DOCSLIB.ORG

Description of the Module Items Description of the Module Subject Name Sociology Paper Name Contemporary Social Theory

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text

Load more

Description of the Module Items Description of the Module Subject Name Sociology Paper Name Contemporary Social Theory Module Name/Title Neo Marxist perspectives : introductory overview Objectives This module seeks to introduce the readers to the transition in Marxian thinking and new modes of understanding social reality that were being produced in the 1960s and 70s. Neo-Marxism dealt with a variety of issues and also grappled with methodological questions of how to study society. Neo-Marxism covers newer and newer areas, in which Marxist research has ventured into since Marx and Engels. Key words Destalinisation, Crisis of Capitalism, Hegemony, Ideological state apparatus, Public sphere, Module Structure Neo Marxist Perspectives Introduction, The Marxism in Crisis and the Orthodoxy of Economic Determinism, The Foundation of Gramscian Neo-Marxism as Hegelian Marxism, “Destanilization” as the Next Crisis and Althusser‟s Structural Marxism, the Critical Theory of Habermas, Summary, References, Learn More. Role Name Affiliation Subject Coordinator Prof. Sujata Patel Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad Paper Coordinator Dr. Dev Pathak Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, South Asian University Content Writer Anubhav Sengupta & Research Scholar, JNU Dr. Dev Pathak Content Reviewer Prof. Sujata Patel Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad Language Editor Prof. Sujata Patel Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Hyderabad NEO MARXIST PERSPECTIVES Introductory Overview 1. Introduction: Towards a definition of Neo-Marxism Neo-Marxism is a corpus of social theorization derived from the works of Marx and Engels. Neo- Marxism can include a wide range of theorization cutting across disciplines. According to George Ritzer, a prominent contemporary sociological thinker, the following schools of thought forms part of Neo- Marxist tradition: Economic Determinism, Hegelian Marxism, Critical Theory, Neo-Marxian Economic Sociology, Historically Oriented Marxism, Neo-Marxian Spatial Analysis, Post Marxist Theory (Ritzer 2011).Gordon Marshall defines Neo-Marxism in A Dictionary of Sociology (2003), as „A term loosely applied to any social theory or sociological analysis which draws on the ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, but amends or extends these, usually by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions…”. Jacques Bidet and Stathis Kouvelakis adds that Neo-Marxism is more of a response to „the crisis of Marxism‟ in the beginning of twentieth century and an effort by various groups, individuals engaged in social theorization to reclassify and innovate within Marxist critical thinking as a challenge to Marxist orthodoxy. In what follows, we therefore begin from this crisis of Marxism in general as the rise of orthodox Marxism. We try to define orthodox Marxism. Then we try to analyze how the journey of Neo-Marxism began as a response to orthodox Marxism in the form of Hegelian Marxism. Then, the next crisis of Marxism is described in 1950s and how Althusserian Structural Marxism emerged as another Neo Marxist response to this crisis. In the end, a brief excursion is made to see how another school of Neo- Marxism, the critical theory responds to the crisis of capitalist society in general. 2. The Marxism in Crisis and the Orthodoxy of Economic Determinism Socialism as a political idea existed even before Marx. But Marx and later Engels established idea of socialism on a scientific basis. Before Marx, there were socialist thinkers who critiqued injustice, oppression and exploitation prevailing in society from a moral stand-point. They were seeking change because that was ethically good for whole humanity. Separating from this, Marx and Engels gradually developed an analysis of history and capitalism in particular. Instead of appealing to conscience of the humanity that capitalism is wrong, they actually showed capitalism as a system cannot survive because it is inherently contradictory. This enabled, Marx and Engels to demonstrate that it is not dependent on voluntary action of few individuals or good will of a section of society to change this inhuman capitalist system to more human socialism. History is a process, consisting of class struggles and when studied, history shows that capitalism would be overcome by socialism. The class struggle between proletariat and capitalists would lead to socialism as through their class struggle, proletariat becomes conscious of this historical trajectory of human society (ibid.). The scientific discovery of human history, that Marx and Engels made, hinges on the discovery of the dialectic relationship in which society is structured. In its fundamental form, in any given epoch, a society can be thought of consisting of two elements: the base (or economy) and the superstructure (ideology, culture, politics and state etc.). The relationship between the two is dialectical. The ways in which the economy in a society is structured influences way in which its legal institutions, ideology, culture will shape; on the other hand, the latter will have impact on the organization of economy. So according to Marx and Engels, studying a society is to study these organizations of economic activities, various relations within it and relationships between the economy and other institutions. Depending of various combinations of the unity of base and superstructure, Marx and Engels show, human history has passed through various stages to reach today‟s capitalism. There was however a tension in this Marxist conception. Marx and Engels were just not using dialectical method, which they borrowed from German philosopher Hegel. They also insisted on being materialistic in their philosophical approach. It was a departure from Hegel who was an idealist. For materialist philosophers, matter is the primary object of investigation; while for an idealist philosopher, it is the idea of the matter, which requires attention. Roughly translated, for an idealist philosopher like Hegel, it was superstructural element like the state which was more important in understanding human history and its development. But for materialists like Marx and Engels, the economy as the organization of material life of human society became the primary object in studying society. The tension was surrounding to what extent the primacy of the base in studying society to be accorded; and where to place the importance of superstructure elements like culture, ideas and ideology, the state institutions, and human actions which seem more significant to us, as members of society living everyday life. This debate seemed to find its temporary closure when in 1876 Engels wrote the book called „Anti- Duhring‟. The book directly addresses the issues of the dialectics, materialist dialectics in detail. Engels used various inventions that were taking place in scientific field to argue that dialectics is a natural law. By natural law Engels meant that just like gravitation-pull is objectively out there working on all of us, without us wanting or not, the law of dialectics is also such naturally given law. For Engels, dialectics is everywhere working in the nature and on human society. By early years of 20th century, key Marxist figures like Karl Kautsky started championing this objective, external character of dialectics, independent of human will or intervention. Second International, led by Karl Kautsky, adopted a position where it was seen that capitalism by „natural necessity‟ would be replaced by socialism. Kautsky and his followers were taking the clue directly from Engel‟s Anti-Duhring. Kautsky and others in Second International extended Engel‟s proposition and claimed dialectical development of capitalism to socialism is therefore equally a natural course of development of society. It is like throwing an apple in the air, we want or don‟t want, the apple is going to come down to the earth. Human society wants or does not want, revolutionary transformation of capitalism to socialism is going to happen anyway. The human society is destined to move towards socialism. The above mentioned view came to dominate as the official Marxism or later came to be known as orthodox Marxism. It was a form of economic determinism. The base i.e. economic development became all too important while politics and revolutionary actions were reduced to secondary position. The political manifestation of this orthodoxy then reflected into reformism from socialists‟ part. In so long as revolution was bound to come, there was no rush to impose revolution by the proletariat on the natural course of history. The role of a communist party of the workers is to fight for reforms so that condition of existence remains human, till socialism comes and solves all the problems. It was just a wait and watch policy for these Marxists with orthodox economic deterministic view (Callinicos 1976). 3. The Foundation of Gramscian Neo-Marxism as Hegelian Marxism By 1920s, right after the First World War and Russian Revolution, a new impetus to think Marxism afresh was evident. There were numbers of intellectual and activist who protested against caricature of the revolutionary potential of Marxism in the hands of Second International. Out of these, a particular paradigm of thinking emerged as the Hegelian school of Marxism with three key figures: Georges Lukacs, Karl Korsch and Antonio Gramsci. Not necessarily these three thinkers worked together to develop a systematic body of interpretation of Marxist method and concepts. It is
Recommended publications
  • The Significance and Shortcomings of Karl Marx

    The Significance and Shortcomings of Karl Marx

    Class, Race and Corporate Power Volume 6 Issue 2 Article 3 2018 The Significance and Shortcomings of Karl Marx Chris Wright Hunter College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/classracecorporatepower Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Wright, Chris (2018) "The Significance and Shortcomings of Karl Marx," Class, Race and Corporate Power: Vol. 6 : Iss. 2 , Article 3. DOI: 10.25148/CRCP.6.2.008310 Available at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/classracecorporatepower/vol6/iss2/3 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]. The Significance and Shortcomings of Karl Marx Abstract In this essay I explain both why Karl Marx remains an important thinker and why he is in some respects inadequate. I focus on the central issue of 'materialism vs. idealism,' and briefly explore ways in which contemporary intellectuals still haven't assimilated the insights of historical materialism. In the last section of the paper I examine the greatest weakness of Marxism, its theory of proletarian revolution, and propose an alternative conceptualization that both updates the theory for the twenty-first century and is more faithful to historical materialism than Marx's own conception was. Keywords Karl Marx, Marxism, socialism Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. This article is available in Class, Race and Corporate Power: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/ classracecorporatepower/vol6/iss2/3 I often have occasion to think that, as an “intellectual,” I’m very lucky to be alive at this time in history, at the end of the long evolution from Herodotus and the pre-Socratic philosophers to Chomsky and modern science.
  • Relative Autonomy Reconstructed. Revised. PUB DATE Jan 83 NOTE 38P.; Paper Presented at the Sociology of Education Conference (Birmingham, England, January 3-5, 1983)

    Relative Autonomy Reconstructed. Revised. PUB DATE Jan 83 NOTE 38P.; Paper Presented at the Sociology of Education Conference (Birmingham, England, January 3-5, 1983)

    DOCUMENT RESUME ED 237 378 SO 014 962 AUTHOR Reynolds, Jim TITLE Relative Autonomy Reconstructed. Revised. PUB DATE Jan 83 NOTE 38p.; Paper presented at the Sociology of Education Conference (Birmingham, England, January 3-5, 1983). PUB TYPE Viewpoints (120) -- Speeches/Conference Papers (150) EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Comparative Analysis; Comparative Education; *Economic Change; Educational Objectives; Educational Practices; *Educational Sociology; Elementary Secondary Education; Government School Relationship; *School Role; *Social Change IDENTIFIERS Correspondence Theory; *Great Britain; Marxism; *Relative Autonomy Theory; United States ABSTRACT The British school system has relative autonomy, and therefore, could be,potentially transformative--used to change existing economic and social relations. The correspondence thesis, which states that the schobls perpetuate existing capitalist economic and social' relations and'serve as agents of reproduction, was the dominant paradigm of the last decade within the British sociology of education. This thesis has been bitterly contested', and, in recent years, substantially modified. Four developments within British social science over the last decade suggest a form of relative autonomy that grants considerable freedom to the educational system within British society to act either in a reproductive or tráns+formative fashion. The four developments are: (1) the lack of fit between what the educational system produces and the needs of the British economic structure, (2) recent findings in social policy studies, (3) the partial penetration of capitalism in Britain, and (4) the independence of the school. The relative autonomy theory may be a helpful method by which Marxists may cope with the empirical reality of the British educational system/economy relationship.
  • The Case of Bernstein and Engels

    The Case of Bernstein and Engels

    Munich Personal RePEc Archive Probabilism and determinism in political economy: the case of Bernstein and Engels Wells, Julian The Open University 3 February 1998 Online at https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/55325/ MPRA Paper No. 55325, posted 22 Jan 2020 09:07 UTC Probabilism and determinism in political economy The case of Bernstein and Engels Julian Wells The Open University I: Introduction Eduard Bernstein’s proposals for revising marxist theory Rather, it is to examine the intellectual sources of his burst like a thunderclap on the late 19th century workers’ error, and in particular to examine Bernstein’s views on movement, and in particular on the German social the determinism which he maintained was a central feature democracy. Here was the militant who had suffered 20 of the historical materialist method. This is important, years of exile, whose editorship of the party newspaper had because—as I claimed in passing in a previous IWGVT made it such a powerful weapon, the acquaintance of Marx paper (Wells 1997) but did not substantiate—there is a and the friend and literary executor of Engels, saying in pervasive atmosphere of determinism in the thought of terms that their scientific method was so fatally flawed that many marxists, which is, however, unjustified by anything it should be fundamentally recast. to be found in the works of Marx and Engels. Not only that, but Marx’s forecasts about the The paper will first review Bernstein’s critique of Marx development of capitalism, made on the basis of this and Engels, and suggest that his misunderstanding is not method, were not only untenable but had already been simply attributable to any personal scholarly exposed by events.
  • SOCIOLOGY 9191A Social Science in the Marxian Tradition Fall 2020

    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

    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.
  • 1 Globalisation and Economic Determinism Luke Martell Abstract

    1 Globalisation and Economic Determinism Luke Martell Abstract

    Paper given at Global Studies Association conference, Challenging Globalization, Royal Holloway, London, September 2009 Globalisation and Economic Determinism Luke Martell Abstract There has been a reaction against economic determinist explanations of globalisation. This paper takes anti-economistic arguments in globalisation studies and argues that they unwittingly show the importance of the economy, or fail to undermine the importance of economic determinants in globalisation. The paper looks at meanings that economic determinism in globalisation studies is given and argues that economic determination is more complex than it is made out to be. It is politically important not to dismiss economic causality as out of date, reductionist or too determinist because structures of power and inequality in globalisation come from the economy. If the determinant role of the economy is pushed out then globalisation is made to look more benign, equal and democratic than it is and its darker sides are concealed. This paper argues that criticisms of economic determinism in globalisation studies are wrong to reduce the role of economics, and that economics plays a big role in globalisation. I am focusing on criticisms within the sociology of globalisation. The arguments here may be more applicable to British and European sociology than to sociology in other countries. In the USA, for example, a political economy approach within the sociology of globalisation is more common (see, for instance, Sassen, 2007, 2008). In the UK and other European countries it is more likely to be seen as out of date and crude. Nevertheless, my discussion does not apply only to sociology or the UK or Europe.
  • Educational Philosophy: from Classical Marxism to Critical Pedagogy

    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

    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.
  • The Socialist Calculation Debate and New Socialist Models in Light of a Contextual Historical Materialist Interpretation

    The Socialist Calculation Debate and New Socialist Models in Light of a Contextual Historical Materialist Interpretation

    THE SOCIALIST CALCULATION DEBATE AND NEW SOCIALIST MODELS IN LIGHT OF A CONTEXTUAL HISTORICAL MATERIALIST INTERPRETATION by Adam Balsam BSc [email protected] Supervised by Justin Podur BSc MScF PhD A Major Paper submitted to the Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master in Environmental Studies York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada December 11, 2020 Table of Contents The Statement of Requirements for the Major Paper ................................................................................. iii Abstract ........................................................................................................................................................ iv Foreword ...................................................................................................................................................... vi Section I: Introduction, Context, Framework and Methodology .................................................................. 1 Preamble ............................................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 4 Context of this Investigation ................................................................................................................. 5 The Possibilities of Socialist Models ..................................................................................................
  • Mode of Production and Mode of Exploitation: the Mechanical and the Dialectical'

    Mode of Production and Mode of Exploitation: the Mechanical and the Dialectical'

    DjalectiCalAflthropologY 1(1975) 7 — 2 3 © Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam — Printed in The Netherlands MODE OF PRODUCTION AND MODE OF EXPLOITATION: THE MECHANICAL AND THE DIALECTICAL' Eugene E. Ruyle In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material produc- tive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstruc- ture and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that deter- mines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness.2 The specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus labor is pumped out of the direct producers, determines the relation of rulers and ruled, as it grows immediately out of production itself and in turn reacts upon it as a determining agent. .. It is always the direct relation of the owners of the means of production to the direct producers which reveals the innermost secret, the hidden foundation of the entire social structure.3 In the first of these two passages, Marx in crypto-Marxist bourgeois social science, and appears to be arguing for the sort of techno- then by exploring the possibilities of supple- economic determinism which has become menting the "mode of production" approach increasingly fashionable in bourgeois social with a "mode of exploitation" analysis.
  • Towards a Unified Theory Analysing Workplace Ideologies: Marxism And

    Towards a Unified Theory Analysing Workplace Ideologies: Marxism And

    Marxism and Racial Oppression: Towards a Unified Theory Charles Post (City University of New York) Half a century ago, the revival of the womens movementsecond wave feminismforced the revolutionary left and Marxist theory to revisit the Womens Question. As historical materialists in the 1960s and 1970s grappled with the relationship between capitalism, class and gender, two fundamental positions emerged. The dominant response was dual systems theory. Beginning with the historically correct observation that male domination predates the emergence of the capitalist mode of production, these theorists argued that contemporary gender oppression could only be comprehended as the result of the interaction of two separate systemsa patriarchal system of gender domination and the capitalist mode of production. The alternative approach emerged from the debates on domestic labor and the predominantly privatized character of the social reproduction of labor-power under capitalism. In 1979, Lise Vogel synthesized an alternative unitary approach that rooted gender oppression in the tensions between the increasingly socialized character of (most) commodity production and the essentially privatized character of the social reproduction of labor-power. Today, dual-systems theory has morphed into intersectionality where distinct systems of class, gender, sexuality and race interact to shape oppression, exploitation and identity. This paper attempts to begin the construction of an outline of a unified theory of race and capitalism. The paper begins by critically examining two Marxian approaches. On one side are those like Ellen Meiksins Wood who argued that capitalism is essentially color-blind and can reproduce itself without racial or gender oppression. On the other are those like David Roediger and Elizabeth Esch who argue that only an intersectional analysis can allow historical materialists to grasp the relationship of capitalism and racial oppression.
  • Gramsci on Hegemony - Not Even Past

    Gramsci on Hegemony - Not Even Past

    Gramsci on Hegemony - Not Even Past BOOKS FILMS & MEDIA THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN BLOG TEXAS OUR/STORIES STUDENTS ABOUT 15 MINUTE HISTORY "The past is never dead. It's not even past." William Faulkner NOT EVEN PAST Tweet 73 Like THE PUBLIC HISTORIAN Gramsci on Hegemony Making History: Houston’s “Spirit of the by Juan Carlos de Orellana Confederacy” Antonio Gramsci was an Italian Marxist intellectual and politician, who can be seen as the perfect example of the synthesis of theoretician and politician. He was not only a thinker involved in the revision and development of Marxism, who wrote in several socialist and communist Italian journals, but also a politically active militant. The fascist government of Benito Mussolini imprisoned him between 1926 and 1937. May 06, 2020 Gramsci’s political activities were not only related to his publications. His actions as a politician, activist, and intellectual were consistent with his ideas. He believed that the proletariat More from The Public Historian needed “organic” intellectuals (described below) to become a hegemonic class, and during his lifetime, he himself assumed BOOKS such a role. As a member of the Socialist Party and, later, the Communist Party, he wrote in several journals seeking to reach a wide audience and indoctrinate it in the basic ideas and principles of the proletariat and social struggle. While incarcerated, and away from mass media, he wrote his most America for Americans: A History of celebrated and influential theoretical contributions to Marxist theory. Among these, two concepts would Xenophobia in the United States by Erika Lee (2019) become most important to scholars of different disciplines: hegemony and historical bloc.