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

Author(s): CURRY MALOTT / Language(s): English / Issue: 6/2016

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: 6/2016

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

Author(s): DEB J. HILL / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2013

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.

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.

Anđeo povijesti i mesija događaja: Walter Benjamin

Author(s): Žarko Paic / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 21/2016

Kada je Walter Benjamin 1935. godine otvorio nova ≫dva bojna polja≪ mišljenja sabrana u prvome nabačaju motiva iz Arkada/Das Passagen-Werk i Umjetničkoga djela u razdoblju tehničke reproduktivnosti (Das Kunstwerk in Zeitalter seiner technischen Repro duzierbarkeit), u jednom pismu Theodoru W. Adornu govorio je o procesu preobrazbi. Spomenuo je izraze ≫metafizika u kristaliziranome stanju≪ i ≫dijalektičke slike≪.

Antiteologija novoga događaja

Alain Badiou i kontingencija politike

Author(s): Žarko Paic / 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.

Antropologija i problem istine (u Sartrovoj „kritici dijalektičkog uma“ )

Author(s): Milan Mladenovic / Language(s): Serbian / Issue: 256/257/1980

Sinteza različitih misaonih orijentacija koju je unutar svoga dela ostvaiio Sartr, blila je nezamisliva, a za istraživača nerazumIjiva, ako se ne bi uočila najbitnija dimenzija Sairtrovog dijaloga filosofskom tradicdjom; jer Sartr, zapravo, svoj cenitralni dijalog vodi, s jedne strane, s Hegelom, s druge s Kantom, i to u oba slučaja tek posredstvom Marksa. Dabome da ono »tek« ne treba shvatiti kao da bi se tlime hteo umanjiti značaj Marksovog posredovanja; upravo naprotiv, bez njega bi pomenuti dijalog bio apsolutno nezamisliv; sve što se time htelo reči vezano je za dva osnovna zadatka koja je Sartr sebi nedvosrnisleno postavio već u Predgovoru Critique,1 i jedan i drugi namenjeni u svrhu odgovora na jedno (Sartr kaže. »jedno jedino«) pitanje: »Imamo li danas sredstva da izgradimo jednu strukturalnu i istorijsku antropologiju?«

Avrupa Birliği’nde Neo-Liberal Hegemonya, Otoriter Neo-Liberalizm ve Neo-Gramsciyen Uluslararası Politik İktisat Teorisi

Author(s): Alpaslan Akçoraoglu / Language(s): Turkish / Issue: 1/2017

Although neo-liberalism has not been able to offer any lasting solution to the profound economic crisis and long-run stagnation of the European Union (EU), its ideological supremacy (non-hegemonic in Gramscian terms) has still proceeded in the EU. This article reviews the historical evolution of neo-liberal restructuring in the European integration from the perspective of neo-Gramscian International Political Economy (IPE) literature. The majority of the recent critical IPE studies in the political economy of European integration is based on Robert Cox’s “World Order” theory with neo-Gramscian foundations. Neo-Gramscian IPE emphasizes the significance of transnational relations from a historical materialist perspective and perceives that European integration process is the outcome of a struggle between transnational social forces. In addition, this article analyzes the crisis of neo-liberal hegemony in the EU, the changes in the political economy of the EU after the euro crisis, and the model of authoritarian neo-liberalism from a neo-Gramscian perspective.

Barthes and Lotman: Ideology vs culture

Author(s): Patrick Sériot / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2016

Despite both being great names in semiotics, Roland Barthes and Juri Lotman have more differences than they share similarities – not only because of their different political and historico-cultural environments, but also because they do not have the same object of study: it is ‘ideology’ for Barthes, and ‘culture’ for Lotman. Thus, there is no intellectual common ground between them, yet comparing them can lead us to a more important question: what is semiotics, and what has structuralism to do with it?

BENDRINIS INTELEKTAS IR PASIPRIEŠINIMAS KAPITALUI SOCIALIZUOTO DARBO EPOCHOJE

Author(s): Kasparas Pocius / Language(s): Lithuanian / Issue: 89/2016

This article discusses the influence of Marx’s labour theory for contemporary social thought. While his conceptions of machine work, formal and real subsumption influenced the mainstream of class struggle in the 20th century, his theoretical framework was recently refreshed both by poststructuralist and Italian autonomist authors, who discuss Marxian conception of general intellect. It is difficult to argue about general intellect and its liberation from capitalist relations while having in mind the condition of contemporary labour power in the contemporary stage of capitalist production, which autonomists define as social factory and which is based on immaterial labour and precarity. However, an alliance between the living labour (or multitude) and technologies which embody the power of capital must be based on the will of this labour power (or forces) to get rid of capitalist relations. General intellect itself can be created only along with the strategies of resistance against exploitation. Finally, the perspective of general intellect allows to argue about building communist society within the capitalist empire and to change the dialectical Marxist revolutionary paradigm with the non-dialectical paradigm of liberation and heterogenization of social forces. However, is only possible to do it by gradually removing the chains of capitalist relations and developing mutual relationship of free singularities. Therefore it is worthwhile to argue about the individual and collective singularities, their environment and the new subjectivities that they would create.

Bogdana Suchodolskiego koncepcja uspołecznienia kultury a marksizm

Author(s): Florian Nowicki / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 34/2015

This paper presents Bogdan Suchodolski’s (1903–1992) general programme of socialization of the culture and pedagogical programme of creation „the new man”. The main question is: is this conception a marxist’s „programme maximum”? And, if not, what’s the marxist’s „programme maximum” in the subject of culture (in the wider meaning), and what’s the main goal of the marxist’s pedagogics? Is it a programme of humanization of the work, or a programme of egalitarian „kingdom of freedom”, where everybody are an artists? What’s the role of pedagogics in preapering to future „kingdom of freedom”? Could be Suchodolski’s pedagogics usefull in this area? Although Suchodolski’s vision of culture based on optimistic presumptions according possibility of the future humanization of the work, one of the most important goal of his pedagogical programme is preapering to creativity activity during free time and popularization of non-instrumental style of life (also, non-instrumental attitude to the knowledge). The author tries to reconstruct of evolution of Suchodolski’s conception of the future, and suggests, that late Suchodolski modifies his old views on the possibility of radical dezalienation of the work.

Bramy raju

Author(s): Jacques Rancière / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 23/2017

The text presented here is a chapter from Jacques Rancièreʼ s La nuit des proletaires, an extended version of the author’s doctoral thesis. It focuses upon prospects for workers emancipation following the unsuccessful revolutionary attempt of July 1830. Rancière does not comment on struggles of power and instead, emancipation is seen here mostly as an intervention into the aesthetic. Aesthetic identification, popular spectacles, grassroots press, the selection of readings and even the design of rooms are all presented as genuine tools of the emancipatory effort. Rancière shows that workers culture, although syncretic and full of calque, turned out to be subversive enough so as to undermine class divisions.

Cały świat potrzebuje wstrząsu. Ruchy społeczne i polityczny kryzys w średniowiecznej Europie

Author(s): Silvia Federici / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 19/2016

The text is a part of the chapter from Silvia Federici’s book Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation, in which the Italian philosopher describes the history of the rise of capitalism from the angle of social struggles, autonomist organizations created between the 12th and 17th centuries, and the vast contribution of women into the resistance in those days. Through polemicizing with the linear concept of history supported by many Marxists, Federici indicates that the capitalist revolution was indeed a counter-revolution, not only by causing more violence, repression and real subordination than feudalism, but also by cooperating with the forces of the old world in order to maintain the social and economic status quo. Such point of view allows Federici to see the Middle Ages very differently than the one we know from the textbooks. That is why the vision of the world that emerges from her work is free from the view that no alternative existed to Church domination, or from the view that social life was completely subordinated to feudal authority. Instead, Federici presents an era of real resistance, countless social movements and heresy as well as class struggles of the same intensity as the struggles of proletariat in 19th or 20th centuries.

CLASS STRUGGLE IN CULTURAL FORMATION IN CONTEMPORARY TIMES: A FOCUS ON THE THEORETICAL IMPORTANCE OF ANTONIO GRAMSCI AND THE ORGANIC INTELLECTUALISM OF RUSSELL BRAND

Author(s): ALPESH MAISURIA / Language(s): English / Issue: 6/2016

The importance of education for social transformation is not exclusively something that is done in schools and universities. Taking education in its broadest formulation – something that happens all of the time, in this article I posit the argument that educative strategies for class struggle need to be sensitive to cultural formation. I highlight the importance of Italian revolutionary Marxist Antonio Gramsci’s attention to culture and organic intellectualism as aspects of mounting and then sustaining class struggle for social change. I animate these ideas using the example of Russell Brand whose work can be exemplified as contemporary organic intellectualism for class struggle. I conclude by suggesting that for critique of the neoliberal status quo to be effective for social transformation, it needs to be accompanied by visions of an alternative world as feasible.

COGNITIVE-CULTURAL PRODUCTION, DIGITAL LABOUR AND THE NEW FRONTIERS OF KNOWLEDGE. A CONVERSATION WITH ALLEN J. SCOTT

Author(s): ALLEN J. SCOTT,STEFANO LUCARELLI,Michael A. Peters,CARLO VERCELLONE / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2013

What is the role played by cognitive-cultural production? What are the meanings and the stakes of the “feminization” of labor? What is the meaning of “Digital Taylorism”? Is the metropolis today a functional substitute for the factory in the context of industrial capitalism? What is the role of universities in cultural-cognitive capitalism? Is there a contradictory relationship between knowledge-based economy and cognitive capitalism? Stefano Lucarelli, Michael A. Peters and Carlo Vercellone interview Allen J. Scott.

CONSTANTIN STERE AND HIS ORIGINAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE MORDERNIZATION OF ROMANIA

Author(s): Grigore Georgiu / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2016

In the first two decades of the 20th century, Romania underwent a series of deep changes which came to an end, after the dramatic war experience, in 1918 with the Grand Union. At the same time, the academic sphere, the media, the political and cultural realms were all engaged in an ample and lively debate of ideas on the reforms which needed to be urgently implemented for the settlement of several acute economic and social issues. However, the intellectual elites of the time took up broader topics as well, embedded in a theoretical horizon, such as the modernization strategies and their adequacy to the Romanian specificity. A prominent figure of the political events and of the ideological debates of the epoch was Constantin Stere, a complex personality, thinker, publicist, politician and ardent fighter for the national union of Romanians. In his published articles, in his parliamentary discourses and in his writings, Stere fervently pleaded for the implementation of some vital reforms for the modernization of the country (land reform - transferring property from large landowners to peasants, universal vote etc.). He initiated and supported an ample cultural and political trend, known as Poporanism and proposed an agrarian economic and social model for Romania. It is worth quoting some of his texts and deciphering their meaning in the current context.

CONSUMPTION IN COGNITIVE CAPITALISM: COMMODITY RIOTS AND THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT OF CONSUMPTION

Author(s): GEORGE TSOGAS / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2013

We challenge the prevalent opinion that consumption does not seem to matter as much as production and defy the fetishism of industrial work. We explore the implications of the premise that under conditions of cognitive capitalism consumption dictates what production does, when and how. We explain that in a post-industrial global society and economy fashion, branding, instant gratification of desires, and ephemeral consumer tastes govern production and consumption. The London (commodity) riots of August 2011 send us a warning that consumption and cognitive capitalism are asphyxiating in the structures and norms of industrial capitalism that are still in place.

CURRICULUM STUDIES AND HISTORICIZING THE PRESENT: THE POLITICAL AND IMPRACTICALITY OF PRACTICAL KNOWLEDGE

Author(s): Thomas S. Popkewitz,Christopher Kirchgasler,Jennifer Diaz / Language(s): English / Issue: 2/2016

We titled this special issue Curriculum Studies and Historicizing the Present: The Political and Impracticality of Practical Knowledge in order to speak about the politics of schooling in an unconventional way. To historicize the present is a strategy to study curriculum through the rules and standards of its “reason.” To study how we understand ourselves and the world is, one sense, akin to asking a fish about the water in which it swims. Our reason imperceptibly surrounds us and serves as a security blanket. It provides stability to the ordering and classifying of things. It makes life seem as natural and manageable. We can just take it for granted. When we cross the street, we want to trust in the knowledge that the red light means cars will stop; or, that it is a safe bet to think of the kinds of people sitting in the classroom as “children” who, if “practical” teaching methods are applied, will grow and develop into “reasonable people.”