Socialism and Democracy Introduction (original) (raw)
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On Our Marx: Exploitation, Crisis, and Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century
Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas, 2014
According to Eric Hobsbawm, Karl Marx scoffed at his achievements. When a young Karl Kautsky questioned him about "his works," he bitterly replied, "What works?" At his death there was little to show for a life of writing: "some brilliant pamphlets and the torso of an uncompleted major piece, Das Kapital, work on which had hardly advanced in the last decade of his life." However, as Hobsbawn exclaims, "What an extraordinary posthumous success!" Within twenty-five years of his death the European working-class political parties founded in [Marx's] name, or which acknowledged his inspiration, had between 15% and 47% of the vote in countries with democratic elections-Britain was the only exception.. .. All of them are still in existence. Meanwhile disciples of Marx established revolutionary groups in non-democratic and third-world countries. Seventy years after Marx's death, one-third of the human race lived under regimes ruled by communist parties which claimed to represent his ideas and realize his aspirations. Well over 20% still do, though their ruling parties have, with minor exceptions, dramatically changed their policies. In short, if one thinker left a major indelible mark on the twentieth century, it was he. 1 The same might be said of the twenty-first century: the financial crisis of 2008 and the continuing economic, political, and fiscal challenges appear to have confirmed Marx's central thrust-that capitalism is essentially unfair and dangerously unstable. In the wake of the crisis, Richard Posner, the libertarian legal theorist and chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, has warned of "a failure of capitalism," and from Hobsbawm we learn that even George Soros, the liberal currency
The Value of Marx: Political Economy for Contemporary Capitalism
Karl Marx’s writings provide a uniquely insightful explanation of the inner workings of capitalism, which other schools of thought generally have difficulty explaining. From this vantage point, Marx’s works can help to explain important features and economic problems of our age, and the limits of their possible solutions. For example, the necessity and origin of money, the growth of the wage-earning class, uneven development, cycles and crises, and the relative impoverishment of the workers, leading to debt and overwork. The Value of Marx demonstrates that: • Capitalist production necessarily involves conflicts in production and in distribution. • Competition is an essential feature of capitalism, but it often generates instability, crises and unemployment, showing that capitalism is not only the most productive but also the most systematically destructive mode of production in history. • Capitalist economies are unstable because of the conflicting forces of extraction, realisation, and accumulation of surplus value under competitive conditions. This instability is structural, and even the best economic policies cannot avoid it completely. The author critically reviews the methodological principles of Marx’s value analysis and the best known interpretations of his value theory. He develops an interpretation of Marx focusing primarily upon the processes and relations that regulate social and economic reproduction under capitalism. When analysed from this angle, value theory is a theory of class and exploitation. The concept of value is useful, among other reasons, because it explains capitalist exploitation in spite of the predominance of voluntary market exchanges. The most important controversies in Marxian political economy are reviewed exhaustively, and new light is thrown on the meaning and significance of Marx’s analysis and its relevance for contemporary capitalism.
This article explores why a deep understanding of Marx's project is essential for developing an adequate science of society. Marx focused on two aspects of social reality that are critical to its understanding, but are absent from the contemporary practice of social science. First, he viewed humanity's struggle to overcome nature's scarcity as causally and dynamically related to social organisation and social consciousness. Second, he unfolded a theory of our self-creation, the manner in which products of our manual and intellectual labour act back upon us to create us socially and intellectually. To the extent that we lose consciousness of this authorship, our freedom is constrained. We are controlled by our own creations. Our freedom requires a social science with Marx's breadth to enable us to recover awareness of our authorship of our social creations and thereby be empowered to control them, as opposed to being their victims. he teaches graduate courses in the history of economic thought and economic methodology and undergraduate courses in macroeconomics, European economic history, American economic history, economic development, and labour economics. He has twice been selected by American University as the Outstanding Teacher of the Year. He has published articles and chapters in a wide variety of journals and books, and edited Worker Empowerment: The Struggle for Workplace Democracy. His most recent published work has addressed the potential for employer of the last resort programmes and the role of inequality in generating economic crises and environmental devastation. Among his current projects is a book tentatively titled: We All Must Work: Creative Destruction and the Pursuit of Happiness.
The return to Marx following the economic crisis of 2008 has been distinct from the renewed interest in his critique of economics. Many authors, in a whole series of newspapers, journals, books, and academic volumes, have observed how indispensable Marx's analysis has proved to be for an understanding of the contradictions and destructive mechanisms of capitalism. In the last few years, however, there has also been a reconsideration of Marx as a political figure and theorist. The publication of previously unknown manuscripts in the German MEGA 2 edition, along with innovative interpretations of his work, have opened up new research horizons and demonstrated more clearly than in the past his capacity to examine the contradictions of capitalist society on a global scale and in spheres beyond the conflict between capital and labour.
The Enduring Relevance of Karl Marx
2018
This chapter is the introduction to The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx. It demonstrates the continuing applicability of Marx’s concepts and theories to understanding twenty-first century capitalism, its crises, and the historical development of human society across varying modes of production. It presents an intellectual biography linking the major moments in Marx’s life to his ideas and theories. The biography also gives insight into Marx’s approach to research by focusing more closely on the method he outlined in the Grundrisse. It demonstrates, among other things, that Marx continually revised his ideas in light of new evidence or theoretical understanding. The chapter concludes with brief summaries of the handbook’s contributions, paying specific attention to the ongoing relevance of each chapter to societal concerns. While the introduction introduces the reader to the varied chapters in the handbook, it goes beyond mere summary to provide fresh insight into Marx’s life, work, and...