An anthology of works on the philosophy of economics, including classic texts and essays exploring specific branches and schools of economics. Completely revamped, this edition contains new selections, a revised introduction and a bibliography. The volume contains 26 chapters organized into five parts: Classic Discussions, Positivist and Popperian Views, Ideology and Normative Economics, Branches and Schools of Economics and Their Methodological Problems and New Directions in Economic Methodology. It includes crucial historical contributions by figures such as Mill, Marx, Weber, (...) Robbins, Knight, and Veblen and works by most of the leading contemporary figures writing on economic methodology, including five Nobel Laureates in Economics. (shrink)

Exploring materialism and social relationships in modern culture Material Culture and Mass Consumption offers an in-depth exploration of objects, objectification, ideology, and materialism in modern society. Drawing from Hegel, Marx, Munn, and Simmel, the discussion delves into the physicality of the material world and attempts to understand materialism as a form of cultural expression. Targeting mass production as the root of mass consumption, rather than the result, this book positions material goods at odds with genuine social interaction and questions (...) these relationships from the abstract to the intensely specific. (shrink)

Rather, in all the texts of this period Marx tries to mount a compelling critique of the present while altogether avoiding the dilemmas central to philosophy in ...

En este artículo propongo explorar la cuestión ontológica en el pensamiento de Marx, poniendo el foco en los tratamientos que le dedicaron dos autores habitualmente colocados al margen de los intereses propios del marxismo: Martin Heidegger y Jacques Derrida. Desde perspectivas críticas o deconstructivas, sus interpretaciones se caracterizaron por situar a Marx dentro de la tradición metafísica a partir de la comprensión de su filosofía como una ontología del trabajo o, al decir de Werner Hamacher, como una _ergontología_. (...) El artículo, entonces, se dedica a analizar los argumentos filosóficos empleados primero por Heidegger y luego por Derrida para cuestionar, de forma diferenciada, aunque en estrecha relación de continuidad, el privilegio metafísico del trabajo en el discurso marxista, sin descuidar las implicaciones políticas de sus respectivos cuestionamientos. (shrink)

In Marxist circles it is common to refer to Karl Marx’s The Civil War in France for a theoretical analysis of the historical significance of the Paris Commune, and to Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray’s History of the Commune of 1871 for a description of the facts surrounding the insurrection of the Paris workers and its repression by the National Assembly led by Adolphe Thiers. What is less well-known is that Marx himself oversaw the German translation of Lissagaray’s book and made (...) numerous additions to it. In this article we describe Marx’s addenda to Lissagaray’s work, showing how they contribute to concretising his analysis of the Paris Commune and how they relate to the split in the International Working Men’s Association between Marxists and anarchists that took place after the Commune’s defeat. We also show how Marx’s additions to the German version of Lissagaray’s book were linked to his involvement with the recently created Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany and to his criticism of the programme it had adopted at the congress celebrated in the city of Gotha. (shrink)

Ce texte constitue la première partie de l'introduction du recueil de textes de K. Marx, Les Crises du capitalisme, Paris, Demopolis, 2009. Daniel Bensaïd y explique la conception marxienne des crises cycliques du capitalisme, tout en abordant au passage celle de la « temporalité propre du capital ». Le tour de force de Marx, contemporain de la première grande expansion bancaire des années victoriennes et du Second empire, c'est d'avoir traversé les apparences, la surface confuse des choses, (...) pour (...) - Économie – Nouvel article. (shrink)

RESUMEN: El presente artículo trata de lo transindividual, un concepto fundamental en la teoría de la individuación elaborada por Gilbert Simondon, y de su vinculación con ciertas proposiciones de Karl Marx que tratan del individuo y la sociedad. Entre ambos autores existe una relación directa, evidenciada en cada uno de los textos donde Simondon hace mención a Marx y al marxismo en general. Pero también existe una relación indirecta, para nada evidente, que surge menos de lo que Simondon (...) dice acerca de Marx que de lo que ciertos pensadores contemporáneos dicen sobre uno y otro. Aquí intento dar cuenta de ambos tipos de relaciones. Asimismo, me propongo introducir y comentar algunos pasajes de Marx que compiten en radicalidad y audacia con los que escribiera Simondon un siglo más tarde, y en los cuales quiero apoyar mi hipótesis de lectura, a saber, que Marx es un pensador de lo transindividual avant la lettre. ABSTRACT: The present article is about the transindividual, a fundamental concept in the theory of the individuation produced by Gilbert Simondon, and about its entailment with certain propositions of Karl Marx, that deal with the individual and the society. Between both authors there is a direct relationship, evidenced in each of the texts where Simondon makes mention to Marx and the Marxism in general. But it also exists an indirect relationship, at all evident, that arises less from what Simondon says about Marx than from what certain contemporary thinkers claim about one and the other. Here I attempt to give account of both types of relationships. In addition, I propose to introduce and comment some passages of the work of Marx, which compete in both radicalness and audacity with those that Simondon wrote a century after. And in which I want to sustain my reading hypothesis, namely, that Marx is a thinker of the transindividual avant la lettre. (shrink)

The following text is a translation of Daniel Bensaïd’s ‘Strategy and Politics’, which covers debates within the workers’ movement from the time of Marx and Engels, through the Second and Third Internationals, up to the more immediate revolutionary experiences in Nicaragua and Latin America. An Introduction to this has been published simultaneously.

The following text is a translation of Daniel Bensaïd’s ‘Strategy and Politics’, which covers debates within the workers’ movement from the time of Marx and Engels, through the Second and Third Internationals, up to the more immediate revolutionary experiences in Nicaragua and Latin America. An Introduction to this has been published simultaneously.

Contemporary social theory and natural law : Jurgen Habermas -- A natural-law critique of modern social theory : Karl Lowith, Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin -- Natural law and the question of universalism -- Modern natural law I : Hobbes and Rousseau on the state of nature and social life -- Modern natural law II : Kant and Hegel on proceduralism and ethical life -- Classical social theory I : Marx, Tonnies and Durkheim on alienation, community and society -- (...) Classical social theory II : Simmel and Weber on the universality of sociability and reasonableness -- Social theory as the natural law of 'artificial' social relations. (shrink)

This classic analysis of Western liberal capitalist society contends that capitalism harbors the seeds of its downfall, particularly by effecting a certain cultural tendency among its most successful subjects that is bound to corrode its very foundations. As such, it is a conservative critique employing cultural concerns precisely where Marx prioritized economic ones.

Argues for political liberalism as a process-oriented view and process philosophy as a politically liberal view Daniel A. Dombrowski brings together the thought of the 20th-century philosophy's greatest political liberal, John Rawls, with the thought of the great process philosophers, Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. He shows that political liberalism is intimately linked with process philosophy, renaming it 'process liberalism'. He justifies this process liberalism in contrast to four potentially troublesome sources or influences: metaphysics, religion, right-wing politics and (...) left-wing politics. Dombrowski engages a series of interlocutors and alternative positions including Franklin I. Gamwell, Timothy D. Snyder, Martin Heidegger and Karl Marx. In conclusion, he offers a compelling, intricate and resourceful argument for nonhuman animal rights based on Rawlsian principles, which in turn forms the basis of a future environmental ethics. (shrink)

This chapter compares the 1844 Marx (the Marx of the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844) and the Rawls of A Theory of Justice, with the central topic being the young Marx and the middle‐aged Rawls. It starts with the standard Marxian criticism of Theory, and then discusses the two ways in which the writers resemble one another. Eventually, the discussion returns to the standard criticism, casting it as a difference in the writers’ conceptions of “alienation.” The (...) 1844 Marx condemns capitalism for its deep and multiform alienation of labor but misses the fact that a theory of distribution asks, among other things, what ought to be distributed. The alienation associated with the absence of the difference principle in a restricted utility society stems from a perceived deficit of concern. Rawls claims in Theory that the difference principle is “an interpretation of the principle of fraternity”. (shrink)

I reviewThe Philosophy of Praxisby Andrew Feenberg, firstly, presenting a critical yet sympathetic summary of Feenberg’s argument, developed via Marx, Lukács and Marcuse. Despite sharing Adorno’s and Marcuse’s dismissal of proletarian revolution, he finds aspects of Marx and particularly Lukács compelling. Upon this synthesis he builds his own philosophy. Secondly, I argue that Feenberg’s treatment of Lukács’s 1920s work is unparalleled and may counter the systematic distortion to which it has been subject. He defends Lukács’s ontology with respect (...) to nature and his politics, countering the charge of authoritarianism. Finally, I suggest that Feenberg tends to elide the analysis of the state and politics in Marx and Lukács, and that this distorts his understanding of the latter. I suggest a Hegelian interpretation of Lukács’s concept of mediation by way of parallel withThe Phenomenology of Spirit. I conclude by suggesting the implications of this disagreement. (shrink)

Without denying the contradictory character of Marx s thought, the French philosopher Daniel Bensaid sets out to demonstrate that it was not a philosophy of the ...

This article re-assesses classical social theory's relationship with cosmopolitanism. It begins by briefly reconstructing the universalistic thrust that is core to cosmopolitanism and then argues that the rise of classical social theory is marked by the tension of how to retain, but in a renovated form, cosmopolitanism's original universalism. On the one hand, as the heir of the tradition of the Enlightenment, classical social theory remains fully committed to cosmopolitanism's universalism. On the other, however, it needed to rejuvenate that commitment (...) to universalism so that it could work without the normative burden that its traditional natural law elements now represented in the modern context. The article then argues that, in the cases of Karl Marx, Georg Simmel, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, they all started to differentiate the claim to universalism into three different realms: (1) the normative idea of a single modern society that encompasses the whole of humanity; (2) the conceptual definition of what the social element in modern social relations is; and (3) the methodological justification of how to generate adequate empirical knowledge. The conclusion is that, despite differences and shortcomings, it is precisely this claim to universalism that makes classical social theory classical. (shrink)

Central to his own fruitful study of modern society and politics, of the stakes and twists-and-turns of the dramatic twentieth century, was Raymond Aron's fifty year engagement with `Marx and Marxism'. In a series of lecture courses (and elsewhere) Aron provided a comprehensive, balanced, and judicious exposition and appreciation of Marx's intellectual itinerary. On one hand, Marx helpfully highlighted various tensions in liberal-bourgeois society. On the other hand, however, his apolitical, materialistic explanations of them and, especially, his (...) prediction of capitalism's explosive self-overcoming proved grossly inadequate. In addition to being a special sort of social scientist, Marx was a Promethean humanist who rejected all natural and social limits and who claimed to scientifically predict the coming of the true and real City of Man. Aron's own `balanced social analysis' and his humane, sober, reformist thought stand in stark contrast. (shrink)

There has been much discussion in recent years of the role of moral ideas within Marxism. Marx's stringent criticisms of purely philosophical inquiry impose rather narrow limits on the form which a Marxian moral philosophy might take. For Marx often holds that moral ideas and moral theorizing are irremediably ideological. By this Marx appears to mean that moral ideas are part and parcel of a system of class domination, a way of preserving class domination through internalized norms. (...) As many recent commentators have shown, however, these criticisms of moral reasoning, though present in Marx's system, cannot be the beginning and end of his stance on moral matters. For Marx himself is committed to making normative judgments about capitalism and socialism, and there is a richly textured set of normative ideas that run through his writings from early to late. Further, and perhaps more compellingly, there is a pressing need internal to Marxism for discussion of moral ideas in order to steer the course towards the attainment of socialism. (shrink)

Subjectivity, for Descartes, emerged when he doubted the veracity of his knowledge. Instead of truth, he counted this knowledge to be inherited myth. Cartesian subjectivity has been helpful for forming a critical education predicated on doubting ideology and hegemony. But Marx indicates a very different kind of knowledge in his analysis of capitalism. This knowledge cannot be doubted because we do not acknowledge it in the first place. For a Marxian critical education a different ground must be found for (...) subjectivity. Psychoanalysis provides the theoretical resources for this subjectivity. Instead of negating the Cartesian project, psychoanalysis represents its advance. (shrink)

El artículo se propone elucidar la lectura deconstructiva que Derrida lleva a cabo de la filosofía de Marx y, más ampliamente, de los presupuestos metafísicos de la filosofía marxista. Espectros de Marx (1993) funciona como el punto de partida de un análisis histórico y conceptual que rastrea algunas de las principales hipótesis de este libro en publicaciones, entrevistas, cursos y seminarios fechados entre 1964 y 2004. La pregunta que sirve como hilo conductor de este trabajo es cómo interpretar (...) filosófica y políticamente la deconstrucción de la ontología marxista. (shrink)

La desigualdad entre ricos y pobres no decrece. Frente a esta realidad, el autor realza que detrás de la desigualdad hay un problema más hondo de falta de libertad, pues: “hay muchas cosas que los hombres, si llevan la capa remendada, no se atreven a decir”. Por ello –señala- el republicanismo democrático, de Jefferson a Robespierre, y de Rousseau a Marx, no ha dejado de plantear la necesidad de repolitizar la vida social, e incluir en la agenda política los (...) graves problemas de dominación que sufren los más desfavorecidos. Este propósito tendría un camino eficaz seg{un el autor a través de la creación de mecanismos institucionales que doten de seguridad material y económica a toda la ciudadanía, haciendo reales las libertades formales y que permita a los individuos hacer frente eficazmente a situaciones de dominación. Uno de esos mecanismos institucionales es la Renta Básica, propuesta sobre desarrollada por el autor en el presente artículo. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to (re)introduce D. P. Chattopadhyaya (1931–2022, henceforth DPC), one of the key-players in the field of contemporary Indian philosophy, his main books, his community-building activities, and his unique life-story. A modern Rājar ṣ i, DPC was both a philosopher and a statesman who served both as a minister in the Indian government in the 1970s and as the governor of Rajasthan in the early 1990s. The Śvetāśvatara Upani ṣ ad narrates the famous story of (...) two birds sitting on a single branch, one eating a fig, the other watching-witnessing. DPC’s life-story and writings show that the two birds could be one and the same, namely that action and reflection, or engagement and the detachment needed for reflection, do not necessarily exclude one another but can in fact complement and contribute to one another. Relying primarily on DPC’s chapter “A Short Intellectual Autobiography of D. P. Chattopadhyaya,” written by him in 1999, but not forgetting the next decade of his writing-life, this essay focuses on DPC’s contribution in the fields of phenomenology, philosophy of science and mind, and socio-political philosophy, and on his pivotal role in the ongoing attempt to decolonize knowledge towards the fulfillment of the ideal of Svaraj in Ideas, “independent thinking.” DPC is further depicted in the present essay as a comparative philosopher without borders, drawing on materials from different traditions of thinking, and committed to interdisciplinarity, traveling freely between disciplines, languages, eras, and life-experiences. (shrink)

Parties, Trade-unions, SocialMovements : Relations and Articulations How are we to explain the resurgence of the question of political parties, when the question of socialmovements seemed to have eclipsed it ? What is the role to be played by parties, trade-unions andby social movements in a project of radical social transformation ? What are the modes of alliance,of collaboration and convergence, to be constructed between them ? These are some of the questionsaddressed in the present article.

In Anti-Oedipus, Deleuze and Guattari claim that a general theory of society must be a generalised theory of flows. This is hardly a straightforward claim, and this paper attempts to examine the grounds for it. Why should socio-political theory be based on a theory of flows rather than, say, a theory of the social contract, or a theory of the State, or the questions of legitimation or revolution, or numerous other possible candidates? The concept of flow (and the related notions (...) of code and stock), I argue, is derived from contemporary economic theory, and most notably John Maynard Keynes. Deleuze and Guattari remained Marxists, not only because they held that contemporary political philosophy must inevitably be centred on the analysis of capitalism, but also because they held, following Marx himself, that the Marxist analysis of capital must constantly be transformed and adapted to new conditions. Thus, while certain aspects of Marx's analysis disappear from Capitalism and Schizophrenia, they are supplemented by the addition of new concepts adequate to the contemporary state of capitalism. The paper concludes, then, with an analysis of the role played by the concepts of flow, code and stock in Deleuze and Guattari's political philosophy. (shrink)

Subjectivity, for Descartes, emerged when he doubted the veracity of his knowledge. Instead of truth, he counted this knowledge to be inherited myth. Cartesian subjectivity has been helpful for forming a critical education predicated on doubting ideology and hegemony. But Marx indicates a very different kind of knowledge in his analysis of capitalism. This knowledge cannot be doubted because we do not acknowledge it in the first place. For a Marxian critical education a different ground must be found for (...) subjectivity. Psychoanalysis provides the theoretical resources for this subjectivity. Instead of negating the Cartesian project, psychoanalysis represents its advance. (shrink)