A Return To Marx And Then Beyond

"Capitalism - Marx and Beyond" examines the current bourgeoisie capitalism. Capitalism is addressed as a unique concrete historically reality. This mode of production inherits traditional pre modern social forms that are cultivated as national identities. National sentiments are expressed as honor of possessions that are identified through diverse "we" and preserved as "our values". Capitalism transforms and modifies such pre modern heritages into an undistinguishable mix of both modern and pre modern social forms. Focus in this book will be on the unique material features of capitalism.Attention will be provided to the works of Karl Marx, particularly the second volume of Capital, where Marx apparently got stuck. His deadlock indicates a serious deficit associated with investigations of accumulation and innovation. Innovation and accumulation will, in this book, be linked to uncertainty and reoccurring crises that signify the incapacities of the capitalist system to operate as a viable mode of production.In the theory of value, Marx places human social labor in a unique historical position, where social labor is applied together with previously produced means in order to deliver new output. Anarchism and the insufficiency to provide necessary and appropriate output causes disturbances and crises.Several critical examinations of selected views on crises, uncertainties and dysfunctions of capitalism are offered. Selected strategies based on monetary solutions and financial instruments aim to regenerate balance. Rather than gaining a balance, reoccurring disruptive circumstances are assumed to be the normal state of affairs. Michael J. Piore and Charles F. Sabel and The Second Industrial Divide: Possibilities for Prosperity from 1984 draws attention to a strategy based on a system of flexible specialization accompanying the introduction of Information and Communication Technology. Their second historical divide associated with the new production strategy is critically examined.Thomas Piketty and his Capital in the Twenty-First Century from 2014 emphasizes capital, wealth distribution and inequality. A critical account of the concept of capital is a paramount assignment in the critical investigations into his contribution.Marx is offered another chance through the critical investigations of some basic concepts introduced by David Harvey in A Companion to Marx's Capital, Volume 2 from 2013. Harvey's emphasis on the role of credit and finance are critically investigated and justifies an alternative return to Marx.A renewed interpretation of Marx corresponds with his assumption that a balanced and stable economy is an illusion. Capitalism has to accumulate and create the necessary flexibility in order to reproduce. On the other hand, this system of accumulation is anarchic, arbitrary and contradictory.Identification of sources for flexibility and accumulation becomes a deadlock for Marx. Innovation is insufficiently accounted for in his analysis. A serious deficit with his whole position emerges that paves the way for an alternative beyond Marx.The alternative beyond Marx draws attention to a wider context of the critical investigations. Some philosophical implications concerning the concepts of freedom, independence, determinism and randomness are touched upon. Implications for the much-debated concepts of basis and superstructure are addressed. The consequences for the future possibility for the human species to cope with crises and other aspects of our destiny are sketched.

Winner of The Deutscher Memorial Prize 2004. In a completely reworked edition of his classic (1991) volume, Michael A. Lebowitz explores the implications of the book on wage-labour that Marx originally intended to write. Focusing upon critical assumptions in Capital that were to be removed in Wage-Labour and upon Marx's methodology, Lebowitz stresses the one-sidedness of Marx's Capital and argues that the side of the workers, their goals and their struggles in capitalism have been ignored by a monolithic Marxism characterized by determinism, reductionism and a silence on human experience.

In Marx After Marx, Harry Harootunian questions the claims of Western Marxism and its presumption of the final completion of capitalism. If this shift in Marxism reflected the recognition that the expected revolutions were not forthcoming in the years before World War II, its Cold War afterlife helped to both unify the West in its struggle with the Soviet Union and bolster the belief that capitalism remained dominant in the contest over progress. This book deprovincializes Marx and the West's cultural turn by returning to the theorist's earlier explanations of capital's origins and development, which followed a trajectory beyond Euro-America to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Marx's expansive view shows how local circumstances, time, and culture intervened to reshape capital's system of production in these regions. His outline of a diversified global capitalism was much more robust than was his sketch of the English experience in Capital and helps explain the disparate routes that evolved during the twentieth century. Engaging with the texts of Lenin, Luxemburg, Gramsci, and other pivotal theorists, Harootunian strips contemporary Marxism of its cultural preoccupation by reasserting the deep relevance of history.

This book offers a unique re-conceptualization of Marxism in bringing together leading scholars across disciplines — history, philosophy, economics, politics, sociology, and literary and culture studies — into one comprehensive corpus. It demonstrates the engaging relevance of the perspectives and techniques of the analyses adopted by Karl Marx, Frederich Engels and contemporary Marxists, and will be immensely useful to scholars and researchers across social sciences as well as general readers interested in Marxism.

Prodigiously influential, Jacques Derrida gave rise to a comprehensive rethinking of the basic concepts and categories of Western philosophy in the latter part of the twentieth century, with writings central to our understanding of language, meaning, identity, ethics and values. In 1993, a conference was organized around the question, 'Whither Marxism?’, and Derrida was invited to open the proceedings. His plenary address, 'Specters of Marx', delivered in two parts, forms the basis of this book. Hotly debated when it was first published, a rapidly changing world and world politics have scarcely dented the relevance of this book.

Citing a lifelong engagement with Marxism, critic and writer Marshall Berman reveals the movement's positive points and suggests a new beginning for Marxism may be on the horizon with its recent 150th anniversary attention.

These essays critically rethink Marxism in the light of the disintegration of communist regimes Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. Containing essays from a group of internationally distinguished writers and intellectuals, this collection addresses Marxism as a cultural-political problematic. Contending that Marxism is deeply embedded in specific cultural practices, the contributors illuminate Marxism's contribution to discussions of labour in post-industrial capitalism, to controversies surrounding compulsory heterosexuality and queer theory, and to debates about the institutionalization and academicization of the "New" Left. In examining Marxism's relationship to cultural practices, the contributors make a case for Marxism's continued relevance. By combining a diversity of perspectives, these essays demonstrate that Marxism addresses urgent needs that are often forsaken by other political and ideological practices. They show how - now more than ever - Marxism's reaffirmation can serve as a sophisticated and cunning response to the latest global developments - and travesties.

Looks at the life of the father of Communism focusing primarily on the human side of the man rather than his works.