For Marx, work is the fundamental and central activity in human life and, potentially at least, a ful lling and liberating activity. Although this view is implicit throughout Marx’s work, there is little explicit explanation or defence of it. The fullest treatment is in the account of ‘estranged labour’ [entfremdete Arbeit] in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts;1 but, even there, Marx does not set out his philosophical assumptions at length. For an understanding of these, one must turn to Hegel. Marx (...) is quite explicit about his debt to Hegel in this respect. (shrink)

This article seeks to develop the Marxist conception of social structure by incorporating developments within critical realist philosophy. It rejects forms of economic determinism such as the base-superstructure model and those reconstructions—like Cohen’s—that attribute primacy to productive forces in explaining history and society. It argues instead that society is the product of complex, often contradictory combinations of many different structures and mechanisms. They form a structural ensemble, hierarchically arranged, but where each element has its own dynamics and emergent powers. It (...) concludes that society is best understood through critical realist conceptions of stratification, emergence, transformation, and overdetermination. (shrink)

Within the organisation of all societies, there are basic contradictions which historically have given rise to certain undesirable structural features. These same contradictions also lie at the root of alienated, ideological forms of consciousness which act as a barrier to the solution of these problems. In chapter one, I will deal with each of these issues in turn, thus introducing Marx's problematic, i. e. the so-called "riddle of history". Chapters two and three contain a discussion of Marx's methodology, which was (...) intended to avoid the pitfalls of ideological forms of consciousness and provide a theoretical framework for coming to terms with the problem. Chapter three in particular provides a syntax and a logical explanation for the terms and forms of argument employed in the rest of the thesis. Marx believes that historical development itself determines the possibility of solving the problems referred to. Chapters four and five, therefore, are an analysis of the processes which govern the development of social structures, i. e. so-called "Historical Materialism". Chapter six is an investigation of the relationship between historical change and forms of consciousness. This sets the stage for an analysis in chapter seven of the nature of capitalism itself and how it gives rise in the consciousness of the working class to a solution, in principle, to the problems identified in chapter one. Finally, chapter eight reviews the factors within the development of capitalism which might make possible the transition to socialism and the implementation of the solution in practice. (shrink)