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«La crisis estructural necesita de una transformación estructural»: István Mészáros
Cuando se enfatiza la necesidad de una transformación estructural radical debe quedar claro desde el principio que ello no es un llamado a una Utopía no realizable. Al contrario, la característica distintiva primaria de las utopías modernas era precisamente la proyección de que la mejoría pretendida en las condiciones de vida de los trabajadores podía ser alcanzada en el ámbito de la base estructural existente de las sociedades criticadas. Así, Robert Owen de New Lanark, por ejemplo, que tenía una sociedad comercial básicamente insustentable con el filósofo liberal utilitarista Jeremy Bentham, intentó con ese espíritu la realización general de sus esclarecidas reformas sociales y educacionales. Ella pedía lo imposible. Como también sabemos, el altisonante principio moral “utilitarista” “el mayor bien para el mayor número” se redujo a la nada desde su defensa por Bentham. El problema para nosotros es que, sin una evaluación adecuada de la naturaleza de la crisis económica y social de nuestros días –que ya no puede ser negada por los defensores del orden capitalista, aun cuando ellos rechazan la necesidad de una transformación mayor–, la probabilidad de éxito a este respecto es insignificante. El fin del “Welfare State”, en el pequeño número de países privilegiados donde una vez fue instituido, ofrece una lección que nos hace reflexionar sobre ello.
«Commodity Fetishism vs. Capital Fetishism»: Dimitri Dimoulis and John Milios
Abstract
In Marx’s analysis of the Capitalist Mode of Production and more precisely in his theory of value, the key to decipher the capitalist political and ideological practices and structures is to be found. In this context, many Marxists believed that the analysis of “commodity fetishism” in Section 1 of Volume 1 of Capital renders the basis for understanding ideological domination and political coercion under the capitalist rule. The authors argue, that “commodity fetishism” is only a preliminary notion, which allows Marx to arrive, in subsequent Sections of Capital, at the concept of the “fetishism of capital”.
1. Introduction
From the days of his youth Marx was familiar with the statements of ethnographers on the subject of fetishism and used the term in his own writings.1 Equally important was in this context the influence of Hegel.
In this paper we are not going to deal with the different meanings that the notion of fetishism acquires at different points of Marx’s work, an issue which is related to the various concepts of fetishism in political economy, political philosophy and the social sciences.3 We will focus on the analysis of commodity fetishism, in an effort to contribute to the comprehension of the different dimensions of this concept, especially in Marx’s Capital. For this purpose, we will pursue the following course: At the beginning we are going to present various Marxist approaches to the subject. Subsequently, we are going to read these approaches in the light of Marx’s analysis. In this way we will attempt to investigate if and to what extent the notion of fetishism has itself attained a fetishist function within Marxism, creating inversions, transpositions and misinterpretations, and what is actually its significance in the framework of the Marxist approach to ideology.
«David Riazanov e a edição das obras de Marx e Engels»: Hugo Eduardo da Gama Cerqueira
RESUMO
Este artigo apresenta um esboço da biografia de David Riazanov, discutindo sua participação
na vida política e intelectual russa e, em especial, seu papel na descoberta e publicação do legado literário de Karl Marx e Friedrich Engels, que culminou na primeira tentativa de editar as obras completas destes autores, a Marx Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA).
Palavras-chave: David (Borisovich Goldendach) Riazanov; Karl Marx; Friedrich Engels; MEGA.
ABSTRACT
This article presents an outline of the biography of David Riazanov. The article discusses
Riazanov’s participation in the political and intellectual life of Russia, and his role in the discovery and the publication of the literary legacy of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, which culminated in the first attempt to edit the Marx Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA).
Key words: David (Borisovich Goldendach) Riazanov; Karl Marx; Friedrich Engels; MEGA.
[Video] István Mészáros no Roda Viva (12-02-2002)
O filósofo húngaro István Mészáros é entrevistado no Roda Viva (TV Cultura – gravado em 12.02.2002). Entrevistadores: Heródoto Barbeiro. Emir Sader, Ricardo Antunes, Carlos Nelson Coutinho, Luiz Gonzaga Beluzo, Maria Orlanda Pinasi e Haroldo Ceravolo Cereza.
Hungarian philosopher István Mészáros interviewed on Roda Viva (Brazilian TV Interview show – recorded on 12.02.2002) Interviewers: Heródoto Barbeiro. Emir Sader, Ricardo Antunes, Carlos Nelson Coutinho, Luiz Gonzaga Beluzo, Maria Orlanda Pinasi e Haroldo Ceravolo Cereza.
«The Role of Language and Ideology in Social Reproduction According to Rossi-Landi»: Augusto Ponzio
Abstract
Rossi-Landi elaborated such concepts as linguistic production, linguistic work and linguistic capital in social reproduction, identifying homological relations with material production. These concepts describe factors that are fundamental in today’s social reproduction cycle as also emerges from the circulation of such expressions as ‘immaterial resource’, ‘immaterial capital’ and ‘immaterial investment’ in linguistic usage today. All this is accompanied by awareness of the importance of education, information and specialized knowledge for development and competition in present day knowledge society. Until recently material production and linguistic production, that is, manual work and intellectual work, were thought to be separate but related homologically at profound genetic and structural levels. The novelty is that in the world of global communication linguistic and material production have merged. The computer has united hardware and software in a single unit. The connection between work and material artefacts, on one hand, and work and linguistic artefacts, on the other, is now obvious such that the superior capacity of linguistic, that is, ‘immaterial work’, is also now obvious. Linguistic work leads the processes of production and development.
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«World Revolution 2: the Return to a Global Revolutionary Strategy Based on the Experience of the 20th Century»: Alexander Tarasov
«The World Revolution 2» is an old text; it was written before the global economic crisis, in the late 2005—early 2006. So it happened that Hungarian was the language this text was first published in, in the journal Eszmélet in 2006 (http://www.eszmelet.hu) because the article was based on a paper delivered at Budapest in October 2005. It was only at the end of 2009 that I managed to have the text published in Russian, in the journal Levaya Politika. Then, in 2010, there was a Ukrainian version published in the journal Vpered. That means that the facts of the global crisis are neither analysed, nor even mentioned in the very article.
Nonetheless, they speak for themselves and perfectly prove that the theses and analysis contained in the article are justified. Since this is a preface to the English version, let me focus primarily upon some episodes related to the First World, although I have to be brief.
Firstly, please note that the current crisis is the first truly global economic crisis coming after WWII. It was quite predictable: as soon as the worldwide confrontation between the two systems (the Cold War, that is the World War III which de facto forced the capitalist economy to work as a military one because of the arms race and the impact the fact of confronting the «external enemy” had upon the internal situation) came to an end, the functioning mechanisms of the capitalist economy, well known to us from the Marxist political economy classics, restarted working without distortion again.
Secondly, let me point out that the economic crisis has hit the capitalist periphery the hardest: it is where the UN and FAO have recorded 1 billion hungry people (the figure unprecedented in the world history!); it is where we have witnessed classic revolts of the hungry in Egypt, Bangladesh, Haiti, etc.; it is where the crisis has destabilized the political structures which appeared to be stable, or were successfully stabilized not so long ago (Thailand, Mauritania, Haiti, Kyrgyzstan, Honduras, Mexico, Côte d’Ivoire).
«Pour lire Le Capital»: David Harvey
Mon but est de vous amener à lire le livre I du Capital, à le lire tel que Marx voulait qu’il soit lu 1. Cette entreprise peut paraître ridicule, puisque si vous n’avez pas lu cet ouvrage, il vous est impossible de connaître les intentions de Marx. Or je peux vous assurer qu’il souhaitait être lu vraiment et attentivement. Tout véritable apprentissage implique un effort pour comprendre l’inconnu. La lecture du Capital proposée dans ce livre se révélera d’autant plus éclairante que vous aurez préalablement lu les chapitres traités.
C’est pourquoi je voudrais vous encourager à vous frotter directement au texte de Marx, pour que vous puissiez vous faire votre propre idée de sa pensée. Cela soulève d’emblée une difficulté. Tout le monde a entendu parler de Karl Marx, tout le monde a entendu les mots « marxisme » et « marxiste », qui possèdent toutes sortes de connotations : vous avez donc forcément des idées préconçues et des préjugés – favorables ou non. Je vous demanderai cependant de commencer par mettre de côté, autant que possible, ce que vous croyez savoir de Marx, afin de pouvoir entendre ce qu’il a réellement à dire.
«El rol de E.P. Thompson en la izquierda contemporánea»: Antoni Domènech
Publicado en 1963, La formación de la clase obrera en Inglaterra es probablemente la obra de historia social inglesa mas imaginativa de posguerra. Sin duda se trata de uno de los libros de historia más influyentes del siglo XX, y está dotado de una extraordinaria calidad histórica y literaria. E.P. Thompson muestra como la clase obrera participó en su propia gestación y recrea la experiencia vital de personas que sufrieron una pérdida de estatus y libertad, fueron degradadas y aún así crearon una cultura y una conciencia política de gran vitalidad.
«Developing Realistic Methodology: How New Dialectics Surpasses the Critical Realist Method for Social Science»: Andrew Brown
ABSTRACT
This paper argues that ‘new dialectics’ provides an adequate methodology for economics and social science. The argument is advanced via a critique of ‘critical realism’, an important rival to new dialectics. Critical realism holds that the root mistake underlying orthodox methodology, termed the ‘epistemic fallacy’, is a failure to sustain adequately the distinction between ontology and epistemology, resulting in the relative neglect of ontology. By overcoming the fallacy, critical realism claims to provide an adequate methodology for economics and social science. The paper argues that critical realism goes too far in the opposite direction to the epistemic fallacy. Critical realism neglects the intrinsic links between ontology and epistemology so fails to provide an adequate methodology. However, critical realism must not, according to the argument, simply be rejected in toto if an adequate methodology is to be achieved. Instead it must be surpassed or transcended. The recent resurgence of a ‘new dialectics’ is argued to provide just such a supersession because new dialectics affirms the intrinsic links between ontology and epistemology without reducing the former to the latter. The implications of this transcendence are illustrated via a comparison of the respective interpretations of Marx’s Capital offered by critical realism and new dialectics
«Cómo funciona el marxismo»: Chris Harman
Introducción
Existe el mito muy difundido de que el marxismo es difícil. Ha sido propagado por los enemigos del socialismo. Harold Wilson, un importante líder laborista británico, se jactaba de nunca haber sido capaz de ir más allá de la primera página de El Capital. Y es un mito que también ha sido respaldado por un tipo particular de académicos, que se proclaman “marxistas”: utilizan deliberadamente frases oscuras y expresiones místicas, con el fin de dar la impresión de que poseen un conocimiento especial, negado a otros.
Por tanto, no hay nada de sorprendente en que muchos socialistas que trabajan 40 horas por semana y más en fábricas, minas y oficinas, acaben concibiendo el marxismo como algo que nunca tendrán tiempo u oportunidad de entender.
Marx au XXIe siècle: l’esprit et la lettre 2011-2012
Organisé dans le cadre du Centre d’Histoire des Systèmes de Pensée Moderne, avec le soutien du CERPHI (ENS Lettres et Sciences Humaines) et de la revue ContreTemps (Textuel)
Les séances ont lieu le samedi, de 14 à 16 h,
à la Sorbonne amphithéâtre Lefebvre
(Galerie Jean-Baptiste Dumas, escalier R, 1er étage)
entrée par le 14, rue Cujas,
Métro : Cluny-Sorbonne – RER : Luxembourg
.
[Vídeo] «Transformar el capitalismo: una necesidad para el buen vivir» Josep Manel Busqueta
En el capitalismo siempre están en crisis las personas, los pueblos y la naturaleza.
La lógica de funcionamiento del capitalismo es la obtención del máximo beneficio en el mínimo período de tiempo posible. Tanto la satisfacción de las necesidades de las personas como el respeto por la naturaleza y las culturas de los pueblos, no son cuestiones que el sistema deba respetar para garantizar su funcionamiento y hegemonía como sistema rector de la sociedad. Al contrario, la explotación y el expolio han estado y están en la base de la obtención de beneficios. Capitalismo con rostro humano… son términos contradictorios.
En esencia, que el capitalismo esté en crisis no es algo negativo para su propio funcionamiento. La crisis actúa como unas tijeras de podar: elimina de la sociedad aquellos procesos que sobran, los menos eficientes, y sólo deja que sobrevivan los procesos productivos más sólidos. Para el capitalismo, la crisis representa la necesidad de reformarse y adecuarse para poder explotar más y mejor.
«Neoliberalism and the City»: David Harvey
Internationally recognized urban geographer and social theorist David Harvey delivers a keynote lecture at the Middlebury College Symposium, «Urban Landscapes: The Politics of Expression»
(Sep 29, 2006 at Middlebury College)
«La OTAN y la geoestrategia imperialista en Oriente Medio»: Ángeles Maestro
Congresso Internacional Marx em Maio – Perspectivas para o século XXI
Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Lisboa – Anfiteatro I
3, 4 e 5 de Maio 2012
Conferência realizada a 3 de Maio
Mesa 2 – Situação Mundial
[Vídeo] «Talking history»: C.L.R. James and E.P. Thompson
«This classic filmed conversation between two radical historians covers many issues: from the threat of nuclear war to the significance of the Solidarity movement in Poland, the independence struggle in Zimbabwe and the overthrow of the Shah in Iran. Do these movements offer encouragement to those suffering repression in other parts of the world? What does the future hold for India and the black African states?»–
Reading Marx’s Capital with David Harvey
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