Anti-communist Research Articles

Ruy Fausto, normatividade e anti-normatividade

The article examines Ruy Fausto’s concept of interversion in view of the debate on the meaning of ethical-moral normativity in a critical theory of capitalism. Taking the Marxian critique of political economy as reference, the text is divided into two main parts. In the first, the normative and anti-normative interpretations are characterized as an antinomy. In the second, it is argued that, based on Fausto’s particular reception and use of the Hegelian dialectic, his reading of the interversion offers an original solution to the debate.

A Marxist critique of the metaphor of the marketplace

ABSTRACT For the last century, the metaphor of the marketplace of ideas has dominated free speech theory. But this metaphor is both undemocratic and hegemonic. Marketplace-based defenses of free speech commodify speech. Speech, according to this metaphor, is valuable for what it can be traded for – influence in the marketplace of ideas. However, good speech cannot respond to bad speech if it is devalued in the marketplace because of the speaker’s position within the marketplace. This project explores the metaphor of the marketplace of ideas and argues that it must be rejected because of its commodification of speech. If identity is property, as Cindy Griffin argues, then the marketplace perpetuates a system in which speakers are robbed, not of the objects of their work, but of their very being. I argue that the marketplace metaphor commodifies speech, and is therefore, dangerous to democracy. Drawing on a Marxist understanding of reification shows how the marketplace metaphor is ultimately alienating and renders certain speech by certain speakers less valuable.

Social Evils and Its Impacts on Class Conflicts in Mulk Raj Anand’s Major Novels: A Marxist Study

This paper focuses on the impacts of socio-political evils and class conflicts portrayed in the novels of Mulk Raj Anand. Three novels by Anand—Coolie, Untouchable, and Two Leaves and a Bud have been selected for this work which has a connection with the Marxist approaches. These novels highlight the dehumanizing contradictions within the colonized Indian society. Through his writings, Anand reveals capitalism in addition to foreign colonialism, where exist layers of colonialism and bourgeoisie within the Indian community. This system develops intra-communal clashes to enhance the gap between the haves and the haves-not. Similarly, the caste system and the previous economic system, i.e., feudalism combined with capitalism, create a harsh reality for the oppressed community. Thus, this paper considers capitalism, colonialism, imperialism, feudalism, and casteism as socio-political evils that legitimize a process to dominate the society. It creates a contradictory social relation which is blissful for the colonizers but a curse to the working class. The consequences of these appliances bring class conflict, exploitation, poverty, hunger, cruelty, and many others into practice. Anand sets his protagonists—Munoo, Bakha, and Gangu – in front of the demeaning, hostile world which depends mainly on the bounty of the moneyed class. This paper makes a critical study to unveil the consequences of exploiting the evils and class struggle through the lens of Marxist criticism. On the other hand, it can be said that the paper emphasizes Anand’s attention in portraying intra-social clashes in colonial India based on economic exploitation and its consequences.

Irresponsibility in the Exercise of Political Power: A Marxist Analysis of Animal Farm

Irresponsibility is the quality of not being trustworthy or dependable. In political arena, it has more to do with the traits of a leader who lacks a sense of responsibility and does not feel accountable for their actions. Indeed, irresponsibility in politics leads mostly to the abuse of power, that is, the misuse of a position of power to take unjust advantage of individuals, organizations, or governments. What is irresponsibility and how is it depicted in Animal Farm? Who are the characters involved in the misuse of political power in Animal Farm? How is this power used abusively and what are the consequences of it? These are the questions that this paper analyses through the lenses of the Marxist criticism and proposes clues of good conduct for the benefit of society.

Attempts at a Marxist Critique of Cancellation

Abstract This paper advances a Marxist critique of the politics of cancellation and raises concerns about the possible development of a cancel culture. Rather than delving into debates on freedom of speech, crucial though they are, this paper focuses on the pragmatics of the political tool – its goals, mechanisms, effects, and the underlying reasoning. From a Marxist perspective, it is essential to analyse cancellation and cancel culture holistically, considering their rationale, the mechanism, the objectives, and the impacts, along with their relationship to the material conditions of society. Such an analysis provides a comprehensive understanding of any historical development and argues that addressing political problems in the long term requires such a holistic approach, including the development of relevant productive forces. If cancellation evolves into a culture, it may give rise to a polity that reinforces market relations. Within the framework of historical materialism, this would be a case of the superstructure supporting the base, turning politics into a matter of private opinions, which is far from ideal. The paper concludes with some practical considerations.

Para um Direito Ecológico Insurgente: limites e potenciais do direito como instrumento para uma transição ecossocial justa

Abstract This article provides a constructive critique of Ecological Law, which has been proposed as a framework to overcome Environmental Law’s subordination to economic growth and profit maximization in disregard for socioecological justice and biophysical planetary boundaries. The article critiques Ecological Law literature for its normativist positivist approach, which neglects to analyze law as a product of power relations and as a social form of capitalism, and for overestimating law’s potential to transform the political economy. Additionally, the article addresses the shortcomings of the degrowth discourse, one of the bedrocks of Ecological Law. Finally, drawing on Pressburger and Pazello’s conceptualization of Insurgent Law and literature on the praxis of movement lawyering in Brazil, the article proposes guidelines for an Insurgent Ecological Law. This approach combines Marxist critique of law with contributions to the strategic reflections of popular movements on their use of legal tactics as part of their struggles for a post-capitalist ecosocial transition.

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.

Full employment as a condition of crisis: Kalecki’s Marxian critique of Keynes and the Fabians (1942–45)

Abstract Between 1942 and 1945, Kalecki emphasised the incompatibility between capitalism and full employment. Rather than stabilising market economies, full employment would have triggered social conflict by providing self-confidence amongst the workers and the lower strata of society. Accordingly, in any program of social transformation, the initial condition that had to be established was (guaranteed) full employment and economic security for workers to alter the game’s rules. Like Marx, full employment of resources became a condition of crisis in a capitalist economy. Upon this premise, Kalecki rejected both Keynes’s and the Fabians’ views, according to which full employment was essentially a technical operation to be achieved by intellectual persuasion and some basic control. The emphasis on persuasion implied an overestimation of the role of economic theory, meant as a method of moulding ideas and opinions of the country leaders. On the other hand, the lack of institutional analysis implied that full employment became a mere tool to guarantee capitalism’s correct functioning. Kalecki’s stance reflected his different background, both methodological and political.

The ideological decline of Brazilian economic thought in the context of the business-military dictatorship and the crisis in the diffusion of Marxist criticism

This article aims to describe the process of ideologization of brazilian economic thought initiated by the offensive of the business-military dictatorship and which has materialized today both in stricto sensu neoliberalism and in its variants, such as the case of the so-called neodevelopmentalism, as well as pointing out the challenges of marxism to consolidate itself as the positive overcoming of the Brazilian Political Economy.

The representation of unconventional physician in alexander pope's memories of martinus scriblerus

This paper examines Alexander Pope's Memoirs of The Extraordinary Life, Works, and Discoveries of Martinus Scriblerus (1741) with a central focus on portraying the main character as an unconventional physician. Alexander Pope recognizes the existence of two distinctive consciousness; he aims to awaken society from what is perceived as false consciousness through the main character’s different consciousness. The author presents the main character as an unconventional physician who explores the traces of the imposed social and cultural norms behind the physical and mental illnesses that are inflicted on the population in the fictional society in the story. The physician attempts to cure these diseases by rectifying the impact of societal norms on the individual, considering them the leading causes that hinder an individual’s true authenticity. The article attempts to employ a Marxist criticism approach, specifically relying on the Surplus Value theory, to investigate the source of false consciousness that inflicted the society. Moreover, the theory serves to underscore the economic dimension of false consciousness, emphasizing that the distortion of true identity is not merely a cultural or ideological phenomenon but is deeply intertwined with the economic relations within society. By embracing the dominant values and failing to recognize their role as the primary producers of surplus value that perpetuates a system that inherently disadvantages them, Pope aims to awaken the population. The article concludes that the main character, advocating for individual liberation from false consciousness, supports the idea that two distinctive types of consciousness exist. Also, it concludes that the main character, as a holder of class consciousness, emerges as a symbolic dissenter and, through his treatments, rejects the dominant culture, perceiving it to be the reason that hinders the individual’s self-realization and authenticity. Also, it concludes that the main character is involved in a conflict with the broader society, leading him to be isolated and feel a lack of belonging due to his different consciousness.

Amid the Alien Corn: Capitalism and Animal Life

Abstract This essay considers the multiple, and often conflicting, ways in which capitalism may be said to have impacted on animal experience. Capitalism has intensified a perennial division in human culture between instrumental and affective responses to animals. In their engagement with animals, left and Marxist critics of capitalism have either ignored animals or argued for naturalist and anti-humanist positions of a kind carried over into the contemporary post-humanist paradigm, with its emphasis on human-animal affinities and continuities. I, by contrast, put the case for grounding a more animal-friendly eco-politics in recognition of what is distinctive to human beings, both as agents of environmental crisis and as alone in a position to take action to counter it. In the process, I point to some ways to improve the experience of animals in a post-capitalist society and consider the problems they might encounter.

The Ground Rent Machine: The Story of Race, Housing Inequality, and Dispossession in Baltimore, Maryland

In Baltimore, Maryland, more than 55,000 homes—roughly 30 percent of all residential plots—are subject to ground rent, a legacy of British feudal property law. Under this landlord–tenant system, the homeowner makes payments to the ground leaseholder, who maintains rights to the land. During the early 2000s, many Baltimoreans fell behind on their ground rent due to recessionary headwinds and were “ejected” from their homes as leaseholders took ownership (as collateral). Maryland lawmakers responded by passing housing protections in 2007, but several laws were overturned by the courts (Corma 2017). Using census and ground rent administrative data, we map the geography of ground rent in Baltimore. Our results reveal that originally a tool of class dispossession, ground rent became racialized in the 1950s and 1960s and today overwhelmingly affects Black communities and low-income households. Drawing on work by critical Marxist geographers, work on the production of decline, anti-Blackness, and property relations theory, we rely on a critical quantitative framework to illustrate how people, place, power structures, and relationality produce the pernicious and predatory “ground rent machine.” Telling the story of ground rent—a largely underexplored topic—illustrates how local racialized property regimes shape the geography of urban segregation and urban inequality.

Hegel's Theory of Finite Cognition and Marx's Critique of Political Economy

Abstract The article examines the role of Hegel's theory of finite cognition in Marx's critique of classical political economy. I argue that Hegel's distinction of finite cognition between analytic and synthetic in the Science of Logic constitutes the methodological framework through which Marx delineates the different stages of the development of political economy. Focusing on the Grundrisse, I reveal the Hegelian influence behind Marx's statements on previous political economists’ methods. Thus, Marx's immanent critique of the classical political economy is construed as undertaken from the level of the systematic dialectical method of Capital, and is modelled on Hegel's immanent critique of analytic and synthetic cognition from the perspective of absolute cognition. In this context, and focusing on Marx's critique of Ricardo's method, I argue that the latter's limitations are associated with the deficiencies of synthetic cognition as presented by Hegel. Therefore, the article sheds light on an important yet underexplored topic of the Hegel-Marx relationship. By indicating the centrality of Hegel's theory of finite cognition in Marx's methodological underpinnings, the article provides a new perspective on Hegel-Marx scholarship.

A Contemporary Marxist Critique of Neoliberal Capitalism: Beyond Revolution and Neo-Keynesianism

ABSTRACT The aim of the study is to assess current trends, regularities and contradictions in the Marxist critique of neoliberal capitalism. The methodology of the study is built on a comparative analysis of the latest scientific works, an approach based on quantitative analysis of the global neoliberal development in the period 1980–2020. For the analysis this authors used the data of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund(IMF) on the group of ‘Big Seven’ countries – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, the United States and China. A comparative analysis shows a significant lag in the countries with a neoliberal model of global economic growth. It can be argued that the neoliberal model of economic development proved effective at the initial stage of its practical application in overcoming the inflationary shock caused by the oil crisis of the 1970s, as well as in the conditions of highly competitive industrial production. At the same time, in the context of the post-industrial formation of the digital economy, neoliberal ideology no longer meets the challenges of the times and is no longer able to support sustainable economic growth as well as prosperity.

New cold war or ‘world civil war’? Wertkritik and the critical theory of capitalism in an age of conflict

This article explores the contribution of Wertkritik, a contemporary tendency in German critical Marxist thought, to the theorisation of capitalism, and in particular its relationship with geopolitical conflict and war. Against traditional Marxist and liberal determinism, Wertkritik emphasises how the rationally organised ‘forces of production’ do not motivate the historical development of capitalism, but rather the forces of destruction. This article suggests that Wertkritik illuminates contemporary capitalist development insofar as it lays bare how the apparent ‘post-neoliberal’ turn to state-driven industrial policy is motivated less by a drive to unleash the productive forces in pursuit of a more dynamic or green economy and more by the management of the unfolding destructive forces represented in the new forms of conflict and competition arising between warring military and economic powers. The explanation this offers of the cultural dynamics shaping a context of authoritarian convergence provides vital materials towards a critical theory of a capitalism conditioned by increasing geopolitical tensions. Offering the concept of a ‘world civil war’ as an alternative to the rationalisations inherent in prevailing notions of a ‘new’ or ‘second’ cold war, this theorisation also offers pointers for an emancipatory praxis attuned to the current context.

Digitalisation Today as the Capitalist Appropriation of People’s Mental Labour

This paper deals with the question of how the process of digitalisation on the technical basis of the computer can be described in Marxist categories and what consequences are foreseeable as a result. To this end, the first section shows, based on a historical analysis of the emergence of the computer, that this apparatus was invented as an instrument of a division of human mental labour and thus complementary to the division of physical labour. It is therefore necessary to analyse computers and digitalisation in their relation to human beings and human labour. In the second section, the central ideology of digitalisation is elaborated, which is supposed to make the current form of digitalisation appear meaningful for people and society: The anthropomorphisation of the computer, which was said to be increasingly able to think, speak, and learn like humans, to become more and more intelligent, and to be able to do everything better than humans once the technical singularity had been reached. This claim, which has been propagated again and again, is contradicted on various levels. The computer operates on about two dozen simple mathematical, logical, and technical commands and can do nothing but run one programme at a time, developed and entered by programmers on the basis of behavioural or physical data. This sometimes produces amazing results because the computer can work quickly and systematically as well as reliably. But in contrast to humans, it faces the world as a behaviouristic machine that can neither understand meaning nor reflect its own or human behaviour. The computer also ”sees” and ”hears” its environment only on a physical basis and it ”thinks” at best on a statistical basis if the programme tells it to do so. The apparatus can therefore simulate mechanical machines, but in interaction with humans its actions and reactions are, as any machine, not socially oriented, but dependent on whether humans interpret them as meaningful und useful. The third section elaborates on the complementarity of mental and physical divisions of labour. This would be a central theme of a critical Marxism for an analysis of digitalisation today, which understands the previous capitalism from the division of physical labour. Even though there are some theoreticians who have contributed to this, so far there is no comprehensive theory of it. Therefore, section 4 wants to contribute to such a theory by collecting empirical observations in an interpretive way regarding the related questions. In this way, it becomes clear how the division of people's intellectual labour made possible by the computer is being dealt with today: Capitalism is reorganising more and more areas of human life such as mobility, social relations, education, medicine, etc. through the use of the computer. As a result, first and foremost the business fields of the digital economy are expanding. Moreover, capitalism no longer has to limit itself to controlling the field of production but is increasingly intervening in the whole symbolic world of people. Consequently, according to the thesis, we are heading for an expanded capitalism that will increasingly restrict and reduce both democracy and people's self-realisation. Section 5 emphasises once again that a different digitalisation is also possible, one that serves humanity and not capitalism. Further, some summarising and comments are added there.

Housing, debt, and credit score classification situations: what the unique ‘situation’ of mortgage prisoners reveals about contemporary class inequality

ABSTRACT The expansion of debt-leveraged homeownership in Anglo-capitalist economies – including the US, UK, and Australia – has created powerful stratifying effects, which prevailing critical Marxist and asset-based stratification accounts assert are reconfiguring class inequalities. While the Marxist account contends that altered class relations are centred on bifurcations between creditors and debtors, the asset-based one constructs typologies of differing relationships to asset ownership. This paper challenges this for insufficiently acknowledging the role of classificatory credit scoring systems within credit markets in unequally shaping access to debt and subsequently, housing; and the interest-bearing consequences. Drawing on a qualitative case study of 28 interviews with ‘mortgage prisoners’, existing borrowers unable to remortgage even if up to date with payments, and proceeding in close conversation with Fourcade and Healy's notion of ‘classification situations’, I examine how mortgage prisoners’ credit score situation impacts their capacity to (re)access debt-leveraged housing. The results demonstrate: mortgage prisoners’ credit score situation dominates their experience of homeownership; many are hyperaware of their credit score and internalise its moralistic valuation; and some are resigned to or defeated by its apparent impermeability. Examining the mortgage prisoners’ case enhances critical Marxist and asset-based accounts by highlighting the complexity of financialised housing systems and how it impacts stratification and life chances.

Capitalism as “the best of all possible worlds”: a marxist critique of Boaventura de Sousa Santos' postmodern political thought

The general aim of this work is to critically analyse certain conceptions and political positions of Boaventura de Sousa Santos on the problems of Western modernity and postmodernity. For the Portuguese sociologist, Western modernity is going through an unprecedented crisis of civilisation that can be identified through three fundamental dimensions: the epistemological dimension (the problem of Western scientific knowledge), the theoretical dimension (the problem of the Marxist theory of social emancipation) and the political dimension (the problems of the liberal social contract, social fascism and the disunity of left-wing forces). Postmodernity, however, represents the possibilities and opportunities for overcoming that crisis in view of the epistemological (the ecology of knowledge), theoretical (the new emancipatory political culture) and political (high-intensity democracy) renewals that are underway. The main hypothesis to be presented is that Boaventura Santos' political conceptions and positions – in parallel with his limited understanding of Marxism, the main interlocutor and target of his often mistaken criticism – correspond to the postmodern ideology, which can be characterised, according to Marxism, by epistemological scepticism, contempt for history and political defeatism. In this vein, the theoretical framework adopted here necessarily comes from Marxism, understood, according to Michael Löwy, as a social worldview, that is, an organic, articulated and structured set of values, representations, ideas and cognitive orientations about man in his relationship with nature, society and history, internally unified by a determined perspective and a certain socially conditioned point of view.

From Image to Flesh in a World Seen from the South

This interview with the intellectual historian Gary Wilder explores the philosophical and methodological theses in his overall work, particularly focusing on his 2022 book Concrete Utopianism. The conversation explores such themes as relationships among solidarity, filiality, and freedom; the forces and fears of normative claims; the definition of an image; and the place of the flesh in a critical Marxism, among others. This is the second conversation in a series initiated by Salma Shamel (PhD candidate at New York University) with anthropologists, historians, philosophers, and media theorists whose work is located at the intersection of intellectual history, critical theory, and historical change.

“Grim, metal darlings”

Abby Scribner, “‘Grim, metal darlings’: The Automated Women of Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley” (pp. 257–285) In this essay, I argue that Charlotte Brontë’s industrial novel Shirley details the consequences of the Marxist critique of industrial subjectivity in the feminized domestic and sexual realms. It does so by showing how structures of repetition—familiar from many accounts of mechanized male subjectivity in the mid-Victorian period—shape the subjective forms of three of its female characters: Caroline Helstone, the domestic woman; Miss Mann, the old maid; and Mrs. Pryor, the mother. By focusing on female automatons in a novel putatively about the Luddite riots, Shirley introduces a tension into its own conservative ideal of the domestic sphere as the compensatory counterpart to the world of work. Despite its overt adherence to paternalism as the solution to social unrest, the novel gestures at an understanding of the home as a space that partakes of one of the major structures of capitalist modernity—repetition as dehumanizing, dysfunctional, and exploitative.