Marxist Concept Research Articles

What’s new in the new ideology critique?

I argue that contemporary accounts of ideology critique—paradigmatically those advanced by Haslanger, Jaeggi, Celikates, and Stanley—are either inadequate or redundant. The Marxian concept of ideology—a collective epistemic distortion or irrationality that helps maintain bad social arrangements—has recently returned to the forefront of debates in contemporary analytic social philosophy. Ideology critique has similarly emerged as a technique for combating such social ills by remedying those collective epistemic distortions. Ideologies are sets of social meanings or shared understandings. I argue in this paper that because agents must coordinate on them to be mutually intelligible, ideologies, on the fashionable contemporary account, are conventions. They are equilibrium solutions to a particular kind of social coordination problem. The worry is that changing pernicious conventions requires more than the epistemic remedy contemporary critical social theorists prescribe. It also requires overcoming strategic impediments like high first-mover costs. Thus contemporary proponents of ideology critique—the “new ideology critics,” as I’ll call them—face a dilemma. Either their account of social change fails to account for important strategic impediments to social change, in which case it is inadequate, or it incorporates a theory of strategic behavior, and thus merely reinvents the wheel, poorly. It adds nothing to prominent convention-based accounts of social change in the social sciences. More generally, this is an example of a pernicious trend in contemporary critical social theory. Contemporary critical social theorists have abandoned their predecessors’ commitment to engaging with social science, thereby undermining their efforts.

History, Co-Evolution and Economic Growth

This paper attempts to present a theory of economic growth. In Section I it discusses the experience of growth modelling over the past 40 years and argues that it fails to capture the most important features of institutional and technical change. Nevertheless as a method for ordering concepts it can be a useful complement to historical research. The problem with history is the almost infinite multitude of events, which have to be classified, described and analysed. A simplifying theoretical framework is essential and inevitable. Section II tentatively presents such a simplifying classificatory framework. It argues that five historical processes or sub-systems of society have been shown by historical research to be relatively autonomous although interacting major influences on the process of economic growth. These five overlapping sub-systems are science, technology, economy, politics and general culture. Each of these is briefly defined. Humans share with other animals the natural which can also powerfully and reciprocally influence economic growth. The other five historical processes each have their own partly autonomous environment and are uniquely human, which is one reason why biological evolutionary analogies have limited value. Although each of the five has its own distinctive features and relative autonomy, it is their interdependence and interaction which provides major insights into the processes of ahead, catching up and falling behind in economic growth. Positive congruence and interaction between them provides the most fertile soil for growth, while lack of congruence may prevent growth altogether, or slow it down. Although a satisfactory theory of economic growth should help us to understand the evolution of the world economy much better, the limits of forecasting and prediction in the social sciences should be clearly recognised. Popper was surely right in maintaining that the most important historical changes are qualitative and non-repetitive. The fact that we can predict eclipses does not mean that we can predict revolutions. Section III discusses the problem of non-recurrence for the social sciences. Section IV takes a major example to illustrate the theory which has been tentatively advanced -- the archetypal example of forging ahead in the British Industrial Revolution in the late 18th Century. It briefly discusses a dozen or so major features of this revolution as identified by historians and suggests that together they justify the notions of confluence and congruence between science, technology, economy, politics and culture as a plausible explanation of the leap ahead in economic growth then achieved for the first time in world history. Section V then discusses British falling behind in the late 19th Century and 20th Century and suggests that this can probably be explained in terms of loss of congruence between the five sub-systems of British society. The rise of new increasingly science-based technologies and of specialised professional management in large corporations fitted ill with some of the older now traditional British political and social institutions. After a brief discussion of the more deliberate processes of catching up the paper concludes by pointing out that the theory put forward here resembles many earlier explanations of economic growth. Marx's materialist conception of history stressed the tensions between forces of production, relations of production and superstructure as a source of social and political change or of stagnation in economic growth. Many other historians and economists (e.g. Veblen, Mokyr, von Tunzelmann, Galbraith, Perez) have stressed in particular the inter-action between technical change and organisational change within firms, as well as political and institutional change at other levels in society. This paper differs from most of them and from Marx's theory in two respects. First, it attaches greater importance to science and to general culture. In this it resembles the theories of Needham and Bernal. Secondly, it does not attempt to assign primacy in causal relationships to any one of the five spheres, whereas most other theories assign primacy to technology or the economy or both. It emphasises rather the relative autonomy of each of the five spheres, based on the division of labour and each with its own selection environment. It is this co-evolution which generates the possibility of mis-match between them and periodically of radical institutional innovations which attempt to restore harmonious development. Such harmony however is not necessarily favourable to economic growth, which is not the only objective pursued by human beings. Congruence which is favourable to economic growth must be distinguished from other types of congruence.

Justice and Revolution in K. Marx’s Social Philosophy

The article deals with the relationship between the terms "justice" and "revolution" by K. Marx. According to some researchers, there is no the idea of justice in K. Marx's writings. The article proves that in the origins of creativity, as well as in Marx's early biography, there is an indication of his connection with the issue of justice. Marx writes about justice only in "Poverty of Philosophy" and "Capital". All the main quotations from the Karl Marx's writings, where the term "justice" is mentioned, are given and analyzed. As a result of the analysis, it is concluded that if justice is understood as an idea related to the distribution of social benefits, as a justification of a sociocultural order, then it becomes obvious that a discourse on justice is present in Marx's works.Although Karl Marx spoke negatively about the very idea of justice, in his philosophy revolution is nothing but a transition from the capitalist order to the communist one, that is, a necessary means of real justice. K. Marx's communism implicitly represents an "ideal" expression of justice. It is based on the Marxist concept of the true nature of man and his needs, that is, a definite picture of what should be - what isman and what, therefore, society must be if it wants to correspond to this true nature of man. At the same time, the most important modern socio-political term "inclusion" does not make much sense in a Marxist perspective. Class conflict involves class antagonism and cannot be considered in the category of inclusion. Thus, revolution as a way to achieve true justice represents, in terms of Ranciere, genuinely political action.

Non-specific low back pain and its relation to the nursing work process.

Objectiveto relate nonspecific low back pain within the nursing work context with their workloads, attrition processes and the risks of illness.Methoda cross-sectional study with 301 workers from a general hospital in the south of the country. The Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire and the Work Context Assessment Scale composed of three dimensions were used: working conditions, work organization and socio-professional relations. The association of variables with low back pain was tested using bivariate and multivariate analyzes. The measure of association used was the Odds Ratio and its respective intervals with 95% confidence. The data collected were discussed under the theoretical framework of the work process within the marxist conception and the theory of social determination of the health-disease process.Resultsthere was a statistically significant association between the dimensions of work organization and working conditions with low back pain and they obtained a critical classification meaning moderate risks to the professional illness.Conclusionthe study allowed a better understanding of the nursing work process and its relation with nonspecific low back pain and signaled that changes in the organization and working conditions should occur in order to reduce the risks of nursing workers’ illness.

“Marxism” versus Hegelianism-Engelsism-Stalinism

Dialectical materialism, which became the standard designation of the “official theory” of state-based Marxism, has almost nothing to do with Karl Marx's materialist conception of history. It is contentious to suggest that there is an “authentic” or “good” Marx underneath all of the false readings and applications—that “the man” Marx wrote texts that were emancipatory, and that “bad readers,” beginning with Friedrich Engels and Karl Kautsky, transformed the theory into something totalitarian—but it should not be. There is a growing movement that sees the work of Engels as the true theoretical basis of “Marxism,”1 and key Marxists themselves all but…

Between Defectological Narratives and Institutional Realities: The "Mentally Retarded" Child in the Soviet Union of the 1930s.

This article analyzes the gap between the defectological narrative of care and the reality of institutional life for children with learning disabilities in the Soviet Union of the 1930s. It shows that, under Stalin, the Soviet discipline of defectology entailed a promise of correction and social integration that aligned well with the official rhetoric of triumphant socialism and that incorporated new, specific ideological meanings into its long-standing narrative of care. I also show that the defectological narrative was rarely realized in practice due to not only scarce material resources but also a profound reversal of defectological and Marxist conceptions of labor. By analyzing the disconnect between rhetoric and reality in the treatment of "mentally retarded" children in prewar Stalinism, this article contributes to a deeper understanding of the Soviet system and ideology of care.

Cuban Democracy in the Speeches of Fidel Castro, 1959–1976

Fidel Castro developed an idea of democracy as a legitimate alternative to American democracy. At the dawn of the Cuban revolution Castro was careful enough to avoid Marxist concepts in his speeches, but after the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 Castro embraced socialism as the ideology of the revolution. Then the concept of dictatorship of the proletariat became the core of Castro's idea of democracy. In this context, the opposition between democracy and dictatorship disappeared. The dictatorship of the proletariat became working class democracy. Thus, according to Castro, the political participation of Cuban masses in the revolutionary process gave the Cuban project an inescapable democratic character. In 1976 the revolutionary government reinforced the socialist character of the Cuban state through the promulgation of a new constitution. Through this constitution the Cuban state embraced formal elections. Paradoxically, after embracing formal elections in 1976, the revolution lost popular power from below and actually became less democratic.

Šta se dogodilo sa estetikom i umetnošću u prethodnih 100 godina? - Protivrečnosti i antagonizmi - ratovi teorija!

The subject of my paper is the dynamic and transformational relations between aesthetics and art from 1919 to 2019. The first problem to be discussed will be the relationship between art and politics at the Bauhaus and art institutes of the Soviet avant-garde. Next, I will point to differences in Marxist concepts of socialist realism and critical theory on modern culture and art. I will analyse the relationship between the concept of the autonomy of art, especially painting and minimal art. A comparison will be derived between anti-art (Dada, NEO-Dada) and anti-philosophy (Friedrich Nietzsche, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jacques Lacan). I will highlight approaches from analytical meta-aesthetics to the interpretation of Duchamp's readymade, deriving a theory of art in conceptual art. Special attention will be paid to the "theoretical conflicts" between phenomenology and structuralism, as well as poststructuralism. I will conclude my discussion by identifying the "aesthetic condition" in relation to "contemporary art" (feminist, activist, political, ecological, participatory, and appropriative art). The aim of my discussion will be to highlight the character of modern and contemporary aesthetics in relation to art theory, by way of diagrammatic reflection on the binaries, differences, and reconstructions of dialectics.

Prayers of the Precariat? The Political Role of Religion in Precarious Times

Este artigo apresenta e discute o uso de Guy Standing do conceito “precariato” e sua possível utilidade ao analisar o papel da religião nas atuais crises políticas. Combinando o conceito clássico marxista do “proletariado” com várias experiências de precariedade num mundo globalizado como exclusão social, trabalho de tempo parcial ou inseguro, e migração, o termo “precariato” é apresentado como uma ferramenta socioanalítica sugestiva. O uso de Standing desse neologismo, porém, também é criticado, em particular, por apontar certos grupos sociais como “perigosos”, assim indiscutivelmente revelando um viés implícito, eurocêntrico e colonizador. Nem Standing nem seus críticos abordam o papel da religião em um relacionamento com o precariato. Portanto, referindo-se ao trabalho sociológico de Inglehart e Norris sobre a crescente relevância da religiosidade nas condições precárias de vida, este artigo coloca o desafio de analisar de que maneiras tipos diferentes de religiosidade (fundamentalista, carismático, libertacionista) podem ser vistos como afetando os processos políticos e de precariato para superar a precarização.

O trabalho estranhado no espelho da Taberna Minhota:

A partir do conto O ex-mágico da Taberna Minhota, o presente estudo apresenta uma análise da narrativa de Murilo Rubião, reconhecidamente como um dos únicos escritores brasileiros dedicado ao gênero fantástico, na perspectiva do realismo conceituada por György Lukács. Seguindo a lógica materialista histórica do reflexo estético, o artigo pretende, de um lado, demonstrar a representação literária da unidade contraditória entre aparência e essência da realidade brasileira, na época da expansão do trabalho industrial na década de 1930-40, mediada pelo conceito marxiano de trabalho estranhado, a partir da reificação e fetichização da vida, e, de outro lado, mostrar que as condições históricas podem exigir, para a construção do verdadeiro realismo, uma construção estética fantástica.

A ideologia do agronegócio na educação básica

O agronegócio tornou-se uma realidade no campo brasileiro desde a década de 1990. Porém, sua atuação não se limita à produção e comercialização de mercadorias em nível internacional. Nesse sentido, partindo do conceito marxista de ideologia como representação das relações sociais de produção e componente da luta de classes, com interferências materiais na reprodução das relações de produção, analisamos o agronegócio como expressão ideológica da classe dominante. Trazemos argumentos do discurso do agronegócio e sua utilização no programa educacional ‘Agronegócio na Escola’, desenvolvido pela Associação Brasileira do Agronegócio na região de Ribeirão Preto-SP. Os resultados mostram a importância da educação como instrumento ideológico para internalizar na consciência dos sujeitos, desde a infância, a importância social do agronegócio, garantindo a reprodução das relações de produção.

Verkehr, or Subversive Mobility: Recovering Radical Transportation Geographies from Language

This article theorizes subversive mobility by looking at the layers of meaning connoted by a set of etymologically complex words in several languages. I examine at how the semantics of words like Verkehr (German), “filibuster” (English), Yangjingbang (Shanghainese vernacular), and others, convey human experiences of physical mobility and political subversion as interconnected. This discussion is both philological and historical-geographic in orientation, using etymological inquiry to recover transportation geographies and worlds of social meaning which have become marginalized or hidden. The discussion also provides context for an analysis of the importance of not only subversive mobility but also enduring, “archaic” forms of social energy in Karl Marx's dialectical conception of history, especially towards the end of his life.

All Solid-State Rectangular Sub-Microsecond Pulse Generator for Water Treatment Application

Low-temperature plasma with reactive species including the hydroxyl radical is found very effective for the degradation of many pharmaceuticals and macromolecular organic matter in wastewater. The most efficient way is to excite plasma directly in the wastewater using high-voltage sub-microsecond pulses which prevents the corona discharges developing into arc discharges. Recently, plasma generated with high-voltage pulses of only several hundred nanosecond durations has been found to be especially efficient. Therefore, an all solid-state sub-microsecond pulse generator prototype based on the Marx concept is constructed, with MOSFET power semiconductor devices. This pulse generator is able to generate rectangular pulses with adjustable durations in impedance-varying wastewater. The sub-microsecond signals are generated by field-programmable gate array, and simulations of the driving circuits are carried out to optimize the driving signals so as to trigger the switches synchronously in a few nanoseconds. First, experiments show that sub-microsecond pulses with amplitudes over 7 kV and a minimum pulse duration of about 100 ns can be generated. Both rise time and fall time are about 22 ns. Pulse frequency up to 30 kHz is achieved. Besides, most of these parameters can be adjusted. The pulse generator itself is compact and portable.

American Normal: Situated Theory and American Anthropological Knowledge Production

AbstractKey social scientific concepts are based in local theories particular to the North Atlantic, and the United States especially, and have been exported by anthropologists to analyze diverse ethnographic contexts despite the lack of interrogation of their status as local, American theories. In this article, I address this situation by focusing on the elaboration of American normalcy in its present moment, dependent upon a lay reconfiguration of “ideology,” “hegemony,” and “history.” In advancing this analysis, I focus on popular media journalism and its analysis of the Trump presidency. My approach is bifocal, at once focusing on the history of these Marxian concepts while attending to their permutations in the present. Focusing on these concepts and their relation to ideas of the individual and institutions opens up possibilities for the symmetrical analysis of knowledge production practices and everyday actions of popular and expert communities, and lays the foundation for the cultural anthropology of the U.S. to critique contemporary U.S. politics as well as social science knowledge production and its circulation.

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.

Double bind in loan access in China: the reification of gender differences in business loans

PurposeThis paper aims to examine gender differences in credit access and credit default.Design/methodology/approachUsing panel data drawn from 917 valid credit borrowers covering the period 2012 to 2015 drawn from among 6,849 study subjects and a national household financial survey (n = 29,500) conducted in China, this study focuses on gender differences in small and micro entrepreneurs’ financial behavior, specifically with respect to credit access and credit default.FindingsThe study revealed the following: Women expressed having more barriers to obtaining a business loan than men; gender had a significant effect on women’ credit default; and women were less likely to default a loan than male loan borrowers did. An exploration of the reasons for credit access and default found that female loan applicants were more likely to display a lack of knowledge and confidence in loan application.Originality/valueThe study contributes to literature by using the Marxian concept of reification in explaining women and their financial behaviors in China.

MARX'S CONCEPT OF MAN IN MUSLIM SCHOLARS PERSPEKTIVE

This paper analyzed the human concept according to Marxism in the view of Muslim thinkers. This paper was made because of the reading of material-based Marxist concepts and out from the transcendent elements, including in view of human beings. For this reason Marxism is very necessary to be seen from the perspective of human concepts according to Muslim thinkers who are represented by groups of Muslim philosophers and groups of mufassir. The results of this result showed that the main different and criticism of Marxism is his thinking that humanity is the result of his own creation based on materials. This refers to the idea of man-centered, autonomous, physical-biological man, without sou. Human life depends on maerials,it does not depend on things which are supernatural like God so that man must be united with nature. Marx's view of man is very different from the concept of man according to Muslim thinkers. According to them, man was created by his Lord and deeply connected with God. Besides they have physical elements, humans also have elements of the soul or nafs which very dependent on God. Humans made the Khalifah to control nature as a medium of worship to God.

ASSET INEQUALITY, ECONOMIC VULNERABILITY AND RELATIONAL EXPLOITATION

Abstract:In response to Roemer's reformulation of the Marxian concept of exploitation in terms of comparative wealth distributions (1982, 1996), Vrousalis (2013) treats economic exploitation as an explicitly relational phenomenon in which one party takes advantage of the other's economic vulnerability in order to extract a net benefit. This paper offers a critical assessment of Vrousalis's account, prompting a revised formulation that is analysed in the context of a matching and bargaining model. This analysis yields precise representations of Vrousalis's conditions of economic vulnerability and economic exploitation and facilitates comparison to the alternative conceptions of Marx and Roemer.

Capitalism in Tourism – Marxist: Analysis of Enjoy Jakarta

Enjoy Jakarta is a new slogan from Provincial Government of DKI Jakarta to promote tourism in Jakarta. Through the tagline of Enjoy Jakarta, the Provincial Government of DKI Jakarta through the Department of Tourism and Culture wants to retail Jakarta as an attention-grabbing city to visit. Based on the website www.jakarta-tourism.go.id, there are all recommendations regarding with tourism in Jakarta, ranging from history and culture of Jakarta, events, destinations, to brochures and electronic guidebooks, which can be downloaded. It is fascinating to see on how content from the Enjoy Jakarta website sells countless capitalist products, such as in destination categories, events, and up to the basic information. This paper performs a critical analysis of “Enjoy Jakarta” tourism by utilizing Marxist analysis method. This analysis is carried out using the Marxist rationale teaching and applying these Marxist concepts to the public art form created by the media. Marxist analysis is done on the content embedded in the website of www.jakarta- tourism.go.id. The results of this study indicate that tourism in Jakarta is displayed in the form of selling products of capitalism. Tourism is identic by shopping at malls, savoring culinary in famous restaurant brands, and various activities organized by the bourgeoisie.

Sraffa’s Constructive and Interpretive Work, and Marx

ABSTRACTThis article provides a summary account of Piero Sraffa’s constructive and interpretive work on the classical approach to the theory of value and distribution and its relationship with Marx’s contributions. It is shown that in the early phase of his constructive work Sraffa developed his equation systems by adopting a ‘physical real cost’ approach and a strictly objectivist point of view, and completely eschewed Marx’s labour-based approach and the related Marxian concepts. Only at a later stage did he explore systematically the relationship between his own modern re-formulation of the surplus approach to the theory of value and distribution and Marx’s contribution. He considered Marx’s most important analytical contribution to the further development of the surplus approach to consist of the re-integration of circular production relations, which allowed him to see the existence of a maximum rate of profits and its role in an analysis of accumulation and technical change.