A COMMUNIST PEDAGOGY OF BECOMING: CENTERING MARX’S ‘GENERAL LAW OF CAPITALIST ACCUMULATION’

Author(s): Curry Malott / Language(s): English / Issue: 06/2016

The following essay seeks to contribute to Marxist educational theory by offering a systematic analysis of Marx’s (1867/1967) ‘General law of capitalist accumulation’ as outlined in Chapter 25 of the first volume of Capital. Underscoring this analysis is the beginning of a systematic examination of the second volume of Capital, which takes the circuit of capital as a whole as its object of examination. This unique focus pushes the Marxist revolutionary pedagogy advanced here, as we will see, toward the controversial concept of the planned economy. The form such a Marxist pedagogy takes is necessarily the Party, a conclusion, which follows the work of Derek Ford (2013; 2015).

A CRITICAL OVERVIEW OF THE DIGITAL KNOWLEDGE COMMONS FROM A MARXIST PERSPECTIVE

Author(s): FAITH AGOSTINONE-WILSON / Language(s): English / Issue: 06/2016

Going beyond a traditional understanding of commons as land and resources, a knowledge commons involves collective, cumulative informal experience, scientific research, the arts, and procedural, practical information, often with economic implications. However, much confusion exists around the terminology of today’s knowledge commons. This article clarifies the differences between open source and free software movements and provides an examination of copyleft and what it means for academics and activists. The author connects these movements to a Marxian vision of a knowledge commons for all.

A marxi kritikai társadalomelmélet

Kialakulása, fejlődése, teljesítményei és érvényessége a globális kapitalizmus korában

Author(s): Péter Szigeti / Language(s): Hungarian / Publication Year: 0

A marxizmus a posztkommunista közép-európai történetírásokban

Author(s): Attila Pók / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 03/2015

Marxist historical writing in the countries of the former Soviet Bloc is frequently described as sheer communist propaganda. Challenging this view the present paper gives a short summary of the position and peculiarities of Marxist historiography in Eastern and Central Europe before and following the collapse of the Soviet Bloc. It argues that East European Marxist historiography (or in retrospect it might be perhaps more appropriate to call it historiography under Marxist philosophical and ideological influence) before 1989–1990 offered substantial contributions to modern historical scholarship. A primary example for that is how these historiographies addressed the issue of East European backwardness. The paper explains that in spite of the uniform ideological doctrines the historiography of the countries of the Soviet Bloc was far from being homogeneous. It defines three major changes that after 1989–1990 could open up new avenues for historians of these countries: the easier access to archives of modern and contemporary history, the disappearance of taboo topics and the completion of the process of the desideologization of scholarship. After taking stock of the few workshops and debates of Marxist historical scholarship in post-communist Eastern and Central Europe the paper concludes that as the Soviet Bloc disappeared from the political map, Marxism, as for now, disappeared from the intellectual map of Eastern and Central Europe. Still, those works in Marxist spirit that were trying to address key issues of the region’s history are indeletable, valuable parts of its historiographical legacy.

A RECONSIDERATION OF FOUCAULT’S “MARXISM” IN RELATION TO THE THOUGHT OF LOUIS ALTHUSSER

Author(s): DEB J. HILL / Language(s): English / Issue: 02/2013

The purpose of this paper is to supplement existing studies that have explored Foucault’s “Marxist” inclinations by means of a focused consideration of the thought of the person who challenged Foucault with an entirely different version of Marxism – his friend and mentor, Louis Althusser. My argument here is that “Marxism” has been treated largely as a singular category within the literature, meaning that an understanding of the points of difference and agreement Foucault had with competing versions of Marxism has been conveniently ignored. As I maintain within this paper, one cannot fully understand the nature of Foucault’s relationship with “the Marxist tradition” – and his comments about various aspects of this tradition – without understanding Althusser’s own “rereading” of what could be regarded as dubious versions of Marxism. As I further contend, Foucault’s recalcitrant attitude towards traditional orthodoxies of scholarship and method owes much to Althusser’s articulation of Marx’s anti-humanist, anti-historical, and anti-Hegelian revolution in thought and practice.

Against Hegel and Marx: In Favor of Danto’s, Benjamin’s, and Löwith’s Critiques of Universal History

Author(s): Rocco ASTORE / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2017

A commonality shared by Hegel and Marx is their belief in the existence of a collective destiny or universal history of humankind. Though compelling, it persists that there are major challenges to interpreting history as such. First, this piece will surmise each authors’ understanding of the common historical theme, and goal,they believe unites all people. Next, this essay will draw from philosophers Walter Benjamin and Danto, to challenge each theorists’ version of universal history.Lastly, this work will draw from Spinoza and Löwith, to further argue that the possibility of a common human history is almost nil, because of the conflicting influences unavoidably tainting the attempts of philosophers such as Hegel and Marx at universalizing history.

AGENCY, STRUCTURE AND VALUES: A CRITICAL HUMANIST INTERVENTION

Author(s): Tibor Rutar / Language(s): English / Issue: 86/2018

The main aim of the article is to suggest what and how a contemporary, revised version of humanism, inflected with critical realism and Marxism, can contribute to sociology. I focus primarily on two areas in which sociology is often found lacking today: theorizing the relationship between structure and agency, and deciding what to do with moral evaluations in sociological analyses. I argue that the solution to both lies in attempting to finally transcend the traditionally hostile and mutually exclusive paradigms of “humanist”or “cultural” Marxism on the one side and “anti-humanist” or “scientific” Marxism on the other. This enables us to carefully reinstate the agency of human subjects and the moral dimension, both of which were and still are dismissed by anti- or post-humanist social science,without neglecting the objective and causally relevant existence of social structures at the same time.

AHMET ARİF’İN “ANADOLU” ŞİİRİNİN MARKSİST ESTETİĞE GÖRE ÇÖZÜMLENMESİ

Author(s): Adem GÜRBÜZ / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 19/2020

Ahmet Arif is one of the most important poets of Diyarbakır. He has given works in a socialist realistic line and has reflected his emotions into his works with an artistic sensation. He mostly concerns with infrastructural, oppressed and exploited peoples and the difficulties of living in the Eastern part of Turkey. He is one of the most important Marxist poets in Turkey. The most important aspect that distinguishes Ahmet Arif from the other Marxists is his focus on village life and mountain life instead of tending to city life. Ahmet Arif, son of a civil servant, describes the people and his sights in his poems, but reflects this reality in a unique and aesthetic way with unusual interlocks, local expressions and melodic lines of the East. This Marxist and aesthetic aspect makes the poet my subject matter.

Aktualność krytyki ekonomii politycznej. Przyczynek do praktycznofilozoficznej dialektyki u Marksa

Author(s): Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 37/2016

Karl Marx is forgotten today as a philosopher, not because he had failed, but because of his critique of political economy, which is not understood based on its practical philosophical core. Critique of political economy is negative theory, which is committed to the task of unveiling the negativity of capitalist normative theory. It is not find justification in itself, but its justification lies exclusively in the preceding her early writings of Marx. At its foundation is not the way to build a solidaristic and ecological economy; the only its importance lies in the practical and philosophical awareness that the normative logic of capital, killing man and nature, we must overcome.

Alexandre Kojève: Moskovska mandarinska marksistička krtica u Francuskoj

Author(s): Keith Patchen / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 20/2015

Tko je bio Aleksandar Vladimirovič Koževnikov? Kako bismo shvatili Koževnikova, Rusa koji je preuzeo francusko državljanstvo i promijenio ime Aleksandar Koževnikov u Alexandre Kojeve, trebamo za misliti utjecajnoga agenta ruske obavještajne službe, KGB-a, koji je djelovao u središtu Europe i francuske ekonomske i međunarodne ekonomske politike.

Alienacja: problem wciąż aktualny. W nawiązaniu do myśli Karola Wojtyły–Jana Pawła II

Author(s): Andrzej Szostek Mic / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 4/2018

The author presents a brief outline of Karl Marx’s concepts of economic alienation and social revolution (the latter conceived of as fight for human emancipation) in order to confront them with Karol Wojtyla’s theory of participation, which is the main focus of the considerations. Unlike Marx, Wojtyla holds that, rather than the economic relations, it is the category of the ‘neighbor,’ together with the derivative commandment of love (“thou shalt love...”), that provide the deepest ground for participation. Therefore, Wojtyla emphasizes that the Marxist theory of alienation is essentially the antithesis of the theory of participation, while the postulate of a class-struggle-based revolution, which follows from the theory of alienation, deepens the condition in question rather than contributes to overcoming it. In the concluding part of the paper, the author refers to the fact that Pope John Paul II did not consider overcoming the so-called socialist system, which began in 1989, as the end of working against alienation. Rather, he would stress that the problem of alienation is still acute, since alienation is now engendered by materialistic consumer attitudes which undermine the possibilities of participation. The author holds that the mark of the consumer mentality characteristic primarily of Western societies is that their members are no longer aware of the alienation they experience and, consequently, they no longer strive to overcome this condition.

Alternativa i njeno značenje u kontekstu poznog socijalizma Jugoslavije

Author(s): Vanja Milovanović / Language(s): Serbian / Issue: 6/2014

The term alternative can be theoretically interpreted in a broader cultural context, which refers to cultural otherness derived as opposed to a dominant populist framework of society. Period of the last decade of existence the great state or period of the late socialism in Yugoslavia, also was a time of frequent performance of alternative ideologies. Alternative cultural practices, which developed and operated in the eighties of the 20th century, can be determined in four typological identification models. These are: model of overidentification; model of identification in the field of ideology; model of simulacrum of popular culture; model of open identities as subcultural. Since there was no alternative ideology as ideology for themselves, the research is also indicated that the alternative language in the late socialist Yugoslavia was used, and thus neutralized by the new ideological inaugurated social institutional frameworks.

ALWAYS ON THE RUN: THE VICISSITUDES OF REALISM IN HUNGARIAN CRITICISM

Author(s): Sándor Hites / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2014

In this article I offer an overview of the ways in which the term realism has been understood and used in Hungarian literary criticism, from the introduction of the term into Hungarian discourses in the middle of the 19th century to the post-1989 period, when the term had to grapple with the legacy of its appropriation by the Socialist regime. I examine three specific junctures in the critical trajectory of Realism: the introduction of the term in the 1850s, the uses and abuses of the term by Marxist ideologues, and finally the aversion towards the term that emerged in the post-Socialist era. In addition to examining pivotal moments in the history of this critical concept in Hungarian literary discourse, my inquiry also offers a critical perspective from which to consider an enduring anxiety concerning the achievements, past and future, of Hungarian literary culture, an anxiety that finds expression in a symptomatic concern with the ways in which tendencies in Hungarian culture do or do not relate to cultural developments outside of Hungary.

An Ink–and–Paper Automaton: The Conceptual Mechanization of Cognition and the Practical Automation of Reasoning in Leibniz’s De Affectibus (1679)

Author(s): DUMAS PRIMBAULT Simon / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2019

On ten loose handwritten folios dating back from April 1679, Leibniz gradually devised, in the course of three days, a full-blown theory of thought that nonetheless remained unpublished and still has received little attention from scholars. Conceiving of affectūs as the driving forces that set the mind in motion from one thought to another and passiones as the inertia opposing such movement, this manuscript results in a systematic psychology understood as a dynamics of thoughts modelled on the mechanical laws of motion for solid bodies. Delving into Leibniz‘s working papers to witness the unfolding of his thoughts, I propose to pay attention to the many intellectual operations that paved the way for his metaphysics. From his reading notes on Descartes to his syllogistically redefining a set of concepts and propositions, Leibniz here defines an affective theory of cognition and sets the first foundations of a combinatorial ontology: his socalled scientia generalis. Focusing on the material practices that govern his use of paper, I would like to show that Leibniz‘s conceptual mechanization of cognition is materially dependent on a practical automation of reasoning reduced to a propositional calculus on paper. Eventually, this contribution is a plea for a media-historical reading of Leibniz‘s working papers.

Anarchist against Violence. Gustav Landauer’s Subversion of the Rational Paradigm

Author(s): Anatole Lucet / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2019

At the end of the 19th century, violent attacks by so-called anarchists gave the anarchist movement an increased amount of publicity. In the meantime, the success of “scientific socialism” promoted rationality to the rank of a new political doctrine. This article analyses the joint criticism of violence and materialism in the discourse of Gustav Landauer (1870-1919). The German philosopher and revolutionary made an original contribution to anarchism in theorising its incompatibility with violent means of action. He also made a crucial move for the theory of ideas in affirming that reason was not the solution, but often the cause of violence.

Andrzeja Stawara Brzozowskiego portret podwójny

Author(s): Paweł Rams / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 5/2017

Andrzej Stawar wrote two studies on Stanisław Brzozowski. The first appeared in the monthly Dźwignia in 1928, while the second was published as a single essay in 1961. Rams highlights the similarities and differences between these two texts. He also examines biographical and historical factors that influenced the two interpretations, linking them with the author’s social and personal experience.

Ani kapitulacja, ani śmierć – odpowiedź na recenzję Michała Warchali

Author(s): Krzysztof Świrek / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 14/2018

Antagonizam unutar klasičnih federativnih jedinica

Author(s): Zvonko Lerotić / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 01/1976

U društvenim sistemima, uslijed progresivne diferencijacije i centralizacije, zajednički se interesi i zajedničke odrednice cjeline osamostaljuju i dobivaju takvu strukturalnu tvorbu koja se relativno izdvaja od funkcija i strukture elemenata. Osamostaljivanje strukture koja se identificira s cjelinom znači u isto vrijeme i nametanje interesa te osamostaljene strukture pojedinim segmentima i funkcionalnim elementima sistema.

Antiteologija novoga događaja

Alain Badiou i kontingencija politike

Author(s): Žarko Paić / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 10+12/2015

Jezici u kojima je riječ »novo« sinonimom bezuvjetnoga raskida s tradicijom u metafizičkim su temeljima dovoljno »stari« da bi imali mogućnosti istinskoga kazivanja tog imperativa vremena. Kao da umjesto njih o našem vremenu bolje govori ono neljudsko iz sklopa kibernetičke tehnologije. Programski jezici računalstva zasnovani na binarnome kôdu postali su nadmoćni simboličkoj snazi »prirodnih« jezika. Štoviše, čini se da su u svojoj zastarjelosti osuđeni na ono isto što je suvremeni francuski filozof Alain Badiou namijenio filozofiji. Da je, naime, njezina sudbina postati izložbenim »predmetom« u muzeju ukoliko ne uspije otvoriti mogućnosti nadilaženja ove epohe. A ta epoha od 19. Stoljeća za svoje presudne pojmove ima znanost, politiku i umjetnost.

Antonio Gramsci’nin Kuramında Faşizm Çözümlemeleri

Author(s): Demirhan Fahri Erdem / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 17/2015

Antonio Gramsci, having an important place in Marxist thought tradition, made theoretically original and important contributions to the fascism analysis. In this context, Gramsci analyzed the conjuncture, ensuring the development of fascism as a movement and then its accession to power, in Italian political life after the First World War in political and class contexts and also pointed out the crucial role of petit bourgeoisie during that period. Moreover, he made some predicts about the fascist up period in Italy in line with his analyses. According to the dialectical method he used, while he was analyzing the development of fascism in Italy, he competently presented the dichotomies imposed to the society by the Italian capitalism, being in a crisis, dichotomies emerged from the different tendencies in the fascist movement and also the dichotomies arising from the difference of opinion between the communists in their struggle against fascism. The fascism analyses of Gramsci, whose thoughts on fascism maintain their importance even today, are examined in this study.