Search Results

The Workers and the Word: Why Marx Had the Right to Think He Was Right

G. A. Cohen

Jonathan Wolff (ed.)

in Lectures on the History of Moral and Political Philosophy

This chapter defends Karl Marx against the criticism that he lacks the right to regard his theory as true, insisting that he had the right to think that he was right. To this end, it advances four ... More

This chapter defends Karl Marx against the criticism that he lacks the right to regard his theory as true, insisting that he had the right to think that he was right. To this end, it advances four arguments intended to show that if Marx's theory serves and represents the working class, then it is reasonable to think that it is correct. The first argument relates to Marx's thinking that every class which makes a revolution does so in order to advance its own material interests; the second deals with the suffering of the proletariat in capitalist society; the third concerns the workers' revolutionary struggle, a socialist revolution; and the fourth argument is based on the premise that when a class is secure in its position it needs no illusions. The chapter also considers Reinhold Niebuhr's views on how the proletariat can effect its revolution.Less

Conclusion

David William Foster

in São Paulo: Perspectives on the City and Cultural Production

As a city fast approaching 20 million inhabitants, there are many different São Paulos, and it is unlikely that anyone today could write a comprehensive analysis of the city and its cultural ... More

As a city fast approaching 20 million inhabitants, there are many different São Paulos, and it is unlikely that anyone today could write a comprehensive analysis of the city and its cultural production. Two threads that can be called something like a social alignment dominate the chapters that make up this book. Against the backdrop of a culture that is the consequence of the impressive growth of a São Paulo intransigently committed to the project of political and economic modernization (major traces of which can be seen in the photography of Claude Lévi-Strauss), this book has chosen to emphasize culture that promotes proletarian interests, without writing necessarily from a populist or Marxian perspective. One major reason for this is quite clear: São Paulo is a laboratory of immigrant culture and, while not all immigrants belonged to the proletariat, the vast majority did, and they populated the factories and workplaces and peopled the streets. The second thread that runs through this book is that of gender.Less

More Than the Hood Was Red: The Joker as Marxist

Richard D. Heldenfels

in The Joker: A Serious Study of the Clown Prince of Crime

Engaging the Joker’s potential for political symbolism, Richard D Heldenfels suggests we read the character as a manifestation of Marxist thinking. Rather than seeing the Clown Prince in traditional ... More

Engaging the Joker’s potential for political symbolism, Richard D Heldenfels suggests we read the character as a manifestation of Marxist thinking. Rather than seeing the Clown Prince in traditional ways – as insane, as an anarchist – Heldenfels suggests that “a crucial distinction between anarchists and Marxists involves the concentration of power,” and that the Joker, in fact, rejects some but not all authority, reserving his own power to guide the masses along his path. Moreover, reading the Joker as Marxist is the necessary and preliminary step toward reading the Caped Crusader – since Batman is framed as the Joker’s antithesis – as fundamentally capitalist.Less

Nation and Revolution: Marx and Engels, 1845–1848

Roman Szporluk

in Communism and Nationalism: Karl Marx versus Friedrich List

The chapter focuses on the work of Marx and Engels from the years 1845 to 1848. It also raised other issues such as the role of the state in developing societies and the relation between the ... More

The chapter focuses on the work of Marx and Engels from the years 1845 to 1848. It also raised other issues such as the role of the state in developing societies and the relation between the political sphere with that of the economy and culture. Marx and Engels continued to work on questions of nationality and its role in history and politics. Marx and Engels both thought that the German bourgeoisie fought for their own interest while exploiting the proletariat. The struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat was most intense in England so that Marx thought that a “European war” would be a world war. The liberation of nations depended on the development of the proletarian against capitalism. Marx realized that social, political, national, and international issues and conflicts were all related to each other.Less

Central Places and Regional Cultural Organization

Claudio Lomnitz-Adler

in Exits from the Labyrinth: Culture and Ideology in the Mexican National Space

This chapter describes the regional organization of class. It also presents a spatial framework in which to place Morelos' intimate cultures and the “flow of mestizaje” in the region. Localities in ... More

This chapter describes the regional organization of class. It also presents a spatial framework in which to place Morelos' intimate cultures and the “flow of mestizaje” in the region. Localities in Morelos are classified according to three main criteria: position in the marketing hierarchy, position in the core/periphery structure, and position in the political-administrative structure. It then presents a general picture of the regional organization of Morelos' culture, as well as an outline of the transformations that Morelos' regional culture has undergone in the past thirty years. It is shown that the processes of cultural change involve four main classes: the peasantry, the petite bourgeoisie, the rural proletariat, and the urban or modern proletariat. During the period of industrialization, the old jornalero class is revitalized in the form of migrant labor from outside of the state.Less

Reification and Recognition: A New Look at an Old Idea

Axel Honneth

in Reification: A New Look At An Old Idea

During the 1920s and the 1930s, the notion of reification brought about recurring themes that concerned social and cultural critique. This term was used to describe the increasing level of ... More

During the 1920s and the 1930s, the notion of reification brought about recurring themes that concerned social and cultural critique. This term was used to describe the increasing level of unemployment, the economic crisis, and other such historical events that characterized the Weimar Republic. By combining concepts adapted from prominent philosophers such as Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Georg Simmel, George Lukács was able to come up with a three-part dissertation—“Reification and the Consciousness of the Proletariat” which prompted that the forms of life in such circumstances be examined as a consequence of social reification. This chapter illustrates four indicators which demonstrate how the term reification has veered away from the definition it acquired from the Weimar Republic and has moved toward a more theoretical discourse.Less

The Final Emancipation of the Jews Is the Struggle for Socialism (1946)

Ernest Mandel

in Jewish Radicals: A Documentary History

This chapter explains that socialism can aid Jews in the pursuit of a Zionist ideal. It argues that anti-Semitism had originated from a Zionist nationalism espoused by despairing and declassed Jewish ... More

This chapter explains that socialism can aid Jews in the pursuit of a Zionist ideal. It argues that anti-Semitism had originated from a Zionist nationalism espoused by despairing and declassed Jewish petty bourgeois, but the equalization of all Jews in extermination camps had shaped a sense of nationalism. The chapter shows how the Jewish working masses, after passing through a series of disappointing experiences, will recognize that their future is linked with that of the proletariat and the revolutionary movement and that they will again, as in the past, take an important place in this movement, and will owe their final emancipation to a devoted struggle for the cause of socialism.Less

Introduction

Marc Mulholland

in Bourgeois Liberty and the Politics of Fear: From Absolutism to Neo-Conservatism

The problematic of the book is presented: whether wherever the proletariat appeared as an independent force, the bourgeoisie shifted to the camp of the counter-revolution; whether the bolder the ... More

The problematic of the book is presented: whether wherever the proletariat appeared as an independent force, the bourgeoisie shifted to the camp of the counter-revolution; whether the bolder the struggle of the masses, the quicker the reactionary transformation of liberalism. A ‘left-wing’ version and a ‘right-wing’ version are summarised. An original social definition of the ‘bourgeoisie’ is suggested, and the ‘proletariat’ defined. The terms ‘bourgeois civil society’ and ‘proletarian democracy’ are defined. An overview of the book's contents is outlined.Less

4

Jean-Luc Nancy and Jeff Fort

in The Banality of Heidegger

Heidegger’s anti-Semitism is “historial” because it attributes to the Jewish people a task that is both world-historical and philosophically significant, having to do with the uprooting of beings. ... More

Heidegger’s anti-Semitism is “historial” because it attributes to the Jewish people a task that is both world-historical and philosophically significant, having to do with the uprooting of beings. Why, according to Heidegger’s logic, must this be attributed to the Jews, since the process described involves multiple agents? Because the Jews are the racialized people that brings about a “deracialization” of humanity, a levelling and equivalence in indifference. This process can be compared by analogy with Marx’s analysis of money as the general equivalent, and of the proletariat as the agent and figure of revolution. For Heidegger, the new beginning of humanity requires a figure, a type, embodied in a people capable of hastening the end. For every singular beginning requires a people, as does every end.Less

Why Are the People Fighting?

Burnett Bolloten

in The Spanish Civil War: Revolution and Counterrevolution

This chapter notes the increasing dissatisfaction of the proletariat with the Negrín government, citing its actions as counter to the spirit of the Revolution and the social changes that they had ... More

This chapter notes the increasing dissatisfaction of the proletariat with the Negrín government, citing its actions as counter to the spirit of the Revolution and the social changes that they had fought for. The Negrín administration, in keeping with its policy of courting the Western democracies, had attempted to conciliate foreign capital. The government also attempted to decollectivize and nationalize a few Spanish enterprises, return other firms to their original owners, and even militarize the war industry. Although restitutions were few, the resulting propaganda was widespread, as the working class grew increasingly frustrated with a system that seemed to mirror that of the pre-Revolutionary days.Less

Crisis on the Left

Jan Bryant

in Artmaking in the Age of Global Capitalism: Visual Practices, Philosophy, Politics

In the latter decades of the 20th century, accompanied by burgeoning social movements and an unprecedented rise in commodity-desire across the global, the logic driving Marx’s revolutionary subject, ... More

In the latter decades of the 20th century, accompanied by burgeoning social movements and an unprecedented rise in commodity-desire across the global, the logic driving Marx’s revolutionary subject, the proletariat, was widely refuted. It introduced an anti-Marxist period that did not fully end until the Global Financial Crisis of 2007/8. In 2018, Antonio Negri outlined a case for the continuing importance of Marxist analyses in relation to contemporary economic conditions, particularly Marxist materialism (concrete philosophy). The chapter is situated within this timeline. It outlines disputes between Marxist dogmatism (Negri’s term) and those philosophers who were searching for new ways to understand capitalism in hardening economic times, such as Deleuze, Guattari, Foucault and Negri, suggesting that it forced a split in progressive politics that persists today. [125]Less

A Revolutionary Party Emerges

A. James McAdams

in Vanguard of the Revolution: The Global Idea of the Communist Party

This chapter traces the beginnings of a communist party under Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and how that party came to be defined. When Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders spoke of their party in the early ... More

This chapter traces the beginnings of a communist party under Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and how that party came to be defined. When Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders spoke of their party in the early 1900s, they still viewed it primarily in revolutionary terms and only secondarily appreciated the benefits of greater organization. As revolutionaries, they viewed their mission in terms of working together to ensure that the proletariat followed through on its historically appointed task. Thus, there was considerably more room for debate among them about the party's purposes than is commonly assumed. The organizational structures would eventually come. But this would be a slow process, reflecting an abiding tension between the idea of the party's function in the Revolution and the organs that were required for effective governance thereafter.Less

Introduction: From Being to Unrest, from Objectivity to Motion

James Edward Ford III

in Thinking Through Crisis: Depression-Era Black Literature, Theory, and Politics

The introduction offers several vignettes to mark the limits of Marx’s conceptualization of the slave, Agamben’s concept of the decision in states of emergency, and Cathy Caruth and Shoshana Felman’s ... More

The introduction offers several vignettes to mark the limits of Marx’s conceptualization of the slave, Agamben’s concept of the decision in states of emergency, and Cathy Caruth and Shoshana Felman’s unacknowledged connection to “European Man” as the image of thought producing their idea of trauma. Each vignette looks beyond these limits by turning to a different canonical work of Black thought. By staging these encounters between different theoretical traditions, the terms and presuppositions for a different understanding of trauma can commence. This introduction concludes with a call to return to the idea of the proletariat in Marxian and Marxist thought, precisely because it offers a more expansive approach for grappling with class exploitation and political disfranchisement than the concept of the working class, as the following notebooks will demonstrate.Less

The Role of Institutions: Wage-setting and Occupational Change

Daniel Oesch

in Occupational Change in Europe: How Technology and Education Transform the Job Structure

This chapter argues that governments have some latitude in how they accommodate technical change and translate it into the organization of labour. Accordingly, it examines how labour market ... More

This chapter argues that governments have some latitude in how they accommodate technical change and translate it into the organization of labour. Accordingly, it examines how labour market institutions affect the employment structure. It does so first by discussing the effect of wage-setting on low-productivity jobs. It then compares country indicators for wage-setting and examines the link between wage dispersion and growth in personal service jobs. It concludes with an analysis of how two contradictory changes in wage-setting affected job growth in personal services over the last decade: the introduction of the minimum wage in Britain (which increased the wage floor from 1999 onwards) and the firm exits from collective bargaining and the Hartz laws in Germany (which reduced the wage floor in the 2000s).Less

African Bondsmen, Freedmen, and the Maritime Proletariats of the Northwestern Indian Ocean World, c. 1500–1900

Janet J. Ewald

in Indian Ocean Slavery in the Age of Abolition

This chapter explores the use of the word “sidi” or “seedie” and its multiple meanings in the maritime life in the northwest Indian Ocean. It argues that the multiple meanings of the word “sidi” ... More

This chapter explores the use of the word “sidi” or “seedie” and its multiple meanings in the maritime life in the northwest Indian Ocean. It argues that the multiple meanings of the word “sidi” offer a palimpsest that reveals continuities and changes in African bondage over almost four centuries in the region. The history of enslaved mariners and seafarers is explored, showing the existence of a maritime proletariat. The reign of Malik Ambar is discussed as well as the role of Europeans in bringing war captives and other enslaved persons into maritime commerce. With the rise of demand for indentured labor, the abolition of slavery in British territories, commercialization and improvements in technologies, millions were pulled into ocean voyages in the nineteenth century. These events led to the rise of another community of “seedies,” segregated African workers on boats, who also shared a heritage of African enslavement.Less