Contemporary Marxist Research Articles

The generative logic and value implications of Xi Jinping’s "Theory of the Two Hands": An analysis of Xi Jinping’s key exposition on the relationship between government and market

The generation of Xi Jinping’s "Theory of the Two Hands" is logically inevitable. This theory embodies the theoretical continuity and advancement of Marxist classicists and their successors' understanding of the relationship among planning, market, and fundamental social systems. It represents a historical necessity that builds on the Chinese Communist Party’s experience in advancing China’s economic reform, as well as an urgent practical need to refine the socialist market economy in the new era. Xi Jinping’s "Theory of the Two Hands" addresses three dimensions—content and essence of the issue, delineation of roles and functions, and methods and objectives of resolution—thus exploring the government-market relationship across six distinct layers. This approach scientifically answers questions concerning the nature of the problem, the roles and functions involved, the methods of handling it, and the goals it seeks to achieve. Not only does it expand new horizons in contemporary Marxist political economy, but it also deepens the understanding of the laws underlying socialist construction with Chinese characteristics, advancing the socialist market economy of China to a new stage of high-quality development.

The New Denial of Imperialism on the Left

John Bellamy Foster returns to the touchstones of anti-imperialist Marxist thought, found in the works of V. I. Lenin, Samir Amin, and others, in order to confront the rising denial of imperialism on the left. This worldview and its consequences, he writes, has troubling implications not only for the superexploited workers of the periphery, but for all of the workers of the world, and for the internationalist character of contemporary Marxism.

Baudrillard's Critical Theory of Political Economy

Baudrillard is a famous French postmodern philosopher with a vast array of theories and writings. Based on Baudrillard's reflection on Marx's critique of political economy, the article takes the social and ideological origins of the theory of mimesis as the starting point of the study. Unlike Marx, Baudrillard's theory of mimesis involves a 'model' that appears as the initial form of the mimesis. Baudrillard's argument that the proliferation of mimesis and simulation has led to the demise of the real, and that the real world can be produced through modelling without the need for prototypes, adds a new dimension to reflections on Marx's critical theory of society, and expands the horizons and methodologies of contemporary Marxist research. The paper traces the premise and development of the theory of mimesis by analysing the turn towards consumer society, and presents the specifics of mimesis theory as a whole by keeping in mind Baudrillard's principle of symbolic exchange and his reflections on modern technology. This paper analyses the concept of mimesis based on Baudrillard's later theories, and attempts to explain the specific connotations of mimesis and its related concepts. This paper focuses on three related concepts of mimesis: "mimesis", "hyperreal" and "implosion", and explains in detail the differences between these four concepts on the basis of Baudrillard's work. Based on Baudrillard's work, the differences between these four concepts are explained in detail. Explores the symbolic order, social entities, and media influences in which the concept of "mimesis" occurs.

Revisiting the ‘Jewish Question’ and Its Contemporary Discontents

Abstract This article revisits the so-called ‘Jewish Question’ against the combined background of Marxist historiography and the resurgence of antisemitic and neofascist politics. It begins by analysing the critical reception of Marx’s formative essay, ‘On the Jewish Question’, and assesses its contemporary relevance in the aftermath of institutionalised antisemitism in the USSR, the monstrosity of the Shoah, the consolidation of the Israeli state, and the catastrophic ramifications of the ongoing Nakba. Despite the various defects of Marx and Engels’s reflections on the ‘Jewish Question’, their critical insights vividly anticipate the failings of liberalism, Soviet socialism, and Zionism in emancipating Jews, while also reminding contemporary Marxists about the political urgency of human emancipation. At its core, the ‘Jewish Question’ remains a universal question, extending to all oppressed peoples and classes that have been rendered abandoned and dispensable beings.

Undercommoning Anthrogenesis

Sophie Lewis coined anthrogenesis as “the production of human beings” and, using this unfamiliar term, calls for the radical reimagining of gestational politics, as an alternative to liberal feminism's focus on choice. Revivisng Shulamith Firestone, for feminists like Lewis and Helen Hester this reimagination takes shape within a techno‐utopic communist framework. While enticing, such a framework relies on a modernist understanding of institutions that has been critiqued by decolonial and abolitionist theory and risks undervaluing the fugitive underground work of radical care and mutual aid that already exists today. In this article, two strategies at play in the contemporary Marxist reimagination of anthrogenesis are differentiated: (1) a communist approach focusing primarily on fundamentally restructuring the commons of reproductive care on a grand societal scale and (2) an “undercommons” approach that aims to fugitively abolish public institutions through small‐scale mutual aid and radical care practices that are already constituting otherworlds of reproductive justice through transnational coalitions. Highlighting abortion and birth networks in the Netherlands (the Abortion Network Amsterdam and the Geboortebeweging, a loose collaborative network of midwives) who transnationally and fugitively care for anthrogenesis, the second strategy is proposed as the more promising one for the anthrogenesis of human beings otherwise. The author develops another possible outcome of Firestone's revolutionary thought: not a gestational communism but an anarcho‐abolitionist fugitive undercommoning of anthrogenesis, through the work Stefano Harney and Fred Moten, Marquis Bey, and Chiara Bottici.

Challenges and Countermeasures to the Sinicization of Contemporary Marxism

Challenges and Countermeasures to the Sinicization of Contemporary Marxism

Magic, Idleness and Comedy: Late Agamben’s Marxist Reaction to Neoliberal Political Theology

ABSTRACT This article deals with Giorgio Agamben's late work, arguing that Agamben’s trans secular critique of capitalist political theology is incepted from the historical conditions of late neoliberalism – with its focus on the personal “self” as its anchor. It suggests that to understand Agamben’s trans secular reaction to late neoliberalism we need historicized his thought. As historicized, it can reveal the dialectical limits of neoliberalism. To do so, the article reads late Agamben texts next to contemporary Marxist thinkers Alenka Zupančič and her theory of comedy, Todd McGowan and his analysis of Capitalism and desire and Sianne Ngai and her conceptualization of zaniness as the aesthetic representation of neoliberal precariousness. Moving on, the article focuses on Agamben’s late book Pulcinella. It argues that the book not only expresses the limits of neoliberalism but also uncovers hope and promises for comic theological renewal beyond neoliberalism and its cult of the self.

From formal subsumption under capital to primitive accumulation of capital: On the separation of labour from the objective conditions of production in Marx’s Capital

In contemporary Marxist studies, there has been a revival of two classic categories of the Critique of Political Economy, namely, ‘formal subsumption of labour under capital’ and ‘primitive accumulation of capital’. In contradistinction to traditional usages, Marxists authors consider that both belong, not to the historical past of capitalist production, but to its actuality. Regrettably, this recuperation has not been accompanied by a more thorough assessment of the methodological and political dimensions that are contained in both categories. This article aims to address this issue in the light of Marx’s use of the categories of formal subsumption of labour under capital and primitive accumulation of capital. In doing so, it will be demonstrated that they refer to the same process, namely, the separation of labour from the objective conditions of production, and that, given this internal connection, they co-evolve throughout Marx’s economic works, from Grundrisse to Capital, volume I. Moreover, it will be seen that the substitution of primitive accumulation for formal subsumption must be understood in Marx’s shift from a systematic to a historical approach to the historical process by which the capitalist mode of production came to life; and that Marx adopted this new perspective on both methodological and political grounds. The article also discusses the importance of contemporary Marxist scholarship of this examination of the methodological and political premises of Marx’s use of the notions of formal subsumption and primitive accumulation.

Comprehensively Promoting the Chinese-style Modernization in the Pursuit of the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation The Epochal Significance of Modernization and the Construction of a Socialist Modernization State

Modernization is an unwavering pursuit across the globe. Chinese-style modernization possesses both the general characteristics of modernization and distinctive advantages. Advancing Chinese-style modernization in addressing the major contradictions in Chinese society contributes to the comprehensive realization of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Simultaneously, this process enriches contemporary Marxist theory, provides new perspectives for the development of world socialism, propels human civilization into a new stage of modernization, and contributes China's wisdom and strength to global modernization development.

A Caliphate of Ideas? Islamic Politics in Dialogue with Contemporary Marxism

This article deconstructs the conceptual framework of the social theorist Salman Sayyid by critically examining his work on the political and hegemony in relation to the thought of the post-Marxist philosopher Ernesto Laclau. Sayyid elaborates a theory of the political that necessitates a communal break with existing society, a move very similar to Laclau and post-Marxist thought more generally. In analyzing Sayyid’s theories of the caliphate with Laclau’s conception of hegemonic struggle, the author suggests that the construction of any caliphate should think about the question of solidarity with “plebs” or those discarded from the system of capitalism. The article concludes with an analysis of how Sayyid’s theoretical praxis can be applied in American Muslim political activism through the concept of the counterpublic.

Jacques Derrida’s Marxism: An Althusserian Analysis

The on-going research study tends to conduct the textual analysis of Spectres of Marx: The State of Debt, the Work of Mourning and the New International (1994) by Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) to discuss and trace the impact of Marxism on him and in turns his responses towards it. He defended Marxism against world capitalism in the post-Cold War “New World Order” after the fall of Communism in 1989. He made a great contribution to the development of Marxist discourse from a deconstructive perspective. Therefore, the research paper focuses on the question, how did Derrida come under the influence of Marxism in his later career? It is mostly concerned with the critical responses of Derrida’s contemporary Marxist critics to Derridean deconstruction in general and to the publication of the book cited-above in particular as well as Derrida’s responses to them. In this way, the study attempts to explore the ways in which Marxism and deconstruction encounters and influences each other. Though it mainly concentrates on Derrida’s text on Marx, his other works also come under discussion. Althusserian Marxist hermeneutics has been employed as the theoretical and analytical framework in this textual study.

Ideology and City Planning: Marx and Engels’s Reconciliation of Town and Country

Scholars have given immense attention to Marx and Engels’s supposed disdain for rural living, but their treatment of the relationship between rurality and urbanity was far more complicated than merely an antirural bias. Marx and Engels believed that the ideal communism would reconcile town and country and create a society resembling an Owenite agroindustrial town rather than the forms of urbanity that contemporary Marxists celebrate. Understanding the significance that Marx and Engels gave to the division between town and country is critical to pointing out major defects within urban-planning ideas inspired by their thought as, within the Soviet Union, aspirations to enact their ideas of universal industrial villages created significant planning problems. In today’s predominantly urbanized world, Marxian scholars and activists must therefore reassess Marx and Engels’s assertion that the goal of communism is to eventually reconcile the division between town and county.

Immanuel Wallerstein’s Legacy in Southern Europe

This paper is a farewell and an intellectual tribute to one of the greatest masters of contemporary Marxist thought and one of the major references in contemporary social science. Immanuel Wallerstein died August 31, 2019, leaving a theoretical, historical, and intellectual legacy that is to be read, rethought, and actualized by social scientists in the coming decades. His world-systems theory gave rise to a whole new understanding of the genesis of the capitalist world-system. This contribution reviews the sources that inspired the world-system theory, as well as showing its main contributions and its dialogues with other proposals of critical social theory, such as the epistemologies of the South and decolonial thought. This article is also a new formulation of the perspectives that the world-systems theory opens for the historical and sociological research on Andalusia and southern Europe in the context of the historical genesis of world capitalism.

Labor process and future relevance of the critique of capital

The mistaken view that Taylorism-Fordism characterizes the most advanced form of the capitalist labor process reinforces an equally mistaken view of the relationship between capitalism and technology, known as ‘criticism of the productive forces’, which was very much in evidence in critical thinking throughout the 1960s and 1970s. Based on an analysis of three articles by a representative author of contemporary Marxist reflections upon the labor process, David Spencer, we will endeavor to show that these misconceptions remain extremely current, leading to an attitude that can be characterized as ‘Marxism-Luddism’. Given this outlook, the post-capitalist notion of labor as a fulfilling and free activity can only be understood as a ‘social epiphany’. We attempt to supersede this ‘social epiphany’ by identifying the opportunities generated by capitalism, and, from there, point out the fundamental theoretical locus for the future relevance of the critique of capitalism.

Poverty, corruption, and religious opportunism in Africa: A Neo-Pentecostal perspective

In an ideal context, religious tenets are perceived as antithetical to corruption on all fronts. Sadly, Africa takes a frontline in religious activities, yet is bedevilled by corruption aided poverty. Viewing some Neo-Pentecostal practices with the lens of contemporary Marxism hypothesis, and philosophical consciencism of Kwame Nkrumah and Fela Anikulapo, this article examined the role of religion in the spread of poverty in Africa. It further held that while a few religious leaders speak against corruption aided poverty, institutionalised and deliberate strategic plans have not been set up to combat corruption aided poverty. Subsequently, through strategic and implementable recommendations, this article serves as a wake-up call for Africa’s religious institutions to jettison alliance with corrupt political entities and support anti-corruption crusades in Africa.Contribution: Employing the multi-play of Sociology, Economics, Philosophy and Theology, this article contributes to the interdisciplinary and international research of HTS Theological Studies.

Capitalism and the Sea: The Maritime Factor in the Making of the Modern World, LiamCamplingAlejandroColásLondon & New York: Verso. 2021. pp. xiv + 418. £20/$29.95 (hardcover). ISBN: 9781784785239

Capitalism and the Sea: The Maritime Factor in the Making of the Modern World, LiamCamplingAlejandroColásLondon & New York: Verso. 2021. pp. xiv + 418. £20/$29.95 (hardcover). ISBN: 9781784785239

‘The power to burnish and renew’: porno-accumulation, fascism, and surplus populations in Don DeLillo’s Running Dog

ABSTRACT Don DeLillo’s conspiracy novels Players, Running Dog, and The Names respond to, and imaginatively frame, what Giovanni Arrighi calls the ‘signal crisis’ of US hegemony. Despite mapping the spatio-temporal unfolding of US capital as it financialises accumulation, commodifies visual attention, and imposes neo-colonial economic reforms on ‘underdeveloped’ nations, Marxist critics have dismissed DeLillo’s pastiche thrillers as politically disappointing texts ‘constrained’ by an inability to supply alternative models of reality. In contrast, this article argues that DeLillo’s so-called formal defeats register a ‘discord’ between history and its conceptualisation, an enigma related to their discovery of ‘edge zones of modernity’. Drawing on ideas of historical lateness, the article re-situates DeLillo’s poetics through the optics of uneven and combined development, reflecting on the significance of surplus populations – both for DeLillo’s off-kilter conspiracies but also contemporary Marxist political economy. The article offers a close reading of Running Dog, a porno-political caper in which non-synchronicity manifests itself through the appearance of an object, perhaps the object: an adult film starring Hitler. Running Dog juxtaposes commodity frontiers based on violent appropriation with frontiers of immiseration where labour-power has been exiled from social reproduction altogether. In doing so, DeLillo refunctions romance into a genre of secular stagnation.

Capital and Marx’s Epistemological Revolution from Neue Marx-Lektüre to Political Marxism

The paper discusses the thesis about Marx’s “epistemological revolution” by elaborating two issues that incorporate two entirely different contemporary Marxist traditions. To give this undertaking a more precise formulation, in its first part, the study examines the relationship between theory and history within the critique of political economy, proposed by Michael Heinrich under the tradition known as Neue Marx-Lektü re. It then turns to introducing the second part of the discussion related to the “commercialization model” of capitalist development, outlined by Robert Brenner and Ellen Meiksins Wood within the context of the so-called Political Marxism. A special emphasis is thereby put on the latter, since it deals with the contemporary nature of a few distinct epistemological and methodological novelties of the Capital, as well as some posited in the Grundrisse.

The Collapse of Yemen's Sovereignty by Permanent Violence: A Means of Both Production and Consumption of Value

To defend the thesis of “permanent violence” in Yemen that leads to state failure and in the context of the structural crisis of capital (where Keynesianism has reached its structural limits), this article will look at the Yemeni war through a Marxist lens. It aims to analyze the deep sociological roots of the Yemeni war through the laws of capital as presented by Marx and to show why the Yemeni war is a goal in itself for Imperialism. Three main laws of capital are considered: (1) the general law of capital accumulation developed in Volume I of Das Kapital, (2) the law of the “transformation” of value into price as presented in Volume III of Das Kapital, and (3) the law relating to the contradiction between production and consumption (leading to a crisis of overproduction and a crisis of underconsumption) that was developed by Marx in the Grundrisse, in Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, and by contemporary Marxist author, Istvan Mészáros. All of these laws are all tied to the Marxist “law of value” which refers to the idea that socially necessary labor time acts as the ultimate regulating force in exchange and production under Imperialism.

Cornel West and Marxist Humanism

Humanity has experienced an explosion of anti-humanism in the form of authoritarian capitalism, postmodern filter bubbles, and global problems. Marxist/Socialist Humanism is the proper answer to the deep crisis of humanity. In this context, this article asks ‘How can Cornel West’s works inform a contemporary Marxist humanist theory of society?’ Taking West’s works as a starting point, what are the key elements of a Marxist humanist theory of society? Cornel West is one of the leading critical intellectuals today. His work has fused anti-racist theory, Black Liberation Theology, Marxist theory, pragmatism, and existentialism. This article especially focuses on West’s understanding of humanism and culture. It shows how his works and praxis can inform the reinvigoration of Marxist Humanism in the age of authoritarian capitalism as a socialist response. West’s thought can and should also inform the analysis of alienation, exploitation, domination, culture, the public sphere, the critique of ideology, and popular culture.