Two Historians in Front of the Economic Crisis of 2007–2008: Hobsbawm and Judt between Marxism and the Legacies of 20th Century, FILOZOFIJA I DRUŠTVO XXVII (1), 2016 (original) (raw)
How did intellectuals react to the economic crisis of 2007–2008 and its long-term backlash? What did they learn from the main twentieth-century political and social experiences, in order to make a new sense of the traditional cultures of the Left? In order to answer these crucial issues, this proposal will analyze the paths of the well-known historians E. Hobsbawm and T. Judt and their apparently similar, but actually different reactions to the crisis. First, I will focus on their respective books: How to Change the World (2011) and Ill Fares the Land (2010). On the one hand, Hobsbawm’s critical approach to the post-1991 world, shaped by his lifelong fidelity to Marxism and his persistent sympathy for the Russian Revolution, was connected to his catastrophic vision of the end of the both conflicting and collaborative dynamics between capitalism and socialism. On the other hand, Judt’s re-thinking of the social-democratic tradition, compelled by the global transformations of the social question, was inspired by his connections with the East Central European dissidents’ anti-totalitarian liberalism and by his critical approach to the engagement of the French intellectuals. Second, I will investigate their different interpretations of the „Golden Age“ of post-1945 Europe (with special regard to the long-term impact of the crisis of 1929 and to the influence of Soviet communism) and of the causes of its crisis. Third, I will show how, in spite of their common reference to Marx, late Hobsbawm’s and Judt’s historical visions – respectively combined with determinism and moralism – provide opposite ways of coping with the legacies of the 20th century and of criticizing the language of neoliberal economy within the Left.
Related papers
Hobsbawm - A Communist Historian
Dublin Review of Books, 2019
As ultimately revealed by Hobsbawm’s self-defeating political interventions as a communist public intellectual in the 1980s, any class-based socialist perspective that tried to reconcile itself with the all-pervasive bourgeois triumphalism of the age, rather than simply defy it, could only result in something along the lines of the political managerialism that was the Blairite ‘Third Way’. Certainly Hobsbawm’s autobiographical reflections on the century (1998), which made a virtue of his lonely voice of chorus, are likely to last longer in the canon. He lived long enough, however, to witness, and ironically appreciate, the renewed crisis of capitalism that set in from 2008.
Questioning Marx, Critiquing Marxism Reflections on the Ideological Crisis on the Left
While celebrating the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the ideologues of capitalism cannot gloss over the parallel crisis that is tearing apart the major capitalist societies. They declare Marxism dead, but "the grave-diggers of capitalism" hound them everywhere. For as long as capitalism continues to devastate the lives of the working people Marxism will always be relevant as a method of analysis. Some Marxist parties, however, are making themselves irrelevant by holding fast to outdated doctrines and pursuing political lines that have lost the power to convince.
Quo vadis neoliberalism: A carefrontation of Veblen, Keynes, and Marx
Fiscaoeconomia, 2023
Neoliberalism is still main reference point of economic thought in economics departments of universities and hegemonic ideology of policy makers although it comes in harsh criticisms for policy outcomes particularly deepening global inequality from wide range of scholars, journalists and even some policy networks especially after 2008-9 financial crisis. These criticisms are meaningful in terms of questioning neoliberal hegemony even so the motto of neoliberalism which is "there is no alternative" has not been responded as "nope, there is an alternative" yet at least as a counter hegemonic position for global political and economic system. The article sets out to formulate the need of going beyond criticisms and creating a reference toolbox kit to face with neoliberal hegemony. Is it possible to create an alternative method of thought in economics via eliminating deficiencies of particular schools of thought? In particular, is it possible to create a holistic response from different schools of non-mainstream economics focusing on neoliberalism as a concrete case for objection? The answer is yes. In this study, three different schools of economic thought, evolutionary institutionalism, Keynesianism and Marxism are mutually considered and the theoretical possibility of a holistic opposition in different levels is affirmed in a way of their stances in against neoliberalism.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.