This article returns to the debate about the relative importance of the productive forces and the relations of production in the feudal mode of production. It argues, using western medieval evidence, that this relation is an empirical one and varies between modes, maybe also inside modes; and that, in the specific case of feudalism, not only were the relations of production the driving force, but developments in the productive forces actually depended upon them.

In light of Perry Anderson's recent re-Iaunch of New Left Review, and the publication of Gregory Elliott's Perry Anderson: The Merciless Laboratory of History, it is perhaps an opportune moment for Marxists to assess Anderson's contribution to socialist strategic thought. At the heart of Anderson's manifesto is the claim that the principal aspect of the past decade ‘can be defined as the virtually uncontested consolidation, and universal diffusion, of neoliberalism'. There is, obviously, something in this claim. However, Anderson also briefly (...) notes, amongst other counter-currents, the labour upsurge in France in 1995, but dismisses the significance of these events with the claim that ‘capital has comprehensively beaten back all threats to its rule'. Anderson compares the context of the launch of the first New Left Review with that of the present day. He writes that, back then, a third of the planet had broken with capitalism, the discrediting of Stalinism in 1956 had unleashed a vital process of the rediscovery of authentic Marxism, while, culturally, there had been a qualitative break with the conformism of the 1950s. Today, by contrast, American capitalism has reasserted its international primacy, European social-democratic governments are implementing policies designed to follow the American model, Japan is suffering from a slump, while the Russian catastrophe has produced no popular backlash. Moreover, the Western powers have recently asserted themselves successfully in the Balkans, and, despite upsurges against capital in the 1990s, ‘no collective agency able to match the power of capital is yet on the horizon’. How are socialists to respond to this diagnosis? In this essay, I want to locate the logic of Anderson's interpretation of the present conjuncture within the context of his previous strategic claims. I will argue that, while socialists will always have much to learn from Anderson, strategically his thought has systematically suffered from a form of political impressionism. This suggests that his interpretation of the present conjuncture may fail the test of history. (shrink)

This essay is an attempt to piece together the elements of G. A. Cohen's thought on the theory of socialism during his long intellectual voyage from Marxism to political philosophy. It begins from his theory of the maldistribution of freedom under capitalism, moves onto his critique of libertarian property rights, to his diagnosis of the “deep inegalitarian” structure of John Rawls' theory and concludes with his rejection of the “cheap” fraternity promulgated by liberal egalitarianism. The paper's exegetical contention is that (...) Cohen's work in political philosophy is best understood in the background of lifelong commitment to a form of democratic, non-market, socialism realizing the values of freedom, equality and community, as he conceived them. The first part of the essay is therefore an attempt to retrieve core socialism-related arguments by chronologically examining the development of Cohen's views, using his books as thematic signposts. The second part brings these arguments together with an eye to reconstructing his vision of socialism. It turns out that Cohen's political philosophy offers a rich conception of objective and subjective freedom, an original understanding of justice as satisfaction of genuine need, and a substantive ideal of fraternity as justificatory community with others. If properly united, these values can suggest a full-bloodied account of the just polity, and give us a glimpse into what it means, for Cohen, to treat people as equals. (shrink)

Elster's work unstably combines Leibnizian and utilitarian conceptions of action and offers various deconstructions of rationality and individuality. His method ological individualism gives an inadequate account of its privileged object, individual teleologies, and a distorted account of the relational framework of social reproduction and transformation. Elster has not properly conceptualized the relation of the teleological act to patterns of material and social causality, and his rational choice theory proves unable to accommodate the interactions of his postulated monadic individuals. His most (...) recent work dearly illustrates the limits of an individualist approach, while remaining committed to its principles. (shrink)

Michael Smith's recent defence of the theory shows promise, in that it captures the most common reasons for accepting a Humean view. But, as I will argue, it falls short of vindicating the view. Smith's argument fails, because it ignores the role of rationality conditions on the ascription of motivating reason explanations. Because of these conditions, we must have a theory of rationality before we choose a theory of motivation. Thus, we cannot use Humean restrictions on motivation to argue for (...) a particular conception of rationality. I will not directly criticize using a Humean conception of rationality to defend a Humean theory of motivation. For my argument implies that such criticism must come more directly, as argument over the substantive content of rationality. (shrink)

Marx develops his economic theory in Capital in a rather peculiar way. This paper focuses on some of these peculiarities, especially his attempt to base his account of prices and derivative entities (profit, rate of profit, etc.) on the labour theory of value. Although he may be said to have failed in this, there is still some kind of Marxist theory of prices possible. This is due to both, the so-called fundamental theorem (linking profit and surplus-value) and the possibility, shown (...) by Sraffa and others, to determine prices from the physical parameters of production. By adding on an earlier paper of mine, in which the surplus-value theory has been reconstructed within the structuralistic framework, this paper sketches such a reconstruction for the basic parts of a full-blown Marxist economic theory of capitalistic production. (shrink)

: Half a century of political Marxism and Soviet social science deflected Marxist thought from its canonical sources. Communism and Marxism were so intertwined by events of the twentieth century that it is difficult to see what remains of the latter after the demise of the former. Specifically, three foundational principles--"being determines consciousness," the Asiatic Mode of Production, and "the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas"--have been corrupted by heartfelt ideological commitments. A review of those principles against (...) the background of Marxist writing on the history of science stakes out research frontiers that remain to be reconnoitered. (shrink)

This paper reviews the recent literature on exploitation. It distinguishes between three main species of exploitation theory: teleology-based accounts, respect-based accounts, and freedom-based accounts. It then addresses the implications of each.

During the 1980s and 1990s, the debate on the Marxist theory of history centred largely around the work of Robert Brenner’s property-relations-centred construal of it, and G.A. Cohen’s attempt to revive the classical, determinist argument. This article examines two influential arguments by Erik Wright and his colleagues, and by Alan Carling, which acknowledge important weaknesses in Cohen’s work, but which also try to construct a more plausible version of his theory. I show that the attempts to rescue Cohen are largely (...) unsuccessful. And, to the extent that they render the argument plausible, they do so at the cost of turning it, willy-nilly, into a kind of class-struggle theory. I conclude that this spells the demise of the classical version of historical materialism, but also observe that this does not leave us with a voluntaristic understanding of history, as some of its defenders fear. (shrink)

Lakatos' MSRP is utilized to provide a response to Koertge's claim (in her ‘Does Social Science Really Need Metaphysics?’) that the heuristic significance of metaphysics has been vastly overrated. By outlining the hard cores and positive heuristics of the two major research programmes in economics (namely, the ‘orthodox’ and ‘Marxist’ research programmes), the paper demonstrates (in opposition to Koertge's claim) not only that the metaphysical statements in the respective hard cores are far from vague but also how these exert an (...) important regulative influence both on the theories and economic policy recommendations generated within the respective programmes. It also indicates how the adoption of the MSRP method of appraisal in economics would help to protect against the danger of entrenched metaphysical dogmatism with its implications not only for economic policy recommendations but also for moral and political recommendations. * We appreciate the assistance given by Professor N. Koertge, who provided us with translations of her articles, and the helpful comments of an anonymous referee. (shrink)

Social capital is frequently offered up as a variable to explain such educational outcomes as academic attainment, drop-out rates and cognitive development. Yet, despite its popularity amongst social scientists, social capital theory remains the object of some scepticism, particularly in respect of its explanatory ambitions. I provide an account of some explanatory options available to social capital theorists, focussing on the functions ascribed to social capital and on how these are used as explanatory variables in educational theory. Two of the (...) most influential writers in this field are Coleman and Bourdieu. I explore their commonalities and differences, both in respect of their writing and in respect of some of the many theorists they have influenced. I argue that social capital theorists have made substantial progress in responding to sceptically minded critics, but that significant questions remain, especially about the success of the more ambitious explanatory variants as these apply to educational outcomes—functional explanation in particular. Functional explanation, and its association with Bourdieu, is discussed in ‘Bourdieu and functional explanation’; thereafter I discuss the more modest ambition of identifying the functions associated with social capital. In ‘Coleman, intergenerational closure and educational outcomes’ I show how Coleman provides resources for revealing how social structure features in social explanation in an educational context, and in ‘Inequality, class and ethnicity’ I suggest that some of the questions raised in his account are most satisfactorily responded to by educational theorists who adopt Bourdieu’s emphasis on social class and inequality. (shrink)

This work consists of two parts. Part I will be a contribution to a philo- sophical discussion of the nature of causal explanation. It will present my contrastive counterfactual theory of causal explanation and show how it can be used to deal with a number of problems facing theories of causal explanation. Part II is a contribution to a discussion of the na- ture of interest explanation in social studies of science. The aim is to help to resolve some controversies (...) concerning interest explanation by explicating the concept of interest and its explanatory uses by using the account of explanation developed in Part I. (shrink)

Work occupies a central place in most people’s lives, yet a secondary one in most of political philosophy. This article attempts to show the negative theoretical consequences of this neglect by taking the example of the concept of constituent power as it appears in the writings of Emmanuel Joseph Sièyes and Karl Marx. Both authors conceived it as made up of the working classes. This, however, makes them both run into the same paradox: how to politically represent a class that (...) is characterised by a non-political activity – work? I argue that neither of them gives a satisfactory response since both rely on an implausible account of objective class interests based on fragile grounds. I conclude by showing that the political representation of workers is a theoretical and practical problem that the concept of constituent power is unable to resolve. (shrink)

This paper seeks to examine the claim made by Raymond Williams that the means of communication are a means of production. While agreeing with the central claim by Williams, the paper argues that the model which Williams’ represents this claim with is insufficiently realized. By looking at the work of Marx and Althusser in relation to this claim, we suggest a new conceptual tool to actualize Williams’ claims.

This article analyzes the problem of preference imputation in rational choice political science. I argue against the well-established practice in political science of assuming selfish preferences for purely methodological reasons, regardless of its empirical plausibility (this I call a preference for selfish preferences). Real motivations are overlooked due to difficulties of imputing preferences to agents in a non-arbitrary way in the political realm. I compare the problem of preference imputation in economic and political markets, and I show the harmful consequences (...) of the preference for selfish preferences in the field of collective action. Key Words: rational choice theory • preference • functionalism • collective action. (shrink)

Is the meaning of life to get rich quick? That would certainly explain the way many people have lived under the spell of a constitutive fantasy: the fantasy of instant wealth. Drawing on Lacan’s Discourse of the Capitalist, the article explores the fantasy of instant wealth and its relationship to addiction, especially addiction to shopping. The article concludes with a meditation on how the fantasy of instant wealth supplants and in some ways contradicts another fantasy: the fantasy of labour.

Within cultural history there is a widespread eschewal of speculative reasoning. This article notes the complicity of the general postmodern avoidance of metanarratives with Anglo-Saxon empiricism and locates the major problem facing cultural history in postmodernism's conflation of trajectories and teleologies. Any discussion of the directionality of history is imputed to be a full-blown teleology. Using previous discussions from different fields, the difference between a teleology and trajectory is defended and, after clarifying certain confusions, it is argued that trajectories, as (...) following the working of generative mechanisms, are necessary to theorize in order to make interesting progress within the field of cultural history. (shrink)

I make no apology for what is by now a hackneyed title. It derives, of course, from Croce’s book on Hegel, and I choose it because I want to suggest that the question ‘What is living and what is dead in Marxism?’ is the right question to ask. The analytical approach is appropriate if it means distinguishing and discriminating between different aspects of Marxism, and refusing to reject or embrace it en bloc as a monolithic creed. However, this does not (...) mean that Marxism can be chopped up into a number of disconnected theses, with a view to producing an inventory of those which are true and those which are false. Marxism claims to be a systematic theory, whose various elements hang together in an organised way. Some would say that this creates an unbridgeable gulf between Marxist and analytical philosophies. Nevertheless, though Marxism’s claim to be systematic should be taken seriously, there are different readings of the theory and of how its components are connected, and different versions will see different elements as central. This is where the careful discrimination of meanings and interpretations is needed. It is not simply a question of deciding whether each of the various elements, in isolation, is true or false, more a matter of deciding where the emphasis should lie if Marxism is to continue to illuminate our understanding of the social world. It is in this sense that we can talk about Marxism or any other theory as ‘living’ — not just as containing true assertions, but as being capable of playing a vital and creative role in human thought and action. In what version, then, if any, is Marxism a living philosophy? (shrink)

An anti-representationalist view of language and a deflationary view of truth, key themes in contemporary pragmatism and especially Richard Rorty, do not undermine the notion, in critical theory, of ideology as 'false consciousness'. Both Foucault and Marx were opposed to what Marxists call historical idealism and so they should be seen as objecting to forms of ideology-critique that do not sufficiently avoid such an 'Hegelian' perspective. Foucault's general views on the relations between truth and power can plausibly be construed in (...) a way that makes them compatible with a Marxian critical theory. (shrink)

Making a connection between ‘post-modernism’ and post-truth has by now become a standard trope, both within academia and popular discourse, despite post-truth’s only recent emergence as a concept. Such claims are often rather vague and fanciful and lack an altogether credible account of either phenomenon in many cases. This Chapter argues however that within a legal context, there is the emergence of a legal post-truth which is the direct consequence of a concrete form of post-modernity within legal practice and thought. (...) While law may be called upon to engage in judgments of ‘truth’ in numerous interesting ways, it does not itself have any particular form of privileged access to the truth of statements or allegations, even though it is often treated as doing so. However, the most persistent question which law must deal with, and indeed the most persistent question within legal philosophy, relates to a deeper form of inquiry into truth: the question of legal truth. In simple terms this refers to the correctness of any particular proposition of law. Within legal theory, this expands to the larger question of what makes, in general, any legal proposition valid, or true. Reflecting upon legal scholarship through the lens of truth reveals that theories of law can be broken down into two broad and radically distinct categories. On the one hand, there exist empirical accounts of law which fundamentally understand questions of legal truth as social questions whose answers are empirically demonstrable. On the other hand, there are ‘idealist’ accounts of law which view legal content, and hence truth, as existing in some way or other in a manner which transcends social practice and which is autonomous from it. Both of these classical accounts, while radically different, share an interesting paradox: they see truth in law as an objective fact, but one which is fleeting and distant, far from the paradigm of legal certainty upon which the ideology of law is partly based. However, such accounts of legal truth share many other unstated aspects, and are largely based upon ideas which place the separateness and completeness of legal systems at their heart, providing either a unified ideal or a unified empirically observable social practice. However, they are share a common flaw, namely the failure to account for what might be called a post-modern phase of development in law, in which ordinary legal questions now regularly require the complex and non-hierarchical interaction of competing legal systems with different ‘truths’ and different ways of arriving at such truths. Such phenomena are commonly referred to as legal or, at times, constitutional ‘pluralism’. This post-modern turn within law has also produced therefore what we might call a form of post-truth within law. This is particularly significant because it places under great strain both the empirical and ideal accounts of legal truth and require us to re-elaborate an account of what makes a legal proposition true. From certain perspectives, this legal post-truth shares certain important aspects with the cultural phenomenon of post-truth, namely its apparently capricious and deracinated nature. However, it is argued in this Chapter that, in the legal context at least, post-truth allows for the transcendence of the empirical/ideal divide and the revealing of deeper forms of legal truth and our ability to account for them through theory or, put more simply, explanation. Upon greater reflection, legal truth is generated by the very forms of argument, or modes, which allow access to it. Such forms of argument exist also to produce legal truths outside and between legal orders where these appear to conflict or collide. While some legal scholars and others claim that such pressures on structures of knowledge reveal the end of the potential for law to generate truth, it is argued here that, on the contrary, they require a more open and more transparent use of the pure methods and modes of reason which both reveal but also generate legal truth in the first place. This is relevant to post-truth more generally in one specific way, despite the numerous idiosyncrasies of legal truth and knowledge: when assertions of truth within structures of power seem to come to embody the perspectivism and relativism used as methods of deconstruction, the post-modern and deconstructionist projects themselves require radical change: they stay true to their goal of deconstructing structures and discourses of power by applying the classical epistemologies which are rejected by those in power. Just as legal outcomes which are asserted rather than reasoned or justified are most convincingly deconstructed through sober legal modes, so can the post-modernist project find purpose in a world where dominant epistemes seem to have come to embody a simplistic version of post-modernist critiques. (shrink)

This paper develops several insights put forward in the book Republican Studies. It goes into the difference between republicanism as a concept pertaining to legal theory, i.e. a system free from dynastic power, and the political-philosophy trend which currently goes by the same name, also known as `civicism', hinging upon the notion of freedom as non-domination. As against such a view, the value of a classical notion of liberty is maintained. Further grounds to choose a republic rather than a monarchy (...) are analyzed. A Parlamentarian Republic is shown to offer a reasonable balance of powers. International implications of this conception are also sketched out, opening the prospect of a universal republic. Reparations for past grievances are advanced as a means to approach a system of international relations oriented towards a just integration of Planet Earth. (shrink)