Walrasian Marxism Once Again

1992 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 157-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Devine ◽  
Gary Dymski
Keyword(s):  
Economic Model ◽  
Logical Structure ◽  
Labor Process ◽  
Class Structure ◽  
Class Relations ◽  
Capitalist Class ◽  
Theoretical Conclusion ◽  
Empirical Reality ◽  
Empirical Proposition ◽  
Means Of Production

John Roemer's comment (1992) succinctly summarizes the logical structure of his own theory of capitalist exploitation, but misunderstands the main points of our critique. He reduces his argument to two propositions. The first is an “empirical proposition”about the “root causes of exploitation”: X + Y →Z, where X is the existence of differential ownership of means of production (DOPA), Y is coercion in the labor process, and Z is the capitalist class structure and exploitation. The second is the strictly theoretical proposition X + not-Y -”Z, the truth of which he demonstrates, given most of the assumptions of a Walrasian economic model. He concludes that these two propositions, taken together, demonstrate the primacy of DOPA in explaining capitalist class relations. This much is true – subject to the various limitations we have indicated in our article – but only within the restricted confines of a Walrasian framework. This purely theoretical conclusion has no force as an empirical conclusion: this is the point at which Roemer's interpretation goes awry. For obviously, DOPA is a crucial element of empirical reality. But because Roemer's Walrasian framework precludes other equally crucial elements of empirical reality (which are also conceptually central to Marxian discourse), an irreducible distance remains therein between the theoretical and the empirical.

scholarly journals Recepcja idei postmodernizmu w pedagogice radykalnej Petera McLarena

Chowanna ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Wojciech Kruszelnicki
Keyword(s):  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
General Level ◽  
Class Relations ◽  
Capitalist Class ◽  
Radical Pedagogy ◽  
Postmodern Theory ◽  
Social Struggle ◽  
The Status

The aim of this paper is to comprehensively reconstruct the reception of postmodernism in Peter McLaren’s critical/radical pedagogy. On a more general level, the article discusses the pedagogical perils of uncriticalinfatuation with poststructuralist and postmodernist principles of dismantling grand metanarratives and debunking the notions of truth, totality, and universalism and replacing them with the notions of pluralism and perspectivism. The author seeks to verify the statement that McLaren’s response to postmodern developments in philosophy and social theory is in as much similar to that of Henry Giroux’s that it produces a project of education informed by postmodern ideas. The thesis – advanced in the mid 1990s by Tomasz Szkudlarek – is refuted on the basis of thorough a analysis of both earlier and more contemporary texts of McLaren where the main tenets of postmodern theory are severely criticized. The argument about the evolution of McLaren’s thought from a cautious appropriation of some elements of postmodernism to its downright condemnation is supported by the theory of its increasing radicalization under the influence of Marxism. The alternative to the illusory radicality of postmodernism – denounced as affirming the status-quo – is “pedagogy of revolution,” which emerges as strictly political, interventionist praxis whose aim is no longer discourse analysis but concrete social struggle against the oppressive capitalist class relations.

Globalization, technology and the transnational capitalist class

foresight ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 194-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerry Harris
Keyword(s):  
Information Technologies ◽  
Class Relations ◽  
Capitalist Class ◽  
Content Type ◽  
New Era ◽  
Class Theory ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
The Impact

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore how capitalism has developed into a deeply integrative economic system of financial investments and manufacturing. This process of globalization has brought about the emergence of a transnational capitalist class that rules the world’s economy. Financialization, created by the speed and interconnectivity of information technologies, is a key element that has produced immense wealth for a few while reducing their dependence on the labor of workers. This system of global accumulation has lead to a crisis of democracy with several different possible outcomes. Design/methodology/approach – This paper begins with an historical examination of capitalism and capitalist class formation by tracing developments from nation-centric capitalism to globalization. A conceptual explanation of the development of the transnational capitalist class (TCC) is offered. Research on current economic data to support the thesis on the emergence of the TCC in both its private and statist forms is included, as well as an examination of the latest technology developments that affect financialization and how this impacts class relations. The conclusion analyzes the development of democracy as a class dialectic, and the impact of globalization that is altering the historic relationships between capital and labor. The paper ends with a discussion of possible political/economic futures. Findings – Globalization is a new era in which capitalism has deepened its inherent tendency toward creating world markets and production. This process has been greatly enhanced by the new technological tools of financial production. Organizing and overseeing this system of global accumulation is the transnational capitalist class. The emergence of this class has transformed class relations based within the historic perimeters of nation-states, and it threatens the content and character of democracy that arose out of the bourgeois democratic revolutions in America and France. Originality/value – Transnational Capitalist Class Theory is a recently developed field of research. It is a new critic of mainstream international relations analysis which centers on nation to nation relationships. It also differs with world system theory which divides countries into a center/peripheral analysis. Within the field of TCC research, this paper offers an original historic perspective between global economics and the development of democracy. It also makes new theoretical connections between information technology, financialization and the destruction of the social contract.

scholarly journals KARL MARX’S VIEW OF THE PRODUCTIVE FORCES AND ITS DEVELOPMENT TODAY

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (1) ◽  
pp. 221-230
Author(s):  
Kien Thi-Pham ◽  
Dung Bui-Xuan
Keyword(s):  
Social Development ◽  
Human Development ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Labor Process ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Fourth Industrial Revolution ◽  
Current Context ◽  
Means Of Production

When studying human society, Karl Marx affirmed that all changes in social life, in the end, originate from the transformation of the productive forces. The development of productive forces is expressed through the conquest of the nature of men. Productive forces reflect the actual capability of men in the process of creating wealth for society and ensuring human development. In any society, in order to create wealth, both workers and means of production are needed. Without instruments for the labor process, men cannot create wealth. That development provides us with more convincing practical evidence to continue affirming Karl Marx’s precise view of the productive forces, and at the same time requires us to supplement and develop his view on this issue inconsistent with reality. In the current context of globalization and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, it is essential to clarify all the practical capabilities used in the production process of the society over the world’s development periods to promote social development. Therefore, this article clarifies the basic arguments to analyze Karl Marx’s view on the productive forces and see the need to refresh and supplement Karl Marx’s theory in the current situation.

Rethinking Class and Contemporary Working-Class Studies

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-22
Author(s):  
Michael Zweig
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
The Other ◽  
Labor Process ◽  
Capitalist Class ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Political Experience ◽  
Working People ◽  
Intellectual Capacity ◽  
Organization Of Production ◽  
Working Class Studies

The field of working class studies is forming in the context of dramatic changes in the labor process and crises in capitalist economies. Workers have historically been slow to adjust to such changes with new organizing strategies. As we seek our bearings among the changes in order to develop the field in ways that enhance the organizational and intellectual capacity of working people, we should hold onto a key point of continuity: whatever the new labor processes or changes in the economy, the working class continues to exist in capitalist societies, within capitalist class dynamics, in which the organization of production underlies material, cultural, and political experience. Race and class continue to be mutually determined. While each is distinct, neither can be properly understood or challenged in isolation from the other.

scholarly journals METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF RESEARCH OF THE LABOR RELATIONS SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 8-18
Author(s):  
S.G. Zemlyanukhina ◽  
◽  
N.S. Zemlyanukhina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Labor Relations ◽  
System Development ◽  
Logical Structure ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Production Factors ◽  
Personal Consumption ◽  
Qualitative State ◽  
Methodological Problems ◽  
Means Of Production

The article substantiates the need to apply systematic and dialectical approaches when considering the development of the labor relations system. The article provides an interpretation of the structure of the labor relations system by the phases of labor reproduction, considering the role of personal consumption in the production (formation) of labor. The authors attempt to extend their concept of the dialectic of the general and particular in the process of economic relations development to the system of labor relations and to present the structural and genetic connections of the reproduction of labor not only as carriers of continuity, heredity but also as the basis of development. The paper presents the objective development of labor relations as a change in the qualitative state of techno-labor, organizational-labor, and social-labor relations in the process of combining and functioning of production factors, which is reflected in the specifics of ownership relations for the means of production and labor. The study shows that the specifics of the labor relations system in the development process are also determined by nationalspecific and socio-cultural factors. The proposed methodology for studying the development of the system of labor relations in the unity of the systematic, and dialectical approaches may be useful for building a logical structure of the course in labor economics, including the study of labor relations at all stages of labor reproduction.

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