Marxist Positions Research Articles

Ideological Constitutionalism

A renewed interest in the concept of ideology is evident in recent constitutional theory. Ideology has featured prominently not only in restatements of traditional Marxist positions and attempted retrievals of the material conception of the constitution, but also in democratic critiques of liberal constitutionalism and theories of constitutional identity. The intention of this article is twofold. Firstly, the article defends the explanatory power of a conception of constitutional ideology that is centred on political domination and the ‘universalisation’ of contingent power relations, rather than more diffuse notions like the symbolic construction of reality or worldviews. Secondly, the article considers distinctive ideological dimensions of modern constitutionalism. An analysis of these dimensions, I contend, confirms modern constitutionalism's strong ideological ‘potential’.

ЧТО СВЯЗЫВАЛО ВЛАДИМИРА УЛЬЯНОВА С ПИСАТЕЛЕМ ГЕОРГОМ БРАНДЕСОМ?

One of the documents shedding light on V.I. Ulyanov's (Lenin’s) interest in Marxist, populist and historical literature is his letter dated December 27, 1889, sent by him from Samara to Leipzig to the address of F.A. Brockhaus’ bookselling company to find out the possibility of ordering the literature of interest to him, banned in Russia by censorship, with its subsequent delivery to the addressee. In this letter, Vladimir Ulyanov asks to send him the works of the Danish writer and publicist Georg Brandes. The letter, discovered by German scientists and transferred back in Soviet times to the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU, was published in the Communist magazine with a comment that soon after his arrival in Samara, young V.I. Ulyanov sought to obtain Marxist literature, including in the original language, which was a confirmation of the recollections of relatives and friends that V.I. Lenin already then stood on Marxist positions. But the list of books requested by V.I. Ulyanov also included the writings of Karl Kautsky, populist literature, and books that promoted the activities of populist circles. No comment was given to this circumstance both in Soviet times and by contemporary Russian researchers. This article is devoted to finding out the reasons for its absence.

Disciplina y capitalismo en la genealogía foucaultiana de la modernidad (1973-1975)

The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct Foucault’s reflections on the birth of modernity, paying particular attention to the role of capitalism and discipline within it. The thesis we will defend is that in Foucault’s work in the first half of the 1970s—especially between 1973 and 1975—both dimensions appear as two aspects of the same continuum, thus establishing a necessary link between them. This approach, which contests certain Marxist positions, attempts to reveal that the research on disciplinary power can be conceived as a complement, and not a correction, of the analyses deployed by Marx in Das Kapital.

The Historical Experience of Socialist China and K. Marx’s Theory of Economic Formations

The paper examines the various aspects of the historical experience of the development of socialism with Chinese characteristics. The undoubted success of this experience posed a whole series of fundamentally new problems of a methodological and theoretical nature to the philosophy of history. The paper discusses the attitude to socialism with Chinese characteristics in modern Russian literature. The diversity of existing points of view (liberal, technocratic, socialist) is emphasized. The author researches the noncapitalist path of development of China and demonstrates that the transition to socialism with Chinese characteristics was at the same time a restoration of the national (civilizational) way of development that had been lost earlier as a result of colonial aggression. The author reconsiders the world-systems analysis from the Marxist positions in order to find ways and methods of theoretical combination of formational and civilizational approaches to history. This combination is possible only through the use of world-systems analysis, which reveals a much more complex logic of the historical process in the 21 st century in comparison with the classical Marxist logic of economic formations. The author demonstrates that at least two types of socialism exist. Western, or European, socialism derives from the mature capitalist structures of society. The non-Western socialism inherits the logic of national historical (civilizational) traditions. Nevertheless, the nature of socialism formation is preserved and reproduced there. At the present stage of world development, non-Western socialist countries are able to rationally use the achievements of modern capitalism for its own purposes, especially in the fields of science, technology and management. In the conclusion, the author argues that non-Western socialism has great prospects in the 21 st century for the enhancement of social development and transformation.

„Üks võimsamaid relvi võitluses kodanlise natsionalismi vastu on kindlasti eesti ajalugu…“. Eesti vabariigi perioodi uurimisest Eesti NSV Teaduste Akadeemia ajaloo instituudis aastatel 1946–1950

„Üks võimsamaid relvi võitluses kodanlise natsionalismi vastu on kindlasti eesti ajalugu…“. Eesti vabariigi perioodi uurimisest Eesti NSV Teaduste Akadeemia ajaloo instituudis aastatel 1946–1950

Marxism underground. Latent Marxism in Austrian empirical sociology

The establishment of sociology in Austria in the twentieth century is in many ways connected with Marxism. Numerous sociologists considered themselves as Marxists, thus at least subjectively carrying on with an “underground” Marxism in their sociological work. Others spent considerable energy in distancing themselves sharply from Marxist positions and tried (especially in times of Austrofascism and National Socialism) to banish Marxism underground within the young discipline. This precarious tension continued to exist in the post-war period and shaped the establishment of sociology as an academic discipline in Austria, but remained unproductive. This thematic issue therefore raises the question of the “latency” of Marxist concepts and positions in Austrian empirical sociology and seeks to explore whether the discussion and updating of Marxist positions can stimulate reflection on the conditions of production of sociological knowledge and research.

The question of Arab “identity” in Amin Maalouf’s Les Desorientés

In Les Desorientés (2013), the Lebanese French author Amin Maalouf calls attention to the chaotic conditions in Lebanon since the civil war and in other Arab countries in the aftermath of the “Arab Spring”. This article argues that Maalouf depicts a situation which could be either apocalyptic or promisingly generative. The protagonist, Adam, is an empathetic observer who sustains a dialogue with different types of otherness and identity, including extremist Islamic and Marxist positions. However, this article draws on the ideas of Peter Václav Zima and Edward Said on subjectivity and exilic identity to suggest that Maalouf here portrays an exilic intellectual who falls short of envisioning any “political” programme that might confront oppressive centres of power. Thus Adam’s final coma and his liminal status between life and death can be seen as epitomizing a reluctance to use exilic privilege productively to resist tyranny and affirm the rights of the subjugated.

Dignity and indignation: bridging morality and political economy in contemporary Spain

In the current Spanish conjuncture, characterized by political and economic crisis and the rapid impoverishment of the working classes, we have seen the emergence of moral discourses around indignation and the demand of dignity. While these moral exhortations have rightly been scrutinized with skepticism from Marxist positions for their lack of attention to political economic structures, this paper discusses whether we can find in them elements for what Gavin Smith calls a “revindicative politics,” able to transcend the frame of reference of the society of capital. Exploring the notion of dignity both in the Indignados movement and in my own ethnographic field site of Southern Catalonia—a region where claims to dignity have saturated the sphere of the political for decades—I suggest that the demand for dignity should be understood as an expression of what Ernst Bloch called “nonsynchronous contradictions,” being not entirely reducible to the contemporary workings of capitalist accumulation. Dignity points toward unsettled memories and unfulfilled pasts as well as to a rejection of servile relations and the desire to make sense of oneself outside of the morality of capital. Understanding this demand for dignity forces Marxist anthropologists to look at capital from the “margins,” challenging its centrality. In so doing it also invites us to refine and invigorate our critique of political economy.

Slavoj Žižek on Jacques Derrida, or On Derrida’s Search for a Middle Ground between Marx and Benjamin, and His Finding Žižek Instead

INTRODUCTIONIn what has now become almost a caricature of itself, according to Derrida, the West's systematic rendering of historical dialectics functioned as a movement of mediation between two full presences.1 Derrida's subsequent negation of (the metaphysics of) presence, however, meant that he was also permanently stuck in-between two poles of thought, between, in words that Derrida himself utilized and which I have discussed elsewhere, canonical (representational) forms and their spectral messianic undoing.2 What Derrida pointed toward through such concepts, defined specifically in relation to Hegel, was the recognition of a form of dialectics practiced as a ceaseless interplay between general and restricted economies that yet comes to define our sense of identification (or 'cultural intelligibility') tout court. The entire deconstructionist project, however, often seemed, to many, to hinge upon a decidedly one-sided view of this rather traditionally conceived-but perhaps also misunderstood-dialectics. This is a fact that, in the present instance, continues to draw our attention quite precisely to certain contemporary (Marxist) dialectical thinkers who opposed, and still oppose, Derrida's project, without, I will here suggest, fully comprehending the stakes in terms of what Derrida was actually attempting to perform as a more 'pure critique' of political structures and norms.As Matthias Fritsch has already indicated, Derrida's conceptualization of dialectics in relation to messianicity is somewhat problematized when juxtaposed against his reading of Walter Benjamin, a figure for whom dialectics were not simply to be continued, but brought to a standstill.3 Such a reading of Derrida would, likewise, affect our understanding of Derrida's reading of Benjamin on issues concerning, for example, the role of violence within our world's political representational frameworks (as in his essay Force of Law).4 Recasting Derrida's reading of Benjamin as, indeed, somewhat problematic-because he could not bring dialectics to a standstill as Benjamin had sought to, but only emphasized one end of their operations, the deconstructivist side-might allow us to reread Derrida with a new understanding of the political role of deconstruction.Going even a step beyond this, as I intend to do in what follows, we might also be able to take such an interpretation of Derridean politics as indicative of a larger reading of dialectics as a whole. Indeed, Frederic Jameson's recent criticisms of Derrida, if read alongside Jameson's endorsement of Benjamin, might offer us an insight in this regard, as he presents a certain permanent 'suspension' of dialectics, claiming that there is, in truly following Hegel, no third term to be produced. Jameson, for his part, significantly aligns himself in this regard with Paul Ricoeur, a figure no less indebted to dialectical thinking, but often portrayed as more hermeneutical than his deconstructively-minded former colleague, Derrida.5But, are Ricoeur and Derrida so different after all? That is, is deconstruction not capable of being perceived as a necessary partner in hermeneutical operations through and through? It is in light of such questions that I would ask: to what degree are Jameson's sustained critiques of Derrida yet in line with Derrida's own practice of dialectical methods? Are they as opposed as we often take them to be?Critiques of 'Derrida's politics' from contemporary Marxist positions are nothing new, though the nature and force of their argumentation need to be further analyzed in order to conceive of what stake Derrida will continue to have in our understanding of any political or Hegelian inheritance within the coming decades. In this essay, I seek to advance the conversation between Derrida and his Hegelian-Marxist critics-with Slavoj Zizek's unique reading of Derrida being here foremost among them-in order to ascertain more precisely the framework of debate on dialectics and deconstruction that continues to define our realms of political representation. …

THE 2010ANTIPODERGS‐IBG LECTURE Wars of Interpretations

Abstract: Since 2006, when Mexico's President declared war against the drug trade, the people of the northern Mexican border city, Ciudad Juárez, have been living through a record‐breaking escalation of violence, the occupation of their city by federal troops and police forces, unprecedented human and civil rights violations, and a pervasive experience of fear in public space. These events have occurred simultaneous to a devastating economic crisis. This paper asks the question, how can a feminist and Marxist geographer contribute to an analysis of what is happening in Ciudad Juárez? To address this question, I create a dialogue among activists in northern Mexico and post‐structuralist feminist and Marxist positions regarding the meaning of public fear in this city for the city's residents, for Mexico's democracy and for the making of public knowledge about the Mexico–US border.

Marx, Morality, and the Global Justice Debate

Marx’s disdain for moral discourse is well known, and it is therefore hardly surprising that he barely rates a mention in the global justice debate that has developed apace over the last two decades. However, it is questionable that the debate, addressing as it does systemic inequalities in power, should simply ignore Marx’s analysis of exploitation in capitalism and its implicit ethical grounding in the alienation thesis. Conventional Marxist positions can be critical of liberal arguments about justice, but offer no alternative within moral discourse. However, if the ethical significance of Marx’s social theory is admitted, it could produce a radical and constructive contribution to global justice. This paper argues for such an engagement on two grounds. First, that Marx’s hostility to moral discourse was a tactical choice rather than a rejection of morality as such, and that this choice is no longer justifiable. Second, there is an ethics explicit in his early writings and implicit in his mature political economy that could be developed to produce an ethics of self-realisation. The point of access to existing debates in global justice is the work of Martha Nussbaum, one of the few contributors to make use of Marx’s philosophical views on human flourishing. A Marxist perspective could give qualified support to her capabilities approach, as applied to global justice in Frontiers of Justice (2006), while clarifying its limitations in not dealing with the realities of global economic power.

Left In Space

LEFT IN SPACE Mark Bould and China Mieville (eds), Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction, London, Pluto Press, 2009, 304 pp; £14.50 paperback. The publication of Red Planets was complemented by a panel at the recent Historical Materialism conference in November 2009, chaired by co-editor China Mieville and featuring papers from contributors (and fellow co-editor) Mark Bould, Carl Freedman and Matthew Beaumont, at which the affinity between science fiction and Marxism was forcefully and often eloquently rearticulated. Published as part of the Marxism and Culture series at Pluto Press, series editors Mike Wayne and Esther Leslie comment that science fiction (SF) has generated much interest from Marxists, naturally 'drawn to a genre in which the dynamics between technology, social relations under capital, and the human body are explored and experimented with' (px). Such an affinity runs the risk of being overstated, but there is undoubtedly empathy between SF and the left in general. Whatever the definition of SF or cognate fantastic genres, historically, socialist and anarchist authors have frequently been drawn to SF as means of social critique and commentary. From H. G. Wells and Olaf Stapledon, through to New Wave authors like Michael Moorcock to the New Weird of Mieville himself, the default position for a great many writers in the field has often been on the left. The growth of SF academic criticism itself was initially concurrent with, and arguably owes a debt to, the rise of New Left from the 1960s onward. Red Planets is a timely compendium that looks back to the important work of Fredric Jameson, Raymond Williams and, especially, Darko Suvin, while also seeking to move, unsteadily and with mixed results, beyond what might now be termed classical Marxist positions on SF. This is particularly evident in the choice of contributors, a nicely balanced mixture of widely published and established academics such as Freedman, Andrew Milner and the late William J. Burling, alongside younger scholars such as Bould and Sherryl Vint, who together co-edit the journal Science Fiction Film and Television, which, as the title indicates, marks something of a shift away from the predominately literary focus of much Marxist SF criticism. There is also something of a tension throughout the contributions, all of which share a tendency in attempting to negotiate with the legacy of Suvin' s pioneering if at times restricting critical work, starting with Bould's opening introduction, 'Rough Guide to a Lonely Planet, from Nemo to Neo' and finding its most critical articulation in the persuasive concluding afterword by Mieville. In fact, so pervasive is Suvin's presence that an alternative title for the collection could easily have been After Suvin. Given the enduring status of Suvin's thought within Marxist criticism of SF, a factor freely acknowledged by the editors, his writing in this instance is uncircumventable as all the contributions are positioned in relation to him in one way or another. Suvin co-founded the academic journal Science Fiction Studies [SFS) in 1973, devoted to serious scholarly study of the genre and overtly influenced by the New Left and critical theory. Unsurprisingly, writing from a Marxist perspective, Suvin himself emphasised the radical transformative and Utopian elements in SF, themes taken up by regular SFS contributors Jameson and Freedman among others. SFS remains an important touchstone, even as its remit has expanded to deal with non-literary media and engage with non-Marxist approaches such as postmodernism and feminism. Suvin's other major role, in fact some might argue his primary contribution, has been to proselytise for a global SF, particularly with regards to his promotion of literatures from the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe. Suvin famously defined SF as the 'literature of cognitive estrangement',1 a genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the existence and intersection of cognition and estrangement achieved by the 'narrative dominance or hegemony of a fictional novum [. …

A Titanic Phenomenon: Marxism, History and Biblical Society

Marxist contributions to biblical criticism are far more sustained and complex than many would expect. This critical survey of the state of play, with a look back at the main currents that have led to that state, deals with Marxist contributions to the reconstructions of biblical societies and the interpretation of the literature produced by those societies. It begins by outlining the major Marxist positions within current biblical criticism and then moves on to consider two possible sources of further insight from outside biblical criticism: Western-Marxist studies of the ancient world (Karl Kautsky, Perry Anderson and G.E.M. de Ste. Croix) and the long and neglected tradition of Soviet-era Russian work on the ancient Near East. I conclude by pointing to a number of lingering problems: the unreliability of the literature for historical purposes; the lack of fit between juridical distinctions in the literature and class distinctions in the ancient world; the question as to whether the state can be a class; and the viability of imposing on the ancient world Marxist categories developed in very different situations.

Reinventando a Artigas: Entonces ¿mi nombre suena todavía en mi país?.

La figura de Artigas ha tenido un tratamiento muy diferente a lo largo del tiempo. Denostado duramente en las décadas inmediatas a la independencia y tachado por sus detractores contemporáneos de anarquista y enemigo del orden y de la propiedad, fue reivindicado como héroe nacional cuando Uruguay, hacia finales del s. XIX consolida su independencia, convirtiéndose en símbolo de la Unidad en oportunidad en que los partidos blanco y colorado que estaban enfrentados en guerras civiles. En el s. XX, coincidiendo con la consolidación de la democracia política, son puestos de relieve sobre todo los aspectos de la «Patria Vieja», pero será cuando las posturas marxistas entren en la escena cuando se reformule la imagen de Artigas. Este artículo ofrece una nueva lectura para entender su figura. The figure of Artigas has had a very different treatment over time. Harshly reviled in the immediate decades to independence and branded by his contemporary detractors as an anarchist and an enemy of order and property, he was vindicated as a national hero when Uruguay, towards the end of the s. XIX consolidates its independence, becoming a symbol of Unity at the time that the white and red parties that were faced in civil wars. In the S. XX, coinciding with the consolidation of political democracy, the aspects of the "Old Homeland" are highlighted above all, but it will be when Marxist positions enter the scene that Artigas' image is reformulated. This article offers a new reading to understand your figure.

Mariátegui, the Comintern, and the Indigenous Question in Latin America

Victorio Codovilla, the leader of the Comintern's South American Secretariat, instructed José Carlos Mariátegui, a Peruvian Marxist who had gained a reputation as a strong defender of marginalized Indigenous peoples, to prepare a document for a 1929 Latin American Communist Conference analyzing the possibility of forming an Indian Republic in South America. This republic was to be modeled on similar Comintern proposals to construct Black Republics in the southern United States and South Africa. Mariátegui rejected this proposal, asserting that existing nation-state formation was too advanced in the South American Andes to build a separate Indian Republic. Mariátegui, who was noted for his “open” and sometimes unorthodox interpretations of Marxism, found himself embracing the most orthodox of Marxist positions in maintaining that the oppression of the Indian was a function of their class position and not their race, ethnicity, or national identity. From Mariátegui's point of view, it would be better for the subaltern Indians to fight for equality within existing state structures rather than further marginalizing themselves from the benefits of modernity in an autonomous state. Mariátegui's direct challenge to Comintern dictates is an example of local Party activists refusing to accept Comintern policies passively, but rather actively engaging and influencing those decisions.

American geography and the rise of political geography in Russia

Until the late1980s, political geography was a rather peripheral and exotic field in Soviet geography. The Soviet Union existed in a relative isolation from the outside world, and fluctuations of interest in this field among Western geographers did not significantly affect the Soviet geographical community. In 1984, at the 25th International Geographical Congress in Paris, academician Innokenty Gerasimov (director of the Institute of Geography of the Academy of Sciences in Moscow for 35 years and for a long time the most internationally visible Soviet geographer) objected against the use of the very term 'political geography' in the name of a newly-born IGU study group created on the initiative of a group of British and American geographers led by Ron Johnston. As a result, it was baptized 'study group on the world political map', and in 1988, it became an IGU Commission keeping the same name for years. The reason was a fear of being accused of attempting to revive a discipline which could be associated with German and conservative American geopoltics, stigmatized as 'burgeous pseudo-science'. At the same time, political geography always attracted the attention of leading Soviet geographers, including Gerasimov himself. Characteristically, on his return to his Institute from Paris he made a long report on the results of the congress, stressing the development of political geography and the need to cultivate this field in the USSR. Political geography was promoted by the father-founder of Soviet human geography Nikolai Baransky1 and later by such remarkable figures as Professors Yulian Saushkin, Isaak Maergoiz and Viktor Volsky at Moscow University and Sergei Lavrov at Leningrad University, who tutored students specialized in this field, and published some papers themselves. They tried to find an ideological and institutional justification for the existence of political geography as an autonomous geographical discipline in inventoring politicalgeographical descriptions found in the writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin and they noticed that the basic elements of political geography could be traced from the works of outstanding Russian geographers of the past. In the Universities of Moscow and Leningrad, a number of poltical-geographical dissertations have been undertaken since 1979. All of them were devoted to electoral geography in Western countries, for example Italy, France, USA and Canada. Some general articles giving an idea about the essence and objectives of political geography appeared in geographical journals. Their authors speculated, in particular, about political patterns in developing countries and the political geography of the World ocean, with its strategically important seas and straits. They also tried to summarize and criticize the ideas of Western political geographers. However, until the late1980s political geography did ot take shape as a relevant discipline. Because of ideological constraints, political-geographical studies of the Soviet Union were in fact prohibited, with the partial exception of administrative boundaries. Electoral geography was not related to concrete practical needs. Any extensive reference to works of Western geographers had to include at least formal critical remarks 'from Marxist positions'. In this respect, I remember my first publication in a Wes ern journal. My co-author and I tried to analyze papers submitted to the meeting of the Research Committee on Political Geography at the International Political Science Association's World Congress in Moscow. Publication of our paper became possible only after months of editing. Helpfully, the special committee finally came to conclusion that there was nothing wrong in the article. In one of its section, a well-known American political scientist and geographer was strongly accused of reviving 'the worst traditions of geopolitics', because he considered the mental space of American politicians. We have never discussed it wit him, and he has always been very kind to me. Although it wa my elder co-author who wrote this section, I still feel some fault. I suppose the editors of the journal thought that our contribution was an amazing example of orthodox thinking. Nevertheless, the most interesting theories proposed by American and other Western geographers were known well enough, at least in the most important departments and instites, thanks to the good journal of abstracts published by the All-Union Institute of Scientific and Technical Information and, paradoxically, to the best 'critical' articles as well. A ew era came suddenly and rapidly. Knowledge on ethnic and national identities, borders, and conflicts became really important for politicians and mass media. In lat 1986, the first nationalist manifestation took place in Alma-Ata; it was followed by bloody clashes in NagornoKarabakh and Azerbaijan. Relations between ethnic groups in many other areas were deteriorating quickly. Soon, in late1988, the first quasi-democratic elections were scheduled in March 1989.

Slavery in Early China: A Socio-Cultural Approach

This essay analyzes the nature of slavery in early China from a comparative sociocultural perspective, using the sociological approach of Orlando Patterson (Slavery and Social Death, 1982). Marxist and other theoretical positions are rejected in favor of viewing slaves not as the object of property, but rather seeing that slaves could not be the subject of property. In other words, slaves are “dominated non-persons.” The focus of the inquiry is on interpreting the diverse materials relating to slaves in the Qin legal documents discovered at Shuihudi, Hunan Province, in 1975. Brief consideration is given to other statuses, such as the convict status of lichen and liqie (male and female bondservants), and whether they should be considered slaves or not. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of analyzing early Chinese slavery within its culturally rich context of ritual and cosmological conceptions and practices.

Aesthetics and Marxism: Chinese aesthetic Marxists and their Western contemporaries

Although Chinese Marxism—primarily represented by Maoism—is generally seen by Western intellectuals as monolithic, Liu Kang argues that its practices and projects are as diverse as those in Western Marxism, particularly in the area of aesthetics. In this comparative study of European and Chinese Marxist traditions, Liu reveals the extent to which Chinese Marxists incorporate ideas about aesthetics and culture in their theories and practices. In doing so, he constructs a wholly new understanding of Chinese Marxism. Far from being secondary considerations in Chinese Marxism, aesthetics and culture are in fact principal concerns. In this respect, such Marxists are similar to their Western counterparts, although Europeans have had little understanding of the Chinese experience. Liu traces the genealogy of aesthetic discourse in both modern China and the West since the era of classical German thought, showing where conceptual modifications and divergences have occurred in the two traditions. He examines the work of Mao Zedong, Lu Xun, Li Zehou, Qu Qiubai, and others in China, and from the West he discusses Kant, Schiller, Schopenhauer, and Marxist theorists including Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, and Marcuse. While stressing the diversity of Marxist positions within China as well as in the West, Liu explains how ideas of culture and aesthetics have offered a constructive vision for a postrevolutionary society and have affected a wide field of issues involving the problems of modernity. Forcefully argued and theoretically sophisticated, this book will appeal to students and scholars of contemporary Marxism, cultural studies, aesthetics, and modern Chinese culture, politics, and ideology.

Patronage and the Dramatic Marketplace under Charles I and II

Customarily, the phrase 'patronage of the arts' means the patronal support of individual artists outside of commercialized marketplace transactions. Less often do we define those terms or outline the cultural practices implied by them. The more flaccid analyses of patronal relations recount bare biographical details: so-and-so functioned as the patron to artist X. More vigorous treatments at least indicate the economic and social obligations common to patronage: direct financial support; the exchange of gifts (such as money for a panegyric); appointment to a post (such as an ecclesiastical advowson); or recommendation to someone who can secure such in exchange for social and political allegiance. Usually, though, literary critics back off from the sort of dispassionate investigation into patronage that social scientists and historians have practised for over a decade.2 Suggesting that patronal networks limit individual endeavours or that patronal marketplaces construct literary taste smacks of the overly deterministic, not to mention the sociological. Artistic talent, as we all know, transcends such base considerations; or does it? Several critical books in the last five years have reread Caroline drama with an eye toward politics and patronage, going so far as to argue the cultural production of literature from Marxist or New Historical positions.3 But Restoration studies have remained oddly indifferent to such approaches, even when paying lip service to the generalization that the Restoration stage

The Human Predicament: Society, Institutions, and Individuals

This article is concerned with the role of institutions in organizing the economy and argues with some neoclassical and Marxist positions. The neoclassical approach usually ignores the role of institutions, while its public choice-property rights extensions overemphasize the market solution to market failure problems. The Marxist approach is useful in relating institutions to the conflicts of interest, but tends to be overoptimistic about possibilities of social control of economic activities. A useful way to think about institutions is to regard them as concerning rules and not, primarily, organizations. Institutions define the roles and status of the actors in the economy, and they define the rules of the game that the actors can use in relations among themselves and in their relations with nature.