'Marxism' tag archive

The Meaning of Political Ecology Tim Hayward ‘Political ecology’ is an expression which has become quite familiar in recent years, but does not appear to have acquired a clear and settled meaning. * Evidently it is used to point up some kind of connection between politics, or the political, and ecology, yet the project of […]

Humanism and Nature John O’Neill Those who aim to construct links between Marxism and the green movement often look to Marx’ s early work on alienation as a source for a green Marxism. I There is an immediate apparent problem with any such attempt to marry the early Marx and the greens, viz. that Marx’s […]

conference at Birkbeck College. He will be remembered by all who knew him for his amiability, his modesty, the ever renewed breadth of his interests, and above all, for his intellectual generosity. We will miss him. His publications include: 1978: Marxism and Education: A Study of Phenomenological and Marxist Approaches to Education (RKP) 1982: Education, […]

The Cards of Confusion Reflections on Historical Communism and the ‘End of History’ Gregory Elliott For Tom and Martha, divisibly … it is well known that History is not a good bourgeois. Roland Barthes (1957) An anti-Communist is a cur. I couldn’t see any way out of that one, and I never will. Jean-Paul Sartre […]

The Call of Nature A Reply to Ted Benton and Tim Hayward Michael Reid Does the critical practice of the ecology movement require a theoretical ground? Ted Benton,l for one, seems to think that it does. In the Autumn 1992 issue of Radical Philosophy Tim Hayward argued that one could accept Benton’ s theory without […]

The Early Marx on Needs Andrew Chitty Following the first widespread dissemination of Marx’ s early writings, his treatment of human needs was often taken as the basis for a critique of the ‘false needs’ created by capitalism and its consumer culture. 1 ‘True needs’ for meaningful social interaction were counterposed to the ‘false needs’ […]

Ecology and Human Emancipation Tim Hayward Humanism vs Prometheanism The entry of ecological considerations into political thought raises new questions about the meaning of human emancipation.* In particular, traditional socialist conceptions of emancipation as a move from a sphere of necessity to one of freedom are rendered radically problematic from an ecological perspective. i As […]

Marxism Today An Interview with Istvan Meszaros /stwin Meszaros left Hungary after the Soviet invasion of 1956. He recently retiredfrom a Chair in Philosophy at the University of Sussex. He established his reputation in the English-speaking world with his widely translated Marx’s Theory ofAlienation (1970), which was awarded the / saac Deutscher Memorial Prize. His […]

Bernard Harrison, Inconvenient Fictions: Literature and the Limits of Theory Genevieve Lloyd Len Doyal and lan Gough, A Theory of Human Need Roger Harris Gregor McLennan, Marxism, Pluralism and Beyond Kevin Magill Krishnan Kumar, Utopianism Ruth Levitas, The Concept of Utopia Ernst Bloch, Heritage of Our Times Vincent Geoghegan Ellie Ragland Sullivan and Mark Bracher, […]

Marxism, Moral Theory and Moral Truisms: A Response to Nielsen Rodney Peffer The first thing that should be noted about Kai Nielsen’s ‘Does a Marxian Critical Theory of Society Need a Moral Theory?’ (RP 59) is that he is not proposing that we should jettison morality altogether when it comes to making judgements about social […]

Does a Marxian Critical Theory of Society Need a Moral Theory? Kai Nielsen To show Marx is not a moral philosopher is not to show that he is not a moralist, i.e., one having or propounding moral judgements and views . R. G. Peffer As the image of actually existing socialism becomes more and more […]

Lacan in Slovenia An Interview with Slavoj Zizek and Renata Salecl One notable result of the recent politicalferment in Central and Eastern Europe has been the emergence of new theoretical currents, often combining strands of thought which – to West European eyes – appear as starkly incompatible . Nowadays, one can meet young Soviet philosophers […]

The Lonely Hour of the Last Instance LOUIS PIERRE ALTHUSSER, 1918-1990 Against what common sense, the common sense of financiers and lawyers, tell us, there are many writings that blow away, but a few words that remain. No doubt because they have been inscribed in life and history. Louis Althusser on Jean Hyppolite, 1968 The […]

Cornelius Castoriadis An Interview The following interview with Cornelius Castoriadis took place at the University of Essex, in late Feburary 1990. Castoriadis is a leading figure in the thought and politics of the postwar period in France. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s he was a member of the now almost legendary political organization, Socialisme […]

The Situationist International: A Case of Spectacular Neglect Sadie Plant The recent exhibitions of Situationist art and paraphernalia in London, Paris, and Boston, have given the Situationist International (SI) an unprecedented academic and cultural profile. Even during the movement’s most active period, when many of its ideas and practices were realised in the events in […]

Reification, Class and ‘New Social Movements’ Paul Browne All significant social movements of the last thirty years have started outside the organised class interests and institutions. The peace movement, the ecology movement, the women’s movement, solidarity with the third world, human rights agencies, campaigns against poverty and homelessness, campaigns against cultural poverty and distortion: all […]

Marxism and Psychoanalysis An Exchange Joe/ Kovef and fan Craib foel Kovel has become increasingly well known to a British public over recent years, firstly with the publication in 1977 of A Complete Guide to Therapy (Harvester) and then with the publication by Free Association Books in 1988 of four titles: The Radical Spirit; White […]

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak An Interview Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak was born in Calcutta. She now teaches English and Culture Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. Her translation of Derrida’ s Of Grammatology (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), with a long and authoritative introduction, remains a controversial event in the recent history of philosophy and cultural theory, […]

Marxism, Romanticism and Utopia: Ernst Bloch and William Morris Ruth Levitas t Marxists have generally been antagonistic to anything that could be described as utopian, justifying this on the basis of Marx ‘s and Engels’ strictures on the ‘utopian socialists’. In recent years, several writers have pointed out that neither Marx nor Engels was totally […]

Humanism = Speciesism Marx on Humans and Animals Ted Benton INTRODUCTION This paperl is intended to fonn part of a more extended exploration of some key texts ofMarx from the standpoint of the so-called ‘new’ social movements (though some of these pre-date the Marxist tradition itself!). Here, I shall be focussing on the early work […]

The Eupsychian Impulse Psychoanalysis and Left politics since ’68 Barry Richards My purpose here is to offer some reflections on the part flayed by psychoanalysis in Left politics in Britain since 1968. I will attempt a broad and critical characterisation of the major uses to which psychoanalytic theory has been put in political discourse during […]