Marx's Treatment Research Articles

Marx and Alienated Speciesism

In many animal-rights circles, Karl Marx and a long tradition of Marxian theorists are to be faulted for their speciesist treatment of nonhuman animals and the human-nonhuman animal relationship. These criticisms typically neglect the larger historical conditions, intellectual influences, and debates out of which Marx's treatment of the human-animal dialectic arose—even though this is crucial to any meaningful understanding of his thought in this area. In response, this article assesses the historical-intellectual background behind Marx's arguments on humans and animals, placing it in the context of the influence exercised on his thought by Epicurus, Hermann Samuel Reimarus, Ludwig Feuerbach, Charles Darwin, and others. In the process, they explain how Marx's view of animals in the world came to be integrated with his theory of metabolic rift and his critique of capitalism.

New aspects of Marx's economic theory in MEGA: Marx's original six-sector model

ABSTRACTMarx's Reproduction Scheme is widely known as one of the first two-sector economic models in the history of economic theories. However, a close investigation into Marx's original shows that his multi-sectoral analysis contains not (only) two-sector models but six-sector ones, which were totally omitted by Engels in his editing the manuscripts for Capital, Volume II. Taking up two interesting theoretical episodes in the ignored six-sector analysis, this paper attempts to make sense of Marx's treatment on the price of production and the dynamic process of traverse between two equilibria.

Book Review: Marx’s Associated Mode of Production: A Critique of Marxism by Paresh Chattopadhyay

Paresh Chattopadhyay Marx's Associated Mode of Production: A Critique of Marxism, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016; 259 pp.: ISBN 1137579714, 89.50 [pounds sterling] This book, comprising 12 chapters, concerns Marx's idea of human emancipation focusing on labouring people's self-emancipation towards a post-capitalist 'associated mode of production'. As the author points out, in the current conditions of an exacerbated planetary crisis and a growing social and environmental degradation, this emancipatory idea is more relevant than ever before (p. 1). As highlighted in the introductory chapter, 'the idea of human emancipation ... is an abiding message in Marx's writings almost from the beginning of his adult life' (p. 12). Following Marx's (and Engels') work, the author stresses that socialist revolution is not a momentary event, but rather an epochal transformation activated by proletarian struggles over a long period transforming both circumstances and people themselves (p. 6). Contrary to the standard position of the so-called 'twentieth century socialism' (TCS), he also notes that 'just as state is non-existent in Marxian socialism, in the same way, Party is also totally irrelevant in socialism as conceived by Marx and Engels' (p. 7), and that 'there is absolutely no text in Marx's published work where even the slightest mention of this strange figure makes its appearance in a discussion on socialism/communism' (p. 7). Consistent with his previous work, the author characterises these (TCS) regimes as 'state capitalism' (pp. 7, 225), assessing plausibly that 'Marx's socialism has not yet even been tried' (p. 12). In Chapters 2 and 3, the author explores Marx's research practice, leading to a great number of notebooks, from which one can draw valuable insights. Against a notorious ideological reading of the work of Marx and Engels in the past, he pledges for a scientific rather than ideological reading (pp. 52-53), and his is indeed a faithful and yet critical/ non-dogmatic reading of Marx's work. In a brief portrait of post-capitalist society, presented in Chapters 4 and 5, he states that Marx's associated mode of production 'excludes, by definition, state, private ownership of the conditions of production, commodity production, and wage labour' (p. 59). Chapter 6 deals with some feminist critiques of Marx, an alleged 'patriarchal bias', a bias of his value theory as ignoring a gendered division of labour, and the claim that domestic labour is (unfairly) characterised by Marx as unproductive. The author presents sufficient textual evidence from Marx's work to refute such claims or critiques. Chapter 7, concerning the 'Global reach of capital', analyses the spatial expansion of capital, inherent in the capital relation itself. The formation of world market and the role of trade in the global accumulation of capital are more specifically analysed. As pointed out, Marx's treatment of the credit mechanism and the role of money are particularly relevant for analysing the current 'neoliberal' phase of capitalism and the dominant destabilising role of finance capital. In Chapter 8, the author examines Marx's contributions concerning the theory of crisis. Starting with the idea in the Communist Manifesto that the contradiction between the productive forces and the existing capitalist relations is the root cause of crisis, it is further noted that the limits to capitalist production are set by the potential profitability for the capitalist, rather than by the needs of producers. While, for Marx, the possibility of crisis lies in commodity-production itself, its necessity has to do with the fact that, in the process of accumulation, technological progress implies a diminution of the necessary labour time, resulting in an increased mass of surplus appropriation but a decline in the rate of profit (pp. 119-120). As argued, it is the relevance of Marx's treatment of crisis and his analysis of business cycles that explains the Marxian influence on some contemporary (Minskian and post-Keynesian) approaches. …

Economic Foundation and Psychic Determinism: Freud's Views of Marx's Political Economy

Marx's treatment of political economy and conceptual emphasis varies from his early works to later works. The early works give importance to such concepts as alienation, private property and the division of labour, and human emancipation. The later works emphasize on labour power, exploitation, surplus value, profit and capital. However, the central problem for Marx is to transcend the capitalist mode of production through which the possibilities of human emancipation can be contemplated. Marx is convinced that the economic structure would determine all other superstructures which foster bourgeoisie civilization and maintain the class society. Marx did recognize the importance of the non economic factors and his texts imply a reciprocal relation between economic structure and superstructure. Freud's concepts and theories would be useful in interpreting the economic structure as well as the superstructure. Freud does not deny Marx's emphasis on the importance of the economic factor in history. He formally praises Marxism for 'its clear insight into the determining influence which is exerted by the economic condition of man upon his intellectual, ethical, and artistic reactions' (Freud, 1917, 228). But the incompatibility between psychoanalysis and economic determinism arises in the tacit psychological assumptions behind economic determinism that the concrete human needs and drives sustaining economic activity are just what they appear to be and are fully in consciousness; self preservation and pleasure as understood by the utilitarians, summarize the psychological theory implied by the ingenuous invocation of categories like economic necessity and human needs.

Creation and the Critique of Capitalism in Marx, Nancy and Zizek

In light of recent rehabilitations of the theological doctrine of creation ex nihilo by Jean-Luc Nancy, Slavoj Zizek and others, the present essay examines whether that doctrine can or cannot be a resource for the critique of capitalism. Agreeing with Nancy and Zizek that the doctrine can be of use in the critique of capitalism, the essay takes up their discussions and adds to them by analyzing the relationship between the doctrine and Marx's treatment of human agency and capitalism. By situating Marx's philosophy in relation to Aristotle's and Hegel's discussion of the infinite, I contend that, despite Marx's overt rejection of creation ex nihilo, human activity is conceived by him according to it, and that capitalism, as he presents it and as supplemented with Nancy and Zizek, can be understood to be a "decreation" of the worldhood of the world.

The Joint Production Method in the Treatment of Fixed Capital: A Comment on Moseley

This paper re-examines P. Sraffa's ‘References to the literature’ in Appendix D of Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960) on precursors of the joint production method in the treatment of fixed capital. It is shown that Moseley's view, according to which Sraffa's attribution of the joint production method to Torrens, Ricardo, Malthus and Marx is ‘misleading at best and totally wrong at worst’ (F. Moseley, 2009, ‘Sraffa's interpretation of Marx's treatment of fixed capital’, Review of Political Economy, 21, p. 99), is difficult to sustain. Moseley's argument is based on the absurd premise that Sraffa's attribution of the joint production method to the four classical authors mentioned would only be justified if it could be shown that they had used the joint production method in the same way and for the same purpose as Sraffa did.

Sraffa's Interpretation of Marx's Treatment of Fixed Capital

It is well known that Sraffa analyzed fixed capital as a ‘joint product’ along with regular products, such that in each period a given machine (together with other material and labor inputs) produces a regular product plus a one-period-older machine of the same type. What is perhaps less well known is that Sraffa attributed this same method of dealing with fixed capital to Marx, and to Torrens, Malthus, and Ricardo. This paper examines the textual evidence presented by Sraffa to support his interpretation of Marx's treatment of fixed capital, and also examines more comprehensive textual evidence from the three volumes of Capital not considered by Sraffa. It is argued that Marx did not treat fixed capital as a joint product in his theory of prices, but instead consistently assumed a ‘straight-line’ method of depreciation, according to which a constant fraction of the total value of the fixed capital is transferred to the price of the product in each period, and the remaining value of the fixed capital is not part of the value of the product, but instead ‘remains fixed’ in the capital goods.

Analytical Marxism and the Division of Labor

While commentary on Marx's treatment of the division of labor has often been a major theme in non-Analytical accounts of his thought, Analytical Marxists have by and large shown little interest in this topic, and in this regard G. A. Cohen's work is no exception. Insofar as Cohen does address this theme in his writings, his remarks serve merely to perpetuate a mistaken and untenable interpretation of Marx's views on the division of labor under communism, namely that Marx advocates abolition of the division of labor. Contrary to the view that Cohen and others defend, what Marx in reality proposes is the abolition of what he called the manufacturing division of labor, and the mental/manual division of labor more generally, and for this reason Marx's position in effect amounts to a demand for the universalization of meaningful work. Richard Arneson's recent criticisms of a right to meaningful work do not invalidate Marx's critique of the division of labor, which retains much of its force and validity today.

Where Marx was right: towards a more secure foundation for heterodox economics

Marx has never been very influential among Western economists, but the collapse of all types of socialist movements has reinforced the belief that Marx is irrelevant for economic analysis. At the same time, some heterodox economists have claimed that neoclassical theory is sufficiently flexible to provide a foundation for post‐Keynesians, institutionalists, evolutionary and feminist economists. We argue that both conclusions are incorrect and that Marx's treatment of agents' choices and constraints, and of systemic cooperation and conflict, is far superior to that of orthodoxy in several crucial respects and can provide a better grounding for non‐neoclassical analyses.

DIALOGUES OF THE NATIONS: Revisiting Visions and Its Critics

Critics of Visions in this symposium raise three general questions. The question of inclusiveness is addressed by linking pertinent criteria to the book's aims; that of justifying national traditions by reviewing pertinent evidence; and that of the viability of dialogue by arguing that responsive communication does not entail full agreement. A number of particular issues the critics raise are addressed by the book's arguments regarding the relation of the discipline of sociology to its philosophical background, the international setting of early sociology, Durkheim's individualism, Weber's distinction between naturalism and interpretability, Marx's treatment of Feuerbach and of nationalism, and the relation between power and knowledge. This response concludes by explicating the proposal that the time may be ripe to rejoin a number of the elements of Aristotelian social science that had been delegated to various national traditions of social theory in the modern era.

Dialogues of the Nations: Revisiting Visions and Its Critics

Critics of Visions in this symposium raise three general questions. The question of inclusiveness is addressed by linking pertinent criteria to the book's aims; that of justifying national traditions by reviewing pertinent evidence; and that of the viability of dialogue by arguing that responsive communication does not entail full agreement. A number of particular issues the critics raise are addressed by the book's arguments regarding the relation of the discipline of sociology to its philosophical background, the international setting of early sociology, Durkheim's individualism, Weber's distinction between naturalism and interpretability, Marx's treatment of Feuerbach and of nationalism, and the relation between power and knowledge. This response concludes by explicating the proposal that the time may be ripe to rejoin a number of the elements of Aristotelian social science that had been delegated to various national traditions of social theory in the modern era.

Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor

Response to Harold Benenson’s “Victorian Sexual Ideology”

Harold Benenson's important and convincing study of the limits of Marxism for analyzing working-class families is a splendid culmination of a decade and a half of critical feminist readings of Marx. Benenson clarifies and expands on the accom plishments of the large but scattered feminist literature, which has probed weak nesses and contradictions in Marx's treatment of women, families, and women workers, or tried to build new theoretical structures from his fragmentary comments on social reproduction.l As Marx becomes, in Benenson's essay, someone bound by his own history, he is demystified.2 His writing gains in richness as a guide for social historians as it ceases to be canonical. Feminists, meanwhile, continue to accumu late both empirical knowledge and hypotheses about the origins and perpetuation of women's subordination and its relation to other kinds of oppression. The feminist project has probably reached the point which political economy had attained with the physiocrats or Adam Smith, without whom Marx could not have written Capital. Ultimately, though, the study of gender and of class are intimately related. As Benenson shows so brilliantly here, Marx's understanding of the working class is distorted by his inability to abstract himself from Victorian givens on women and their social place. In my comments, I first want to outline some of the reflections on working class social history, especially in Britain, which this paper stimulated. I will then briefly look at the substantial body of writing on working-class women, families, and survival strategies which blossomed at the fringes of British Marxism after Marx's death.

Karl Marx on the Economic Role of Science

Previous articleNext article No AccessKarl Marx on the Economic Role of ScienceNathan RosenbergNathan Rosenberg Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Political Economy Volume 82, Number 4Jul. - Aug., 1974 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/260230 Views: 78Total views on this site Citations: 22Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1974 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:John P. Nelson Differential “progressibility” in human know-how: A conceptual overview, Research Policy 52, no.22 (Mar 2023): 104663.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2022.104663Shannon Walsh Marx, subsumption and the critique of innovation, Organization 30, no.22 (May 2021): 345–360.https://doi.org/10.1177/13505084211015377 References, (Dec 2021): 165–195.https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119881452.refsAlessandro Nuvolari, Masayuki Tanimoto Proximate Sources of Growth: Capital and Technology, 1700–1870, (Jun 2021): 312–338.https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316671566.015Paul Cammack Marx on Social Reproduction, Historical Materialism 28, no.22 (May 2020): 76–106.https://doi.org/10.1163/1569206X-00001934Palie Smart, Stefan Hemel, Fiona Lettice, Richard Adams, Stephen Evans Pre-paradigmatic status of industrial sustainability: a systematic review, International Journal of Operations & Production Management 37, no.1010 (Oct 2017): 1425–1450.https://doi.org/10.1108/IJOPM-02-2016-0058Manuel Acosta, Daniel Coronado, Esther Ferrándiz, M. Dolores León, Pedro J. Moreno The geography of university scientific production in Europe: an exploration in the field of Food Science and Technology, Scientometrics 112, no.11 (Mar 2017): 215–240.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-017-2355-5Fagner Diego Spíndola, João Policarpo Rodrigues Lima, Ana Cristina Fernandes, , , Interação Universidade-Empresa: o caso do setor sucroalcooleiro de Pernambuco, Economia e Sociedade 24, no.11 (Apr 2015): 121–149.https://doi.org/10.1590/1982-3533.2015v24n1art5Nicola De Liso From mechanical arts to the philosophy of technology, Economics of Innovation and New Technology 22, no.77 (Oct 2013): 726–750.https://doi.org/10.1080/10438599.2013.795777J. P. Murmann The co-development of industrial sectors and academic disciplines, Science and Public Policy 40, no.22 (Nov 2012): 229–246.https://doi.org/10.1093/scipol/scs083Arianna Martinelli An emerging paradigm or just another trajectory? Understanding the nature of technological changes using engineering heuristics in the telecommunications switching industry, Research Policy 41, no.22 (Mar 2012): 414–429.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2011.10.012Olivia Harvey The role of innovation systems in the commercialization of biotechnology, (Jan 2012): 55–87.https://doi.org/10.1533/9781908818140.55Johann Peter Murmann The Co-Development of Industrial Sectors and Academic Disciplines, SSRN Electronic Journal (Jan 2012).https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2147022Samuel Hollander On the Marxian entrepreneur: Karl Marx's abandonment of the doctrine of exploitation under industrial capitalism, International Critical Thought 1, no.44 (Dec 2011): 444–455.https://doi.org/10.1080/21598282.2011.640175Regina Roth Marx on technical change in the critical edition, The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 17, no.55 (Dec 2010): 1223–1251.https://doi.org/10.1080/09672567.2010.522239Cristiano Antonelli The economics of innovation: from the classical legacies to the economics of complexity, Economics of Innovation and New Technology 18, no.77 (Oct 2009): 611–646.https://doi.org/10.1080/10438590802564543Jan Fagerberg, Bart Verspagen Innovation studies—The emerging structure of a new scientific field, Research Policy 38, no.22 (Mar 2009): 218–233.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2008.12.006R. Nureev , Voprosy Ekonomiki , no.99 ( 2007): 87.https://doi.org/10.32609/0042-8736-2007-9-87-103Julian Warner An information dynamic: technologies for the reproduction of written utterances, Aslib Proceedings 57, no.55 (Oct 2005): 412–423.https://doi.org/10.1108/00012530510621860Paul Nightingale Technological capabilities, invisible infrastructure and the un-social construction of predictability: the overlooked fixed costs of useful research, Research Policy 33, no.99 (Nov 2004): 1259–1284.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2004.08.008Carlos Ricoy Marx on division of labour, mechanization and technical progress, The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 10, no.11 (Oct 2010): 47–79.https://doi.org/10.1080/0967256032000043797Elias L. Khalil The Implication for Socialism of Marx's Theory of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall, Journal of the History of Economic Thought 16, no.22 (Jun 2009): 292–309.https://doi.org/10.1017/S1053837200001991

Marxism and social theory

Marx's treatment of ideology and ideologues has certain symptomatic silences. It possesses a "dark secret" in which the existence of the secret itself lays hidden. Having focussed its analysis on what is hidden in other theories and in bourgeois society, Marxism may seem to some the embodiment of a healthy candor that has no secrets of its own. The accusor, of course, classically diverts attention from his own guilt by accusing another. That his accusation has this self-protective function, however, does not mean that it was intended to do so, nor does it mean that his accusation is untrue.

Marxian Economics as New-Classical Economics

Marxian Economic Theory has been repeatedly subjected to critical examination by the early Marginalist, and the latter-day Neo-Classical Schools of Economists. Bohm-Bawerk in Karl Marx and the Close of his System concentrated upon what appeared to him as contradictions in Marx's treatment of the value problem in Volume I and Volume III of Capital.

Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx

In Karl Marx's early writing (first made available many years after his death) his economic interpretation of history and his concept of communism were set in a comprehensive philosophical framework. Marx's main preoccupation at this time was with man estranged from himself in an alienated world: a subjective, almost religious theme. Taking full account of these earlier writings, Robert Tucker critiques and reinterprets Marx's thought. He shows how its origins can be located in earlier German philosophers, in particular Kant, Hegel and Feuerbach. Reconstructing the genesis of Marxism in its founder's own mind, he clarifies Marx's mystifying contention that Marxism represented Hegelianism turned 'on its head'. He then presents a new interpretation, based on close textual analysis, of the relation between Marx's early philosophical system and the subsequent materialist conception of history as expounded in the later and best known writings of Marx and Engels. Against this background, Tucker presents Das Kapital as a work belonging to the post-Hegelian mythical development of Germany philosophy. Considering in turn the genesis of Marxism and the underlying continuity of his thought from the early writings to Das Kapital, Tucker shows the theme of alienation is central throughout. In the years since the book was first written, comments and criticism have encouraged Tucker to change his position somewhat. This is explained in a new introduction that goes beyond the interpretative enterprise of the rest of the book to assess Marx in relation to contemporary concerns: first it presents a critique of Marx's treatment of alienation and then it comments on the moot problem of the continuing relevance of his social and economic thought. On the latter point his views have matured and altered during the intervening years and he now finds the economic and social aspects of Marx's thought considerably more relevant than he did before.