Originally published on the eve of the 1848 European revolutions, The Communist Manifesto is a condensed and incisive account of the worldview Marx and Engels developed during their hectic intellectual and political collaboration. Formulating the principles of dialectical materialism, they believed that labor creates wealth, hence capitalism is exploitive and antithetical to freedom. -/- This new edition includes an extensive introduction by Gareth Stedman Jones, Britain's leading expert on Marx and Marxism, providing a complete course for students of The Communist (...) Manifesto, and demonstrating not only the historical importance of the text, but also its place in the world today. (shrink)

Marx’s theory of historical materialism seeks to explain human history and development on the basis of the material conditions underlying all human existence. For Marx, the most important of all human activities is the activity of production by means of labor. With his focus on production through labor, Marx argues that it is possible to provide a materialistic explanation of how human beings not only transform the world (by applying the “forces of production” to it) but also transform themselves (...) in transforming the world (by entering into “relations of production” with one another). For Marx, the productive labor of human beings – and the resulting interplay between the forces and relations of production – function together as the engine which drives all historical change and development. By understanding how the productive activities of human beings give rise to the division of labor and class conflict, it becomes possible, according to Marx, to understand how different historical epochs succeed one another, and how the trajectory of human history points towards a communist society within which the division of labor and class conflict will be abolished. (shrink)

Marx and Engels's Communist Manifesto has become one of the world’s most influential political tracts since its original 1848 publication. Part of the Rethinking the Western Tradition series, this edition of the Manifesto features an extensive introduction by Jeffrey C. Isaac, and essays by Vladimir Tismaneanu, Steven Lukes, Saskia Sassen, and Stephen Eric Bronner, each well known for their writing on questions central to the Manifesto and the history of Marxism. These essays address the Manifesto's historical background, its impact (...) on the development of twentieth-century Communism, its strengths and weaknesses as a form of ethical critique, and its relevance in the post-1989, post-Cold War world. This edition also includes much ancillary material, including the many Prefaces published in the lifetimes of Marx and Engels, and Engels's "Principles of Communism.". (shrink)

This volume contains a selection of Karl Marx's most important writings, organized thematically under eight headings: methodology, alienation, economics, exploitation, historical materialism, classes, politics, and ideology. Jon Elster provides a brief introduction to each selection to explain its context and its place in Marx's argument. The volume is designed as a companion to Elster's An Introduction to Karl Marx and the thematic structure of each book is the same. But the Reader can also stand on its own and offers (...) the student a substantial and revealingly organized selection of the crucial texts needed to understand and assess Marx's views. (shrink)

This book is a completely rewritten version of the author's earlier Capitalism or Worker Control?. Its central thesis is that, despite the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the break-up of the Soviet Union, capitalism cannot be justified on either economic or ethical grounds. There is in fact an alternative to capitalism that promises greater efficiency, and equality, and more rational growth, democracy and meaningful work. This alternative, Economic Democracy, is market socialism with decentralised investment planning and workplace (...) democracy. Professor Schweickart compares this model with other models – laissez-faire conservatism, the Keynesian welfare state, and 'neo-liberalism' – and argues that it is really superior on every count. He also sketches out a possible transition from advanced capitalism, from what is left of the centrally planned economies, and from Third World underdevelopment, to Economic Democracy. The author concludes with some reflections on Marx's communism, as historical materialism, and on the future of Marxism. (shrink)

The theory of historical materialism is the core commitment of Marx’s social theory. More than his views on markets, philosophical methods, the state and social institutions, it is this theory which sets Marx’s views apart from alternative traditions in political philosophy. Marx believes that there is a tendency for societies to make moral and material progress. The point of Marx’s theory of historical materialism is to offer a theory of the mechanisms which produce this tendency. However, in Marx’s (...) own formulation, the precise nature of these mechanisms remains obscure. In The German Ideology, Marx emphasizes the growth of human productive powers as the fundamental cause of historical change and progress: social forms change in order to adapt to the requirements of further productive development. By contrast, in The Communist Manifesto and the Grundrisse, Marx emphasizes the desires and interests of classes as fundamental to explaining social change. Here, it is class struggles which determine not only when an old social form will be replaced by a new one, but also the nature of the new social form itself. Marx never specifies the connection between these two explanations of historical change, between the development of human productive powers and class struggles. In particular, Marx is not explicit as to whether there are two distinct mechanisms at work in the production of historical progress, or only one. (shrink)

Marx's Rebellion Against Lenin is a representative of the contemporary revitalization of the thought of Marx. It fulfils this task in three ways. First, it overthrows the dialectical materialism of Engels and of Stalinist Bolshevism by exploring 18th century historical thought and illustrating how these Enlightenment historians and political theorists first explored method of historical explanation that were later adopted by Marx. It is shown that contrary to the theory of Stalinist Bolshevism, Hegel was a vital influence on (...) Marx. Second, Levine's book represents Marx as an exponent of Classical Humanism. Marx did not define communism as a form of materialism, as economic egalitarianism, but rather related communism to the Classical ethics of Aristotle, to the Aristotelian ideas of polis citizenship and the ethics of distributive justice. Third, it is argued that the 17th and 18th Century Enlightenment was not simply a liberal center extolling property, individual rights and capitalism. Instead it is shown that the 17th and 18th century Enlightenment was divided between an Enlightenment Center and an Enlightenment Left, with the Enlightenment Left challenging the domination of capitalism and private property. Marx's Rebellion Against Lenin traces the flow of the theories of the Enlightenment Left into Marx and in doing so liberates Marxist thought from its imprisonment in 19th century materialism and relocates it within the traditions of Classical Humanism. (shrink)

Alain Badiou’s theoretical work maintains an ambiguous relation to Marx’s critique of political economy. In seemingly refusing the Marxian analytical strategy of displacement and referral across the fields of politics and economy, Badiou is frequently seen to be lacking a rigorous theoretical grasp of capitalism itself. In turn, this is often seen as a consequence of his understanding of political subjectivity. But the origins of this ‘lack’ of analysis of the social relation called ‘capital’ in his work can also be (...) investigated by means of a detour into the economic writings of theUnion des communistes de France marxiste-léniniste, the political organisation in which Badiou played a leading rôle throughout the 1970s in particular. By excavating this theoretical work of the 1970s, we can identify more precisely the historical and political reasons behind Badiou’s ambiguous relation to Marx and specifically to Marx’s systematic grasp of the logic of capital. This excavation will consequently lead us to a reflection on the limits and openings in Badiou’s thought for the Marxian critique of political economy. (shrink)

This book sets out to clarify the nature of the aesthetic as a category within the theory of historical materialism. It opens with an analysis of Marx's brief discussion of Greek art in the Grundrisse, moves through a series of readings of specifically bourgeois texts, including those of Ruskin, G.M. Hopkins, Nietzsche and Henry James, and then to the terrain of Marxism in the concepts of history underwriting the work of Fredric Jameson and Jean-Paul Sartre. Sprinkler detours through the (...) recent works of Perry Anderson to set the stage for a systematic consideration of the theoretical itinerary and continuing relevance of the contributions of Louis Althusser. Imaginary Relations is a cogently argued attempt to shift the terrain of Marxist theorizing about art from the domain of ideology considered as simply false consciousness to a concept of art which makes aesthetic texts sources of empirical data about the real, historical world. (shrink)

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was trained as a philosopher and steeped in the thought of Hegel and German idealism, but turned away from philosophy in his mid-twenties towards politics, economics and history. It is for his these subjects Marx is best known and in which his work and ideas shaped the very nature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, Marx's engagement with philosophy runs through most of his work, especially in his philosophy of history and in moral and political philosophy. (...) In this outstanding introduction to Marx's philosophy Jaime Edwards and Brian Leiter begin with an overview of Marx's life and intellectual development, before examining and assessing the following important topics: Marx's theory of history: Hegel, dialectics, teleology, materialism functionalism and the causal explanation of historical change economics, history and the transition from communism to capitalism ideology, morality and religion human nature, alienation and the good life for human beings Marx's legacy and influence, including Western Marxism and the Frankfurt School. The addition of chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary of technical terms make this an indispensable introduction to Marx's philosophy. It will also be useful to those in related disciplines such as politics, sociology, history and economics. (shrink)

This book challenges the widely-held view that Marxism is unable to deal adequately with environmental problems. Jonathan Hughes considers the nature of environmental problems, and the evaluative perspectives that may be brought to bear on them. He examines Marx's critique of Malthus, his method, and his materialism, interpreting the latter as a recognition of human dependence on nature. Central to the book's argument is an interpretation of the 'development of the productive forces' which takes account of the differing ecological impacts (...) of different productive technologies while remaining consistent with the normative and explanatory roles that this concept plays within Marx's theory. Turning finally to Marx's vision of a society founded on the communist principle 'to each according to his needs', the author concludes that the underlying notion of human need is one whose satisfaction presupposes only a modest and ecologically feasible expansion of productive output. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 495 Perhaps a word should be added about those who deny that Sein und Zeit (or any of Heidegger's later work) has any bearing on theology. Both K. LOwith and H. Jonas claim that Heidegger operates under certain ontic-ontological presuppositions that are taken from and lead to an ontic negation of theology.'2 In a lecture delivered at Drew University Jonas even accused Heidegger of paganism and fatalism.'3 (...) Anybody familiar with Heidegger's thinking knows, of course, how wrong this is. In an interview Heidegger granted to the magazine der Spiegel in 1966, mainly to clarify his political activity during the Nazi period, the question of God entered into the discussion. (The interview was published only after his death in 1976 as Heidegger had stipulated.) In connection with the dangers involved in our technological society Heidegger said, "Only a God may save us. For us there remains the only possible way to prepare, through thinking and poeticizing, a readiness for the appearance of God or the absence of God [and our] doom: that we will perish in the face of the absent God.",4 These are only a few examples of the many authors Siefert discusses in her instructive book. The language is complicated, but the richness of the material as well as Siefert's keen insight reward the reader. An extensive bibliography and an index are added. ELISABETHFE1STHIRSCH Trenton State College On Materialism. By Sebastiano Timpanaro. (London: NLB, 1975. Pp. 254. $15.50) Sebastiano Timpanaro has published as a classical philologist, has been a militant member of Italian socialist parties since 1945, and has been most influenced by Leopardi, a nineteenthcentury Lucretian hedonist and materialist. His socialist and Leopardian interests are brought together in this work, which is a criticism of the tendencies in Western European Marxism (dominated by the Frankfurt school, existentialists, and structuralists) toward idealism and humanism, and their "erroneous rejection" of the biological and physical aspects of Marxism, to leave only historical materialism. Timpanaro claims that the interpretations of the Frankfurt school and Althusser "allow very little of Marxism to survive"; they are falsely antiscientific and adopt a Platonistic conception of science. From materialism he takes as his own point of departure certain hedonistic and pessimistic themes (is that the genuine Marxism?) that reached their height in Leopardi: a social and historical optimism regarding "communism as a now certain goal of human history" (in this he ignores that Marx in the Manuscripts said that communism is not the goal of, but only a stage in, human history); and "pessimism with respect to nature's oppression of man, which would continue to be a cause of unhappiness even in communist society." Again Timpanaro ignores the Manuscripts and Grundrisse where Marx reminds us that nature is our body with which we are in interaction. Timpanaro's pessimism can be understood as a result of the alienation we experience because of the attitudes of conquest and domination of nature--attitudes still endorsed by him in his claim that the animal merely uses nature, while man, who can set goals for himself and use means to his ends, can master nature. But we are in a position, historically, where our very survival depends on our moving back into harmony with nature, by overcoming that alienation. Timpanaro is not yet free of that outdated, bourgeois worldview; his is in accord with the view of capitalism, of which the final contradiction may be the ecological crisis of pollution and the depletion of resources in the name of "necessary" growth. Leopardi's materialist pessimism predicated human solidarity 12On LOwithsee Siefert, pp. 173-180. "On Jonas see Siefert, pp. 180-184,esp. p. 181 n. where Siefert refers to Father Richardson's answer to Jonas. 14May 31, 1976, p. 209. 496 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY upon the foundation of the struggle against nature, whereas Marx based the overcoming of our alienation from nature on the reestablishment of an equilibrium and solidarity with nature, our body. In his treatment of structuralism, Timpanaro is not only wallowing in his nineteenthcentury worldview, but he stoops to the lowest level of labeling and name calling, often without supporting arguments, of which dogmatic Marxists are... (shrink)

This book is a completely rewritten version of the author's earlier Capitalism or Worker Control?. Its central thesis is that, despite the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the break-up of the Soviet Union, capitalism cannot be justified on either economic or ethical grounds. There is in fact an alternative to capitalism that promises greater efficiency, and equality, and more rational growth, democracy and meaningful work. This alternative, Economic Democracy, is market socialism with decentralised investment planning and workplace (...) democracy. Professor Schweickart compares this model with other models – laissez-faire conservatism, the Keynesian welfare state, and 'neo-liberalism' – and argues that it is really superior on every count. He also sketches out a possible transition from advanced capitalism, from what is left of the centrally planned economies, and from Third World underdevelopment, to Economic Democracy. The author concludes with some reflections on Marx's communism, as historical materialism, and on the future of Marxism. (shrink)

Marxism as an intellectual movement has been one of the most important and fertile contributions to twentieth-century thought. No social theory or political philosophy today can be taken seriously unless it enters a dialogue, not just with the legacy of Marx, but also with the innovations and questions that spring from the movement that his work sparked, Marxism. Marx provided a revolutionary set of ideas about freedom, politics and society. As social and political conditions changed and new intellectual challenges to (...) Marx's social philosophy arose, the Marxist theorists sought to update his social theory, rectify the sociological positions of historical materialism and respond to philosophical challenges with a Marxist reply. This book provides an accessible introduction to Marxism by explaining each of the key concepts of Marxist politics and social theory. The book is organized into three parts, which explore the successive waves of change within Marxist theory and places these in historical context, while the whole provides a clear and comprehensive account of Marxism as an intellectual system. (shrink)

This introductory text is a critical theory toolkit on how to how to make use of Karl Marx's ideas in media, communication and cultural studies. Karl Marx's ideas remain of crucial relevance, and in this short, student-friendly book, leading expert Christian Fuchs introduces Marx to the reader by discussing fifteen of his key concepts and showing how they matter for understanding the digital and communicative capitalism that shapes human life in 21st century society. Key concepts covered include: the dialectic, materialism, (...) commodities, capital, capitalism, labour, surplus-value, the working class, alienation, means of communication, the general intellect, ideology, socialism, communism, and class struggles. Students taking courses in Media, Culture and Society; Communication Theory; Media Economics; Political Communication and Cultural Studies will find Fuchs' concise introduction an essential guide to Marx. (shrink)

The readings collected here—of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Rosa Luxemburg, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Antonio Gramsci— reflect the experience of the labor, socialist, and communist movements that did so much to shape modern history. A dedication to working-class revolution gives coherence to the influential philosophical, economic, sociological, and historical works of these writers. Paul Le Blanc's introductory essay probes the structure and dynamics of Marxism as a political orientation, tracing connections among components that can be found in (...) the readings: the theory of capitalist development, the theory of the labor movement, the strategy of revolution, the conception of the transition to socialism. Others identified with the Marxist tradition—such as Plekhanov, Kautsky, Stalin, Mao—are also discussed, and attention is given to perspectives of such varied critics of Marxism as Sidney Hook, Bertram D. Wolfe, James Burnham, Daniel Bell, Robert Heilbroner, and C. Wright Mills. Historical reflections are blended with discussion of the durability of capitalism, the disappointment of hopes for workers' revolution, the "collapse of communism," issues of race and gender, the environment, and challenges of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

Two centuries after his birth, Karl Marx is read almost solely through the lens of Marxism, his works examined for how they fit into the doctrine that was developed from them after his death. With Marx’s Dream, Tom Rockmore offers a much-needed alternative view, distinguishing rigorously between Marx and Marxism. Rockmore breaks with the Marxist view of Marx in three key ways. First, he shows that the concern with the relation of theory to practice—reflected in Marx’s famous claim that philosophers (...) only interpret the world, while the point is to change it—arose as early as Socrates, and has been central to philosophy in its best moments. Second, he seeks to free Marx from his unsolicited Marxist embrace in order to consider his theory on its own merits. And, crucially, Rockmore relies on the normal standards of philosophical debate, without the special pleading to which Marxist accounts too often resort. Marx’s failures as a thinker, Rockmore shows, lie less in his diagnosis of industrial capitalism’s problems than in the suggested remedies, which are often unsound. ​ Only a philosopher of Rockmore’s stature could tackle a project this substantial, and the results are remarkable: a fresh Marx, unencumbered by doctrine and full of insights that remain salient today. (shrink)

As unstintingly irreligious as he was, Karl Marx was not an atheist. He was a staunch opponent of supernatural belief, yet neither did he embrace agnosticism as the position of claiming no answer to the question whether or not God exists. Rather, Marx argued that it was incoherent and pointless even to pose that very question. His irreligion is best understood not primarily as an ontological stance on the existence or nonexistence of God, but rather as part and parcel of (...) a philosophical worldview radically committed to sweeping such questions aside, to centering the human perspective ontologically and epistemologically, to overthrowing “all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, forsaken, despicable being,” and to taking as its core principle that “man is the highest being for man.” A “religious worldview” for Marx includes not only the plainly divine, but any perspective that subordinates the value of human beings to a superior entity, operating externally to human beings and imperviously to their influence. I begin by explaining the relationship between Marx's historical materialism and his position on the existence of God. It may seem obvious how irreligion would follow from a philosophical materialist stance. I show that Marx's historical materialist irreligion, however, warrants a closer and more nuanced assessment than we might at first realize. I go on to discuss why Marx's historical materialism leads him to regard questions about the existence of God as fundamentally misguided. I then unpack the meanings of Marx's infamous statement that religion is “the opium of the people.” I conclude with a discussion of Marx's pronouncement that “the criticism of religion ends with the teaching that man is the highest being for man,” a teaching that separates mere atheism from radical irreligion. (shrink)

The fall of the Berlin Wall had enormous symbolic resonance, marking the collapse of Marxist politics and economics. Indeed, Marxist regimes have failed miserably, and with them, it seems, all reason to take the writings of Karl Marx seriously. Jonathan Wolff argues that if we detach Marx the critic of current society from Marx the prophet of some never-to-be-realized worker's paradise, he remains the most impressive critic we have of liberal, capitalist, bourgeois society. The author shows how Marx's main ideas (...) still shed light on wider concerns about culture and society and he guides the reader through Marx's notoriously difficult writings. Wolff also argues that the value of a great thinker does not depend on his or her views being true, but on other features such as originality, insight, and systematic vision. From this perspective, Marx still richly deserves to be read. Why Read Marx Today? reinstates Marx as an important critic of current society, and not just a figure of historical interest. (shrink)

Marx's historical-materialist philosophy of history has often been criticized for being ethnocentric. Jon Elster (1985, 490), for example, suggests that it has become a "conceptual straight-jacket for the study of much non-western history." Marshall Sahlins, in his book, Culture and Practical Reason (1976), as well as critics like Baudrillard (1975, 59, 65-67) Balbus (1982, 33-36), and Aronowitz (1981, 67-68), have argued that Marx develops a single, necessary historical pattern, worked up on the basis of the historical development (...) of Western societies, which is then conceptually imposed on all societies, including non-Western ones. Also, that this pattern of historical development proceeds from "lower," more "primitive" stages to "higher," more "civilized" ones and culminates in modern Western capitalist societies as the highest stage before socialism. Marx's productivism, escpecially, has been criticized along these lines. The term productivism is shorthand for the claim that material conditions, economic conditions, or the forces and relations of production are the factors that predominate in determining all aspects of a sociocultural world. These critics argue that the productivist claim is true, at best, only for modern societies. It is certainly not true, as some of these critics think Marx holds it is, for earlier or "primitive" societies. In the latter societies, as Sahlins (1976, vii-viii) puts it, cultural modes of symbolization predominate and no symbolic scheme is the only one possible given a specific set of material conditions. (shrink)

This article aims at contributing to current debates on the ‘new imperialism’ by presenting the main results of a reading of Marx’sCapitalin light of his writings on colonialism, which were unknown in the early Marxist debate on imperialism. It aims to prove that, in his main work, Marx does not analyse a national economy or – correspondingly – an abstract model of capitalist society, but a world-polarising and ever-expanding system. This abstraction allows the identification of the laws of development of (...) capitalism and its antagonisms, and reflects the tendency of the capital of the dominant states, by making permanent recourse also to methods of so-called ‘primitive accumulation’, to expand and increase the exploitation of workers worldwide, and, at the same time, the cooperation between them. What, for Marx, was later defined as imperialism is the concrete form of the process of ‘globalisation’ of the capital of the dominant states. With the development of his analysis, Marx became increasingly aware of the economic and political consequences of imperialism. In his activity within the First International, with regard to the question of Irish independence, he affirmed the fundamental importance of building a real solidarity between class struggles in imperialist countries and anti-colonial resistance in colonised and dependent countries. His examination of imperialism and internationalist perspective were downplayed, denied, if not completely reversed in the interpretation and systematisation of his thought by reformist leaders within the Second International. In their attempt to react against this tendency and develop an analysis and a political strategy adequate to the new phase of generalised imperialist expansion, increased inter-imperialist rivalries and rising anti-colonial resistance, Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin reaffirmed the centrality of the critique of imperialism at the economic and at the political levels. Even if they were partially unaware of this, they thus developed and expanded on some aspects already present in Marx’s work. (shrink)

The article studies the implications for historical materialism of the failure of the socialist project in the Soviet Union. The author demonstrates that the said failure broadly confirms central historical materialist theses, which would have been difficult to sustain if the Russian revolution had succeeded in its goal of superseding capitalism and establishing a socialist society.

This powerful critique of Marx's historical materialism - as a theory of power, as an account of history, and as a political theory -has been revised to take note of the profound intellectual and political changes that have occurred since the first edition was published. Reviews from the first edition 'Giddens draws upon a formidable knowledge of anthropology, archaeology, geography, and philosophy to demonstrate the limitations of Marxism and to formulate his own interpretation of the history of societies ... (...) He does a masterful job of setting his theory within a historical and critical framework of writings on Marx. His clarity of thought and his deft and often humorous handling of the unavoidable jargon of sociology and Marxist political theory makes this book a critical work of the highest quality.' Journal of International Law and Politics 'By contrast with many practictioners in the rather murky area of social theory, Giddens clearly seeks to make himself understood, and he has the useful quality of provoking one to argument. He has let light into some dark places.' The Times Higher Education Supplement 'Although Marx, Durkheim, and Weber continue to fill more index space than any other authors, Critique is Giddens's most explicit and committed statement of his own conceptualization of social theory ... It is his most original and therefore most vulnerable book, at once a cause for celebration and an invitation to critical reappraisal of the author's entire theoretical project.' Environment and Planning. (shrink)

By digging through the stratigraphy of the history of ideas we can find within and beyond Marxism an 'aleatory current' that values the role of chance in history. Using this perspective, the book builds a case for a historical materialism that is stripped of all teleology. Starting in the ancient Mediterranean with Epicurus, it traces the history of conceiving history as plural up to Marxism and modern science. It shows that concrete historical 'worlds' such as ancient Mesoamerica and (...) Eurasia cannot be reduced to a single template. Affirming the potentiality of a future non-capitalist 'world', it invalidates any 'end of history' thesis. (shrink)

This book traces the development of Marx's ethics as they underwent various shifts and changes during different periods of his thought. In his early writings, his ethics were based on a concept of essence much like Aristotle's, which Marx tried to link to a principle of universalization similar to Kant's "categorical imperative." In the period 1845-46, Marx abandoned this view, holding morality to be incompatible with his historical materialism. In the later work he was less of a determinist. Though (...) he no longer wished to reject morality, he did want to transcend a morality of burdensome obligation and constraint in order to realize a community built upon spontaneous bonds of solidarity. (shrink)

The principles of historical materialism involve Marx in making two crucial claims about freedom. The first is that the revolutionary proletariat is, in an important sense, more free than its class antagonist the bourgeoisie. The second is that the beneficiaries of a successful proletarian revolution—the members of a solidly established communist society—enjoy a greater freedom than even proletarians engaged in revolutionary praxis. It is perhaps natural to take Marx to be operating here with what might be called a logically (...) continuous notion of freedom, established communists enjoying to perfection (or as near as maybe) what revolutionary proletarians merely imperfectly experience and what the bourgeoisie entirely misses. But whatever one's views might be about what Marx in fact says about freedom this cannot be what he ought to say for his theory of freedom to work. The kind of line Marx (and Marxists) need to take finds a significant precedent in his economics where we find a theory implying two quite distinct logical dimensions in that the principles and concepts designed to apply to the transactions of capitalism (commodity, capital, wage-labour, surplus-value, and so on) necessarily lack descriptive purchase on communist economic reality. The existence of these two dimensions, and particularly Marx's comparative silence as to the nature of the second, reflect his conviction that the transition between the two systems must be marked by a profound conceptual as well as material break. Consequently it is not unreasonable, perhaps, to look for an analogous discontinuity in his metaphysics and to expect to find two distinct varieties of freedom, the one reflecting the nature of class society, the other of human community. (shrink)

Peter Singer identifies the central vision that unifies Marx's thought, enabling us to grasp Marx's views as a whole. He sees him as a philosopher primarily concerned with human freedom, rather than as an economist or a social scientist. In plain English, he explains alienation, historical materialism, the economic theory of Capital, and Marx's ideas of communism, and concludes with an assessment of Marx's legacy.

Historical materialism I take to be the view expressed in the well-known Preface to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) and exemplified in Capital and in many other writings by Marx and by Marxists. I shall begin with a few introductory remarks, next sketch in the theory, and finally contend that, despite real attractions, it too far limits the scope of legitimate historical enquiry to be ultimately acceptable.

Historical materialism I take to be the view expressed in the well-known Preface to the Critique of Political Economy and exemplified in Capital and in many other writings by Marx and by Marxists. I shall begin with a few introductory remarks, next sketch in the theory, and finally contend that, despite real attractions, it too far limits the scope of legitimate historical enquiry to be ultimately acceptable.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) is best known not as a philosopher but as a revolutionary communist, whose works inspired the foundation of many communist regimes in the twentieth century. It is hard to think of many who have had as much influence in the creation of the modern world. Trained as a philosopher, Marx turned away from philosophy in his mid-twenties, towards economics and politics. However, in addition to his overtly philosophical early work, his later writings have many points of contact (...) with contemporary philosophical debates, especially in the philosophy of history and the social sciences, and in moral and political philosophy. Historical materialism — Marx's theory of history — is centered around the idea that forms of society rise and fall as they further and then impede the development of human productive power. Marx sees the historical process as proceeding through a necessary series of modes of production, culminating in communism. Marx's economic analysis of capitalism is based on his version of the labour theory of value, and includes the analysis of capitalist profit as the extraction of surplus value from the exploited proletariat. The analysis of history and economics come together in Marx's prediction of the inevitable economic breakdown of capitalism, to be replaced by communism. However Marx refused to speculate in detail about the nature of communism, arguing that it would arise through historical processes, and was not the realisation of a pre-determined moral ideal. (shrink)

This chapter discusses the philosophical side of Karl Marx's thought as well as some of the major debates about it in the secondary literature. It first examines Marx's early writings, focusing, in particular, on his views on religion, the limitations of political emancipation and the dehumanizing conditions of work under capitalism. Marx and Engels considered the theory of history to be one of Marx's most important theoretical achievements. In an autobiographical note Marx described it as the “guiding thread of his (...) studies,” and in a speech delivered at Marx's graveside Engels compared Marx's discovery of “the law of development of human history” with Darwin's discovery of the law of nature. The chapter examines Marx's materialist theory of history, the view that history is characterized by the development of productive power to free people from material scarcity. It also examines the problematic area of Marx's ethics. (shrink)

When Western Marxist sociologists, such as Jean Buadrillard, constructed their critical theory of consumer society, they took the consumer society as an objective fact and methodologically restricted themselves to the non-historical method of sociology, making them unable to grasp the correct meaning of Karl Marx's historical materialist methodology. Thus, they were unable to adequately critique and transcend consumer society. After spending the early 1850s building a theoretical foundation, Marx pointed out in 1857–1858 Economical Manuscript and 1861–1863 Economical Manuscript (...) that the governing model of capital was so complicated that it made consumption very important to the socio-economic form. Moreover, he explained the way of surpassing the conscious form of fetishism developed in consumer society from the perspective of the development of capitalist production. (shrink)

The main concern of this article is Weber's antagonism with respect to materialism and the distance or affinity between Marx's and Weber's standpoints. It focuses on two interconnected issues: the social and political role of religion and the emergence of modern capitalism. These two points are justified because of their strategic importance and because, with them, Weber's distance with respect to materialism apparently reaches its zenith. Through them, this text attempts to expose the main features of the controversy between Marxism (...) and Weberianism, evaluating the alternatives on the matter offered by different perspectives. Key Words: capitalism • Karl Marx • materialism • Protestant ethic • rationalism • religion • Max Weber. (shrink)

THE ITALIAN CASE - FROM LABRIOLA TO GRAMSCITaking The Communist Manifesto as a point of departure, this article intends to emphasize the aporia in the works of Marx between Marx the scientist og Marx the politician, that furthermore reflects some of the main fractures between on one hand the theoretical interpretation of the capitalistic mode of production and on the other hand the strategic approaches characterizing the attempts of the European Socialist parties and the early European labour movement to overcome (...) the ever returning crisis and the deep-rooted class conflicts. The specific Italian experiences offer the opportunity not only to discuss the philosophical and scientific contents of historical materialism but also to reactualize the political categories of democracy vis-à-vis the dictatorship of the proletariat and permanent revolution. In this respect, Antonio Labriola was a leading figure in the Italian debate of Marxism in the years between the 18th and the 19th Centuries, while Antonio Gramsci in the 1930ies revised the Marxist-Leninist tradition in the light of Fascism and the Stalinistic impasse of the Russian revolution. (shrink)

Philosophically robust conceptions of ethical life and moral critique would advance the struggle against capital. Marx can be read as implying that human life is irreducibly meaningful, linguistic, and cultural, but he often is not. Whether or not Marx recognized them himself, these dimensions of life have not been sufficiently thematized or developed by Marxists. I argue that we can move toward doing so with assistance from Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics. A hermeneutical approach to historical materialism would help clarify (...) and articulate some aspects of Marxism which in particular have been hard to resolve within a wider view of the ethical, political, scientific, and historical dimensions of social action and change. (shrink)

This paper discusses the significance of the concept of a social formation for historical materialism. It argues that the concept is wrongly thought to be associated uniquely with the writings of Louis Althusser and with structuralist Marxism. It can be found in the writings of Marx himself, as well as those of Lenin, and is central to an adequate understanding of classical Marxism. To illustrate its importance the paper shows how the concept may be used to shed new light (...) on the debate around the transition from feudalism to capitalism. (shrink)

In this article I put forth a new interpretation of historical materialism titled the supervenient interpretation . Drawing on the insights of analytical Marxism and utilizing the concept of supervenience, I advance two central claims. First, that Marx's synchronic materialism maintains that the superstructure supervenes naturally on the economic structure. Second, that diachronic materialism maintains that the relations of production supervene naturally on the forces of production. Taken together, these two theses help bring to the fore the central tenets (...) of historical materialism. Furthermore, they help resolve what I call the problem of reductionism and the problem of verification . Key Words: Marx • historical materialism • supervenience • synchronic materialism • diachronic materialism. (shrink)

Since the crisis of Fordism, capitalism has been characterised by the ever more central role of knowledge and the rise of the cognitive dimensions of labour. This is not to say that the centrality of knowledge to capitalism is new per se. Rather, the question we must ask is to what extent we can speak of a new role for knowledge and, more importantly, its relationship with transformations in the capital/labour relation. From this perspective, the paper highlights the continuing validity (...) of Marx's analysis of the knowledge/power relation in the development of the division of labour. More precisely, we are concerned with the theoretical and heuristic value of the concepts of formal subsumption, real subsumption and general intellect for any interpretation of the present change of the capital/labour relation in cognitive capitalism. In this way, we show the originality of the general intellect hypothesis as a sublation of real subsumption. Finally, the article summarises key contradictions and new forms of antagonism in cognitive capitalism. (shrink)

"Whether we think history has a definite logic of its own, or is merely the emergent quality of an irreducible contingency – it is usually taken as granted that it the same way in all its course. This is the case with some philosophers who argue against a conception of history as having an inherent logic. In this paper I present Postone’s critical reexamination of Marxian categories and argue that based on his project, we can criticize the presupposition of the (...) “sameness” of history. For although there is no transhistorically valid “logic of history”, something like it is constituted by the functioning of capitalism’s elementary categories. Keywords: history, historical time, logic of history, capitalism, traditional Marxism, Moishe Postone". (shrink)

Marx versus Markets points out that Marx defines communist economies--even in their lower stage of development--as classless economies without markets.

This collection addresses fundamental themes in Marx's social and political thought. It covers key controversies in the analysis of Marx's overall intellectual development, the influence of Hegel, the Marx-Engels relationship, the validity of historical materialism, the significance of class and class struggle, the state and political parties, and reform and revolution. It also addresses Marx's work as historian, anthropologist, student of time and space, social psychologist, social interactionist, and literary scholar. It also covers debates regarding Marx's views on technological (...) determinism: *national identity *nationalism, and cosmopolitanism *cities and citizenship *welfare and human rights *science and ideology *patriarchy and the family *gender and sexual orientations *culture and religion *alienation and fetishism *justice in capitalism and communism. Bob Jessop provides an extended general introduction and also summarizes and interrelates the various articles at the start of each volume. Contributors adopt a wide range of approaches and cover some sixty years of analysis. (shrink)

We live in an age dominated by money. As capitalism has intensified and expanded as a social form, money has increasingly colonised the production and reproduction of the human condition. We live in an age of monetarism: an age in which social and political regulation are increasingly subordinate to the dictates of ‘sound money'. We live in an age of national lotteries: an age where millions attempt each week to garner enough money to ‘free’ themselves from the grinding agony of (...) wage labour. We live in an age in which people increasingly grasp the alienation inherent in the domination of society by money and attempt to reassert a sense of human community through the introduction of local currency and barter schemes. But we also live in an age where Marxism is supposedly dead; where we can only gaze in ironic postmodern wonder at the increasing domination of the human condition by money and its social forms. In this paper we go beyond this postmodern orthodoxy to suggest that it is not only possible to develop a historically materialist analysis of money and its social forms but also that this project is essential if we are to reclaim our humanity from the deadening alienation of money and its social forms. We explore the magical qualities of money, the qualities which have enthralled and transfixed bourgeois social science from the classical economy of Adam Smith to the present day postmodernists. We argue that the lasting legacy of Marx was to uncover the historical materiality underlying the magical appearance of money: a discovery of the alchemic properties of money capital through which money becomes more money and which involves the material subordination of living labour to the valorisation of money capital. (shrink)

This work analyses Marx's philosophy of nature and shows how it is the basis for his practical philosophy. Previous analysis of Marx's philosophy of nature has considered humans as only natural beings and social beings. But, Marx analyzed humans' relationship to the natural world and to themselves as natural, social, and material. This material feature of human action can server as a basis for social critique and as the foundation for a practical analysis. The first chapter of this book analyzes (...) Marx's philosophy of nature from his early to late works and argues that humans are natural begins that use nature to develop new capacities. This consideration is central in Marx's critiques of Hegel and Feuerbach. The second chapter discusses Marx's material critique of social forms and discusses why the distinction between material action and social action is a key component of Marx critique of capitalism. This chapter also discusses industrial history, ideology, wages, justice, and valorization. The third and final chapter builds on Marx's materialist analysis to develop a standard of practical action that takes human's material activity as its basis. This chapter also discusses classical historical materialist claims, liberal ethical theories, and a practical philosophic consideration of socialism. (shrink)