G. A. Cohen
Jonathan Wolff (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691149004
- eISBN:
- 9781400848713
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691149004.003.0010
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
In this chapter, the author responds to Jon Elster's criticism of his use of functional explanation in his account of historical materialism. Elster rejects the association between Marxism and ...
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In this chapter, the author responds to Jon Elster's criticism of his use of functional explanation in his account of historical materialism. Elster rejects the association between Marxism and functional explanation, arguing that there is no scope for functional explanation in social science. He therefore concludes that the Marxist theory of society and history should abandon functional explanation and that it should, instead, draw for its explanations on the resources of game theory. The author offers an explanation of historical materialist theory that he attributes, on a textual basis, to Karl Marx, and that he articulates and defends in his book Karl Marx's Theory of History. He asserts that game theory cannot replace functional explanation within Marxist social analysis and that it has no place at the heart of historical materialism, alongside functional explanation.Less
In this chapter, the author responds to Jon Elster's criticism of his use of functional explanation in his account of historical materialism. Elster rejects the association between Marxism and functional explanation, arguing that there is no scope for functional explanation in social science. He therefore concludes that the Marxist theory of society and history should abandon functional explanation and that it should, instead, draw for its explanations on the resources of game theory. The author offers an explanation of historical materialist theory that he attributes, on a textual basis, to Karl Marx, and that he articulates and defends in his book Karl Marx's Theory of History. He asserts that game theory cannot replace functional explanation within Marxist social analysis and that it has no place at the heart of historical materialism, alongside functional explanation.
Philip J. Kain
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198239321
- eISBN:
- 9780191679896
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198239321.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
In the book German Ideology, Karl Marx's views on ethics begin to turn in a different direction. He abandons his earlier concept of essence and develops a doctrine of historical materialism. He ...
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In the book German Ideology, Karl Marx's views on ethics begin to turn in a different direction. He abandons his earlier concept of essence and develops a doctrine of historical materialism. He rejects Kantian ethics as well as the notion that freedom can be understood as self-determination. His historical materialism leaves no room for moral responsibility or moral obligation. Morality becomes ideology and it will disappear in communist society. Looking back at the writings of 1843–1844, Marx's arguments for communism and revolution appear to be more arguments for the moral necessity of communism and revolution than empirical studies of how they might actually occur.Less
In the book German Ideology, Karl Marx's views on ethics begin to turn in a different direction. He abandons his earlier concept of essence and develops a doctrine of historical materialism. He rejects Kantian ethics as well as the notion that freedom can be understood as self-determination. His historical materialism leaves no room for moral responsibility or moral obligation. Morality becomes ideology and it will disappear in communist society. Looking back at the writings of 1843–1844, Marx's arguments for communism and revolution appear to be more arguments for the moral necessity of communism and revolution than empirical studies of how they might actually occur.
Philip J. Kain
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198239321
- eISBN:
- 9780191679896
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198239321.003.0005
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
Karl Marx's doctrine of historical materialism, as developed in the German Ideology, led to the implication that morality was ideological illusion, an implication that at least before 1853 Marx fully ...
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Karl Marx's doctrine of historical materialism, as developed in the German Ideology, led to the implication that morality was ideological illusion, an implication that at least before 1853 Marx fully accepted and even embraced. This chapter argues that Marx does not continue to embrace this implication, and that he probably began to struggle against it as early as 1853 in his discussion of British rule in India. In grappling with the complexities of his doctrine of historical materialism and in qualifying it, Marx transforms his moral views. There is a good deal of evidence in Marx's later writings (1857–1883) to suggest that he no longer thinks of morality as ideological illusion destined to disappear in communist society. Moreover, Marx begins to shift away from the view that consciousness is as strictly determined as he had previously claimed.Less
Karl Marx's doctrine of historical materialism, as developed in the German Ideology, led to the implication that morality was ideological illusion, an implication that at least before 1853 Marx fully accepted and even embraced. This chapter argues that Marx does not continue to embrace this implication, and that he probably began to struggle against it as early as 1853 in his discussion of British rule in India. In grappling with the complexities of his doctrine of historical materialism and in qualifying it, Marx transforms his moral views. There is a good deal of evidence in Marx's later writings (1857–1883) to suggest that he no longer thinks of morality as ideological illusion destined to disappear in communist society. Moreover, Marx begins to shift away from the view that consciousness is as strictly determined as he had previously claimed.
Philip J. Kain
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198239321
- eISBN:
- 9780191679896
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198239321.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This book traces the development of Karl Marx's ethics as they underwent various shifts and changes during different periods of his thought. In his early writings, his ethics are based on a concept ...
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This book traces the development of Karl Marx's ethics as they underwent various shifts and changes during different periods of his thought. In his early writings, his ethics are based on a concept of essence much like Aristotle's, which Marx tries to link to a principle of universalisation similar to Immanuel Kant's ‘categorical imperative’. In the period 1845–6 Marx abandoned this view, holding morality to be incompatible with his historical materialism. In the later writings Marx is less of a determinist, and he no longer wants to reject morality. However, he does want to transcend a morality of burdensome obligation and constraint so as to realise a community built upon spontaneous bonds of solidarity.Less
This book traces the development of Karl Marx's ethics as they underwent various shifts and changes during different periods of his thought. In his early writings, his ethics are based on a concept of essence much like Aristotle's, which Marx tries to link to a principle of universalisation similar to Immanuel Kant's ‘categorical imperative’. In the period 1845–6 Marx abandoned this view, holding morality to be incompatible with his historical materialism. In the later writings Marx is less of a determinist, and he no longer wants to reject morality. However, he does want to transcend a morality of burdensome obligation and constraint so as to realise a community built upon spontaneous bonds of solidarity.
Erica Benner
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198279594
- eISBN:
- 9780191598791
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198279590.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
It is often assumed that Marx and Engels’ ‘materialist’ theory of history cannot explain why national ideologies and identities have had exceptional mobilizing power. In fact, the theory left plenty ...
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It is often assumed that Marx and Engels’ ‘materialist’ theory of history cannot explain why national ideologies and identities have had exceptional mobilizing power. In fact, the theory left plenty of room for nuanced analyses of nationalist doctrines, and for an understanding of their ambivalent impact on movements for social and international reform. The authors’ approach to national doctrines was profoundly shaped by their early attempts to counter the influence of idealistic nationalism in Germany, in both its statist and ethnocentric variants.Less
It is often assumed that Marx and Engels’ ‘materialist’ theory of history cannot explain why national ideologies and identities have had exceptional mobilizing power. In fact, the theory left plenty of room for nuanced analyses of nationalist doctrines, and for an understanding of their ambivalent impact on movements for social and international reform. The authors’ approach to national doctrines was profoundly shaped by their early attempts to counter the influence of idealistic nationalism in Germany, in both its statist and ethnocentric variants.
Donald L. Donham
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520213371
- eISBN:
- 9780520920798
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520213371.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Comparative and Historical Sociology
How is one to understand Marxism? At the outset, it should be emphasized that any answer has to be constructed not only from Karl Marx's works, but from those of his critics. The notion of structure ...
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How is one to understand Marxism? At the outset, it should be emphasized that any answer has to be constructed not only from Karl Marx's works, but from those of his critics. The notion of structure is an indispensable aspect of Marx's social theory. The level of productive powers “determines” the Produktionsverhältnisse, so-called relations of production. Produktionsverhältnisse are “productive inequalities,” which are relationships among groups that place some in materially superordinate positions in relation to others. We are forced to the conclusion that Marx's own reproduction schemata for capitalism include what he called the Überbau or superstructure, and more generally it is precisely the superstructure which allows for and that explains the reproduction of productive inequalities. Building on G. A. Cohen's work, this chapter presents proper interpretations of the key terms of historical materialism, Marx's concepts of “forces of production,” “relations of production,” and “determination.” It also describes the work of Claude Meillassoux. Cohen's distinction between rights and powers remains fundamental for historical materialism.Less
How is one to understand Marxism? At the outset, it should be emphasized that any answer has to be constructed not only from Karl Marx's works, but from those of his critics. The notion of structure is an indispensable aspect of Marx's social theory. The level of productive powers “determines” the Produktionsverhältnisse, so-called relations of production. Produktionsverhältnisse are “productive inequalities,” which are relationships among groups that place some in materially superordinate positions in relation to others. We are forced to the conclusion that Marx's own reproduction schemata for capitalism include what he called the Überbau or superstructure, and more generally it is precisely the superstructure which allows for and that explains the reproduction of productive inequalities. Building on G. A. Cohen's work, this chapter presents proper interpretations of the key terms of historical materialism, Marx's concepts of “forces of production,” “relations of production,” and “determination.” It also describes the work of Claude Meillassoux. Cohen's distinction between rights and powers remains fundamental for historical materialism.
Hugh Collins
- Published in print:
- 1984
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780192851444
- eISBN:
- 9780191670534
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780192851444.003.0002
- Subject:
- Law, Philosophy of Law
This chapter outlines the elements of historical materialism pertinent to law which have been common to various strands of the Marxist tradition. It argues that for historical materialism to be ...
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This chapter outlines the elements of historical materialism pertinent to law which have been common to various strands of the Marxist tradition. It argues that for historical materialism to be theoretically coherent, it requires a convincing description of the process by which the goals and aspirations of individuals and groups are materially determined. Crude materialism, class instrumentalism, and objections to class instrumentalism are also discussed.Less
This chapter outlines the elements of historical materialism pertinent to law which have been common to various strands of the Marxist tradition. It argues that for historical materialism to be theoretically coherent, it requires a convincing description of the process by which the goals and aspirations of individuals and groups are materially determined. Crude materialism, class instrumentalism, and objections to class instrumentalism are also discussed.
Hanna Meißner
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781479833498
- eISBN:
- 9781479842308
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479833498.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
This chapter explores possibilities of productively confronting new materialism’s critique of the anthropocentric notion of agency as a human privilege with historical materialism’s social ontology ...
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This chapter explores possibilities of productively confronting new materialism’s critique of the anthropocentric notion of agency as a human privilege with historical materialism’s social ontology committed to emancipatory human subjectivity. Borrowing from the work of Karen Barad, I propose a diffractive reading that allows an engagement with these two ‘perspectives’ in terms of different (theoretical) apparatuses visualizing different, even oppositional, realities: New materialism focuses on the processes of becoming and the potentiality of their openness, historical materialism takes into account specific, socially constituted, limits that configure the possibilities of becoming. Rather than concluding that a confrontation of these oppositional perspectives calls for resolution, I argue that it is more promising to be attentive to what Etienne Balibar calls their points of heresy. The focus is thus on the specific tensions of their common discursive space, which operates with fundamental binaries (such as meaning/matter, form/content). Both perspectives share the assumption that it is impossible to regard the two terms as separate entities. Both, however, resolve the tension by focusing on one of the two terms. Historical materialism is committed to visualizing the conditioned possibilities of human agency to transform the material world. New materialism is committed to visualizing materiality that cannot be attributed to this formative power. Read with attention to these heretical tensions, both perspectives have valuable insights to offer for emancipatory projects as historically situated endeavors committed to finding and fashioning new, less violent, ways of relating to ourselves and to others.Less
This chapter explores possibilities of productively confronting new materialism’s critique of the anthropocentric notion of agency as a human privilege with historical materialism’s social ontology committed to emancipatory human subjectivity. Borrowing from the work of Karen Barad, I propose a diffractive reading that allows an engagement with these two ‘perspectives’ in terms of different (theoretical) apparatuses visualizing different, even oppositional, realities: New materialism focuses on the processes of becoming and the potentiality of their openness, historical materialism takes into account specific, socially constituted, limits that configure the possibilities of becoming. Rather than concluding that a confrontation of these oppositional perspectives calls for resolution, I argue that it is more promising to be attentive to what Etienne Balibar calls their points of heresy. The focus is thus on the specific tensions of their common discursive space, which operates with fundamental binaries (such as meaning/matter, form/content). Both perspectives share the assumption that it is impossible to regard the two terms as separate entities. Both, however, resolve the tension by focusing on one of the two terms. Historical materialism is committed to visualizing the conditioned possibilities of human agency to transform the material world. New materialism is committed to visualizing materiality that cannot be attributed to this formative power. Read with attention to these heretical tensions, both perspectives have valuable insights to offer for emancipatory projects as historically situated endeavors committed to finding and fashioning new, less violent, ways of relating to ourselves and to others.
G. A. Cohen
Jonathan Wolff (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691149004
- eISBN:
- 9781400848713
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691149004.003.0011
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This chapter reviews Karl Marx, by Allen W. Wood. The book is divided into five parts: Alienation, Historical Materialism, Marxism and Morality, Philosophical Materialism, and The Dialectical Method. ...
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This chapter reviews Karl Marx, by Allen W. Wood. The book is divided into five parts: Alienation, Historical Materialism, Marxism and Morality, Philosophical Materialism, and The Dialectical Method. Wood begins by providing an account of the idea of self-realization: various failures to achieve self-realization generate correspondingly various alienations. He then joins those who seek to reinstate a toughly materialist reading of Marx's theory of history before addressing the relationship between two branches of Marxism, namely: its philosophical anthropology (or conception of human nature) and its theory of history. Wood also defends the thesis that Marx did not think capitalism was an unjust society.Less
This chapter reviews Karl Marx, by Allen W. Wood. The book is divided into five parts: Alienation, Historical Materialism, Marxism and Morality, Philosophical Materialism, and The Dialectical Method. Wood begins by providing an account of the idea of self-realization: various failures to achieve self-realization generate correspondingly various alienations. He then joins those who seek to reinstate a toughly materialist reading of Marx's theory of history before addressing the relationship between two branches of Marxism, namely: its philosophical anthropology (or conception of human nature) and its theory of history. Wood also defends the thesis that Marx did not think capitalism was an unjust society.
Erica Benner
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780198279594
- eISBN:
- 9780191598791
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0198279590.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Political Theory
The roots of Marx's thinking on national issues can be traced back to his pre‐communist critique of Hegel. Marx's early, radical republican concept of nationality was modified but not abandoned in ...
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The roots of Marx's thinking on national issues can be traced back to his pre‐communist critique of Hegel. Marx's early, radical republican concept of nationality was modified but not abandoned in his and Engels’ first accounts of their ‘materialist’ theory of history. The role of this concept in the action‐guiding theory sketched in the Communist Manifesto is essential for an understanding of Marx and Engels’ internationalist policies.Less
The roots of Marx's thinking on national issues can be traced back to his pre‐communist critique of Hegel. Marx's early, radical republican concept of nationality was modified but not abandoned in his and Engels’ first accounts of their ‘materialist’ theory of history. The role of this concept in the action‐guiding theory sketched in the Communist Manifesto is essential for an understanding of Marx and Engels’ internationalist policies.
Amanda Jo Goldstein
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226458441
- eISBN:
- 9780226458588
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226458588.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
Each of the book’s chapters differently argues for a Romantic poetic conjunction, through the problem of natural “life,” between materialisms of nature associated with Enlightenment science and the ...
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Each of the book’s chapters differently argues for a Romantic poetic conjunction, through the problem of natural “life,” between materialisms of nature associated with Enlightenment science and the coming nineteenth-century science of historical materialism. The Coda resituates Marx in this Romantic tradition, uncovering (with help from Althusser and Deleuze) the ecological and poetic intelligence of the “sensuous science” he elaborated in his dissertation on Epicurus and Lucretius. While the newness in most “new materialist” ontologies is meant to break with both the Marxian materiality of history and the deconstructive materiality of the letter, the Coda argues that Marx was operating in a mode of counterdisciplinary materialism that deployed figural matter as a substance fit to articulate terrestrial rhetoric, history, and biology together. Attaining to such materialist semiotics might help historical materialist criticism rise to the now ecologically pressing task of writing for social justice in the idiom of natural history.Less
Each of the book’s chapters differently argues for a Romantic poetic conjunction, through the problem of natural “life,” between materialisms of nature associated with Enlightenment science and the coming nineteenth-century science of historical materialism. The Coda resituates Marx in this Romantic tradition, uncovering (with help from Althusser and Deleuze) the ecological and poetic intelligence of the “sensuous science” he elaborated in his dissertation on Epicurus and Lucretius. While the newness in most “new materialist” ontologies is meant to break with both the Marxian materiality of history and the deconstructive materiality of the letter, the Coda argues that Marx was operating in a mode of counterdisciplinary materialism that deployed figural matter as a substance fit to articulate terrestrial rhetoric, history, and biology together. Attaining to such materialist semiotics might help historical materialist criticism rise to the now ecologically pressing task of writing for social justice in the idiom of natural history.
Amanda Jo Goldstein
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780226458441
- eISBN:
- 9780226458588
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226458588.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 18th-century Literature
This chapter and the next focus on the writings of Percy Shelley in order to examine social history as an ontogenetic and biopoetic force. Reading, anew, a poem that has been the touchstone of ...
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This chapter and the next focus on the writings of Percy Shelley in order to examine social history as an ontogenetic and biopoetic force. Reading, anew, a poem that has been the touchstone of critical arguments about the relation between life, matter, language, and history in Romantic poetics, this chapter argues that Shelley’s The Triumph of Life mobilizes Lucretian materialist poetics to articulate the way personal bodies produce and integrate passages of historical time. Against the influential de Manian view that the poem’s “disfigured” faces allegorize the linguistic violence inherent in figuration as a function of reparative reading, the chapter focuses on the neglected final “Vision” in the poem that ceases to construe prosopopoeia as a principally verbal or cognitive process at all. Instead, Shelley adapts De rerum natura to cast personal senescence as the unintended work of multitudes, depicting wrinkling faces as mutable registers of the “living air” of a post-Napoleonic interval. Here The Triumph presses toward a biology and epistemology of senescence that, like Walter Benjamin’s “weak messianism,” refutes the triumphalist narrative vitalist life science shared with post-Waterloo historiography.Less
This chapter and the next focus on the writings of Percy Shelley in order to examine social history as an ontogenetic and biopoetic force. Reading, anew, a poem that has been the touchstone of critical arguments about the relation between life, matter, language, and history in Romantic poetics, this chapter argues that Shelley’s The Triumph of Life mobilizes Lucretian materialist poetics to articulate the way personal bodies produce and integrate passages of historical time. Against the influential de Manian view that the poem’s “disfigured” faces allegorize the linguistic violence inherent in figuration as a function of reparative reading, the chapter focuses on the neglected final “Vision” in the poem that ceases to construe prosopopoeia as a principally verbal or cognitive process at all. Instead, Shelley adapts De rerum natura to cast personal senescence as the unintended work of multitudes, depicting wrinkling faces as mutable registers of the “living air” of a post-Napoleonic interval. Here The Triumph presses toward a biology and epistemology of senescence that, like Walter Benjamin’s “weak messianism,” refutes the triumphalist narrative vitalist life science shared with post-Waterloo historiography.
Donald L. Donham
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520213371
- eISBN:
- 9780520920798
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520213371.003.0006
- Subject:
- Sociology, Comparative and Historical Sociology
Some time ago, Edmund Leach, following Ludwig Wittgenstein, wrote, “Logically, aesthetics and ethics are identical. If we are to understand the ethical rules of a society, it is aesthetics that we ...
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Some time ago, Edmund Leach, following Ludwig Wittgenstein, wrote, “Logically, aesthetics and ethics are identical. If we are to understand the ethical rules of a society, it is aesthetics that we must study.” Using that intuition with respect to social theory itself, this chapter considers the contrasting moral visions of neoclassicism and Marxism via the rhetorical structures described earlier. If the plot of Chapters 2 and 3 were all there was to historical materialism, the story contained therein would not be recognizably Marxist—perhaps Nietzschean or Weberian, but not Marxist. The chapter does not claim that Marxism is “only” a trope, nor that it is the cultural construction of labor power or of Maale descent “only” superstructural. Rather, it argues that romantic irony goes some distance toward defining an essential aspect of Marxism, namely, its commitment to a certain set of assumptions about human nature: succinctly put, that power is deeply ambivalent. A prominent theme of the previous chapters has been the relationship between de facto power and culturally encoded ideology—between base and superstructure.Less
Some time ago, Edmund Leach, following Ludwig Wittgenstein, wrote, “Logically, aesthetics and ethics are identical. If we are to understand the ethical rules of a society, it is aesthetics that we must study.” Using that intuition with respect to social theory itself, this chapter considers the contrasting moral visions of neoclassicism and Marxism via the rhetorical structures described earlier. If the plot of Chapters 2 and 3 were all there was to historical materialism, the story contained therein would not be recognizably Marxist—perhaps Nietzschean or Weberian, but not Marxist. The chapter does not claim that Marxism is “only” a trope, nor that it is the cultural construction of labor power or of Maale descent “only” superstructural. Rather, it argues that romantic irony goes some distance toward defining an essential aspect of Marxism, namely, its commitment to a certain set of assumptions about human nature: succinctly put, that power is deeply ambivalent. A prominent theme of the previous chapters has been the relationship between de facto power and culturally encoded ideology—between base and superstructure.
Sonali Perera
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780231151948
- eISBN:
- 9780231525442
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231151948.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter presents a comparison of feminist proletarian texts from North America, India, and Sri Lanka to illustrate the figure of a collective subject and the critique of individualism shared by ...
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This chapter presents a comparison of feminist proletarian texts from North America, India, and Sri Lanka to illustrate the figure of a collective subject and the critique of individualism shared by different changing traditions of feminist texts of labor. It examines the ethics and aesthetics of feminist “interruption” by bringing together Tillie Olsen's Yonnondio, Mahasweta Devi's “Pterodactyl” and “The Fairy Tale of Mohanpur,” and the creative writings, and political statements of Dabindu—an NGO group of Sri Lankan free-trade-zone garment factory workers and feminist activists. Surveyed together, these texts revive the dynamism of an autocritical ethics of historical materialism. The feminist critique proposed here is established on the fact that Marx's texts on class remain incomplete, and that it is a mistake to presume materialized theories of capital and class relations based on a specific historical instance as determining historical topography.Less
This chapter presents a comparison of feminist proletarian texts from North America, India, and Sri Lanka to illustrate the figure of a collective subject and the critique of individualism shared by different changing traditions of feminist texts of labor. It examines the ethics and aesthetics of feminist “interruption” by bringing together Tillie Olsen's Yonnondio, Mahasweta Devi's “Pterodactyl” and “The Fairy Tale of Mohanpur,” and the creative writings, and political statements of Dabindu—an NGO group of Sri Lankan free-trade-zone garment factory workers and feminist activists. Surveyed together, these texts revive the dynamism of an autocritical ethics of historical materialism. The feminist critique proposed here is established on the fact that Marx's texts on class remain incomplete, and that it is a mistake to presume materialized theories of capital and class relations based on a specific historical instance as determining historical topography.
Sigrid Vertommen
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781479833498
- eISBN:
- 9781479842308
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479833498.003.0013
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gender and Sexuality
This chapter aims to transcend the uncomfortable silence that exists between two strands of feminist materialism, i.e. historical materialism and new feminist materialism by offering a ...
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This chapter aims to transcend the uncomfortable silence that exists between two strands of feminist materialism, i.e. historical materialism and new feminist materialism by offering a cross-materialist feminist analysis of the ways in which female bodily productivity is being mobilized in twenty-first-century bio-economies, Through a diffractive reading of historical materialist and new materialist feminist contributions I elucidate on the (dis)continuities between both perspectives on the use of women’s reproductive tissues in stem cell economies. By focusing on various themes such as reproductive labor, the nature-culture divide, and the position of biology and critique within feminist studies, I argue that old and new materialist feminist perspectives can cross-fertilize each other productively, if certain challenges are adequately addressed.Less
This chapter aims to transcend the uncomfortable silence that exists between two strands of feminist materialism, i.e. historical materialism and new feminist materialism by offering a cross-materialist feminist analysis of the ways in which female bodily productivity is being mobilized in twenty-first-century bio-economies, Through a diffractive reading of historical materialist and new materialist feminist contributions I elucidate on the (dis)continuities between both perspectives on the use of women’s reproductive tissues in stem cell economies. By focusing on various themes such as reproductive labor, the nature-culture divide, and the position of biology and critique within feminist studies, I argue that old and new materialist feminist perspectives can cross-fertilize each other productively, if certain challenges are adequately addressed.
Kelly E. Happe
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781479845194
- eISBN:
- 9781479846306
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479845194.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Health, Illness, and Medicine
Epigenetics, it is claimed, has opened the door to considering the ways that human bodies undergo environmentally-induced change and more radical still, how those changes can be inherited. ...
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Epigenetics, it is claimed, has opened the door to considering the ways that human bodies undergo environmentally-induced change and more radical still, how those changes can be inherited. Researchers are especially interested in whether epigenetics can explain how physical and social environments influence health outcomes, including those understood to be racially based. The turn to epigenetics as a more compelling, actionable type of evidence of racism over and against what is produced by other health sciences rests on a number of assumptions about the body—including its temporality and embodied becoming—thereby necessitating an elaboration of what we mean by the “bio” of biocitizenship. This chapter argues that epigenetics’ method for constituting evidence and translating it into action enacts a biologistic and deterministic racialism, one animated by a materialism more likely to sabotage than enable biocitizenship and its claims for redress.Less
Epigenetics, it is claimed, has opened the door to considering the ways that human bodies undergo environmentally-induced change and more radical still, how those changes can be inherited. Researchers are especially interested in whether epigenetics can explain how physical and social environments influence health outcomes, including those understood to be racially based. The turn to epigenetics as a more compelling, actionable type of evidence of racism over and against what is produced by other health sciences rests on a number of assumptions about the body—including its temporality and embodied becoming—thereby necessitating an elaboration of what we mean by the “bio” of biocitizenship. This chapter argues that epigenetics’ method for constituting evidence and translating it into action enacts a biologistic and deterministic racialism, one animated by a materialism more likely to sabotage than enable biocitizenship and its claims for redress.
Robert Daniels
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300106497
- eISBN:
- 9780300134933
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300106497.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Marxism emerged in the nineteenth century as an optimistically evolutionary system of social thought that offered a scientific analysis and explanation of history. Karl Marx's system of thought has ...
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Marxism emerged in the nineteenth century as an optimistically evolutionary system of social thought that offered a scientific analysis and explanation of history. Karl Marx's system of thought has been subject to a wide range of interpretations and emphases, and surprisingly had its own historical development. This chapter explores the historical evolution of Marxism, from Marx's graduation from the University of Berlin in 1841 and his publication of The Poverty of Philosophy in 1847, to his activity in the revolutionary movement preceding and during the upheaval of 1848, his study of the economic development of capitalism, and his renewed interest in active politics within the context of the International Workingmen's Association. It also discusses the doctrine of “historical materialism” as the core of Marx's theory of history, along with his doctrine of classes and the class struggle. Finally, it examines Marx's theory that the natural outcome of capitalism was the proletarian revolution and the creation of the classless society of Communism.Less
Marxism emerged in the nineteenth century as an optimistically evolutionary system of social thought that offered a scientific analysis and explanation of history. Karl Marx's system of thought has been subject to a wide range of interpretations and emphases, and surprisingly had its own historical development. This chapter explores the historical evolution of Marxism, from Marx's graduation from the University of Berlin in 1841 and his publication of The Poverty of Philosophy in 1847, to his activity in the revolutionary movement preceding and during the upheaval of 1848, his study of the economic development of capitalism, and his renewed interest in active politics within the context of the International Workingmen's Association. It also discusses the doctrine of “historical materialism” as the core of Marx's theory of history, along with his doctrine of classes and the class struggle. Finally, it examines Marx's theory that the natural outcome of capitalism was the proletarian revolution and the creation of the classless society of Communism.
Robert Daniels
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300106497
- eISBN:
- 9780300134933
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300106497.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter examines the extent to which the philosophy of Marxism was embodied by Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik movement, and the Soviet regime, or the degree to which they were instead products of ...
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This chapter examines the extent to which the philosophy of Marxism was embodied by Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik movement, and the Soviet regime, or the degree to which they were instead products of Russian history. It can be argued that Lenin abandoned his Marxian heritage in favor of the ideas championed by the revolutionaries of Russia who came before him. Despite the Bolsheviks' Marxist language, the Russian Revolution was shaped by Russian beliefs, the result of which was intrinsically Russian—namely, that it was Lenin's revolution rather than Karl Marx's. The chapter also discusses the proletariat, Bolshevism, and historical materialism in the eyes of Lenin.Less
This chapter examines the extent to which the philosophy of Marxism was embodied by Vladimir Lenin, the Bolshevik movement, and the Soviet regime, or the degree to which they were instead products of Russian history. It can be argued that Lenin abandoned his Marxian heritage in favor of the ideas championed by the revolutionaries of Russia who came before him. Despite the Bolsheviks' Marxist language, the Russian Revolution was shaped by Russian beliefs, the result of which was intrinsically Russian—namely, that it was Lenin's revolution rather than Karl Marx's. The chapter also discusses the proletariat, Bolshevism, and historical materialism in the eyes of Lenin.
Marc W. Steinberg
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226329819
- eISBN:
- 9780226330013
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226330013.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
The broad goal of this book is to combine historical materialism and historical institutionalism through a gendered lens. Both concern how durable social structures construct and maintain asymmetries ...
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The broad goal of this book is to combine historical materialism and historical institutionalism through a gendered lens. Both concern how durable social structures construct and maintain asymmetries of power. The study pursues a concerted institutional analysis of class power and the labor process and ways that legal practices beyond the workplace impact struggles over its control. The labor contract was integral to labor control in historical capitalist development, and how labor control was accomplished through juridical authority. To do so it goes beyond current neo-marxist perspectives on labor control. The substantive analysis centers on master and servant laws in mid-Victorian England, with local and national studies. Under the law disobeying a master in a contract of service was a criminal offense. The book presents local case studies of how employers in the pottery (Hanley), fish trawling (Hull), needlemaking and agricultural (Redditch) sectors institutionalized reliance on these laws for labor control for 1864-75. They highlight how configurations of the production process, the social relations in them, the shape of labor markets, and the local organization of political and juridical power determined this path. The national analysis involves a critique and reinterpretation of Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation and his thesis of the ‘double movement’. It argues that labor remained legally embedded in society throughout most of the nineteenth century, and its relative disembedding was at the hands of labor unions, against the interests of many employers in retaining these laws. The book concludes with contemporary reflections on its broad thesis.Less
The broad goal of this book is to combine historical materialism and historical institutionalism through a gendered lens. Both concern how durable social structures construct and maintain asymmetries of power. The study pursues a concerted institutional analysis of class power and the labor process and ways that legal practices beyond the workplace impact struggles over its control. The labor contract was integral to labor control in historical capitalist development, and how labor control was accomplished through juridical authority. To do so it goes beyond current neo-marxist perspectives on labor control. The substantive analysis centers on master and servant laws in mid-Victorian England, with local and national studies. Under the law disobeying a master in a contract of service was a criminal offense. The book presents local case studies of how employers in the pottery (Hanley), fish trawling (Hull), needlemaking and agricultural (Redditch) sectors institutionalized reliance on these laws for labor control for 1864-75. They highlight how configurations of the production process, the social relations in them, the shape of labor markets, and the local organization of political and juridical power determined this path. The national analysis involves a critique and reinterpretation of Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation and his thesis of the ‘double movement’. It argues that labor remained legally embedded in society throughout most of the nineteenth century, and its relative disembedding was at the hands of labor unions, against the interests of many employers in retaining these laws. The book concludes with contemporary reflections on its broad thesis.
Michael G. Levine
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- May 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780823255108
- eISBN:
- 9780823260850
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823255108.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
In his famous theses on the philosophy of history Benjamin writes: “We have been endowed with a weak messianic power to which the past has a claim.” This claim addresses us not just from the past but ...
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In his famous theses on the philosophy of history Benjamin writes: “We have been endowed with a weak messianic power to which the past has a claim.” This claim addresses us not just from the past but from what will have belonged to it only as a missed possibility and unrealized potential. For Benajmin, as for Celan and Derrida, what has never been actualized remains with us, not as a lingering echo but as a secretly insistent appeal. Because such appeals do not pass through normal channels of communication, they require a special attunement, perhaps even a mode of unconscious receptivity. Levine examines the ways in which this attunement is cultivated in Benjamin’s philosophical, autobiographical, and photohistorical writings, Celan’s poetry and poetological addresses, and Derrida’s writings on Celan. Attunement to the unrealized is linked to a particular notion of messianic coming which Benjamin, Celan and Derrida all associate less with a positive moment in time than with a slight opening in it. All three ask what role language--or rather a certain loss of linguistic control--can play in letting time open in this way.Less
In his famous theses on the philosophy of history Benjamin writes: “We have been endowed with a weak messianic power to which the past has a claim.” This claim addresses us not just from the past but from what will have belonged to it only as a missed possibility and unrealized potential. For Benajmin, as for Celan and Derrida, what has never been actualized remains with us, not as a lingering echo but as a secretly insistent appeal. Because such appeals do not pass through normal channels of communication, they require a special attunement, perhaps even a mode of unconscious receptivity. Levine examines the ways in which this attunement is cultivated in Benjamin’s philosophical, autobiographical, and photohistorical writings, Celan’s poetry and poetological addresses, and Derrida’s writings on Celan. Attunement to the unrealized is linked to a particular notion of messianic coming which Benjamin, Celan and Derrida all associate less with a positive moment in time than with a slight opening in it. All three ask what role language--or rather a certain loss of linguistic control--can play in letting time open in this way.
