syllabus TABLE OF CONTENTS Basic objectives ........................................................................................................................................................ iv A note on the scope of the course .............................................................................................................................. v Structure of class sessions… .................................................................................................................................... vi Requirements ............................................................................................................................................................ vi Other miscellaneous course information ................................................................................................................. vii Special end of semester event ................................................................................................................................... ix Lecture Schedule ....................................................................................................................................................... x COURSE TOPICS PART I. INTRODUCTION: SETTING THE AGENDA .................................................................................... 1 1 Marxism as Emancipatory Social Science ............................................................................................... 1 2 The anchor: Capitalism ............................................................................................................................ 3 3 The Critique of Capitalism ...................................................................................................................... 3 4 Elements of a Theory of Transformation ................................................................................................. 4 PART II. CLASS STRUCTURE ........................................................................................................................... 5 5 What is Class?.......................................................................................................................................... 5 6 The Concept of Exploitation .................................................................................................................... 6 7 Rethinking the Class Structure of Capitalism .......................................................................................... 8 8 Class and Gender .................................................................................................................................... 9 9 Class and Race ....................................................................................................................................... 11 PART III. CLASS FORMATION ........................................................................................................................ 13 10 Basic Concepts of class formation ......................................................................................................... 13 11 Rationality, solidarity and class struggle ............................................................................................... 13 12 Dilemmas of Working Class Collective Action ..................................................................................... 14 13 Class Compromise ................................................................................................................................. 14 PART IV. THE THEORY OF THE STATE AND POLITICS ......................................................................... 16 14 What is “Politics”? What is “the state”? ................................................................................................ 16 15 What, if anything, makes the capitalist state a capitalist state? Is the state a patriarchal state? ........... 17 16 The State and the Working Class: The democratic capitalist state and social Stability ......................... 18 17 The State & Accumulation: functionality, contradiction, and crisis of democratic capitalism .............. 19 PART V. IDEOLOGY AND CONSCIOUSNESS ............................................................................................. 21 18 What is Ideology? .................................................................................................................................. 21 19 Mystification: ideology as false consciousness ..................................................................................... 22 20 Ideological Hegemony and Legitimation .............................................................................................. 23 21 Explaining Ideology: Micro-foundations for the theory ....................................................................... 25 PART VI. THE THEORY OF HISTORY .......................................................................................................... 26 22&23 The Classical Marxist Theory of History ............................................................................................... 26 24 Critiques and reconstructions ................................................................................................................. 27 25 The Classical Marxist Theory of the History of Capitalism’s Future .................................................... 29 PART VII. SOCIALISM AND EMANCIPATION ............................................................................................ 30 26 What is Socialism? ................................................................................................................................ 30 27 Strategic Logics of Transformation: ruptural, interstitial, symbiotic ..................................................... 31 28 How to be an anticapitalist for the 21st century...................................................................................... 32 ii SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS ON THE THEORY OF HISTORY (1) An Historical Example: The Origins of Capitalism .................................................................................... 33 (2) Non-Marxist Theories of History ................................................................................................................ 34 SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS ON CLASS STRUCTURE (1) The Death of Class Debate .......................................................................................................................... 35 (2) The Bourgeoisie in Advanced Capitalism I: the Social Constitution of the Ruling Class .......................... 35 (3) The Bourgeoisie in Advanced Capitalism II: Structural Differentiation and Integration ............................ 36 (4) The Bourgeoisie in Advanced Capitalism III: the problem of management ............................................... 36 (5) The Traditional Petty Bourgeoisie .............................................................................................................. 37 (6) Internal Differentiation of the Working Class ............................................................................................. 37 (7) Empirical Studies of Class Structure ........................................................................................................... 38 (8) Race and Class: the underclass debate ........................................................................................................ 38 (9) Gender and Class: alternative class analyses of gender .............................................................................. 39 SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS ON CLASS FORMATION (1) The labor process and class formation ........................................................................................................ 41 (2) Class Structure and Class Formation in the Third World ............................................................................ 41 (3) Explaining Variations in Capitalist Class Formation .................................................................................. 41 (4) Explaining Variations in Working Class Formation ................................................................................... 42 SUPPLEMENTARY TOPICS ON THE STATE (1) Alternative Marxist perspectives on the State: “structuralist” and “instrumentalist” approaches ............... 43 (2) Critical Theory approaches to the state: Habermas ..................................................................................... 44 (3) The State as a “Condition of Existence” of Capital: “post-Althusserian” British Marxism ........................ 44 (4) Capital Logic and State Derivation Perspectives ........................................................................................ 45 (5) Gramsci and the State ................................................................................................................................. 45 (6) The State and the Oppression of Women .................................................................................................... 46 (7) The State in the Third World ...................................................................................................................... 47 (8) American Exceptionalism ........................................................................................................................... 47 (9) Explaining variations in Welfare State policies .......................................................................................... 48 (10) The logic of electoral
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