Marx's Critique of Economic Reason

1997 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-198
Author(s):  
Gideon Freudenthal

The ArgumentIn this paper I argue first that Marx's Critique of Political Economy employs “critique” in the Kantian meaning of the term—i.e., determining the domain of legitimate application of the categories involved and maintaining that outside these borders understanding is led into error and entangled in metaphysics.According to Marx, his predecessors in political economy transgressed these boundaries of application, and therefore conceived of all different modes of production as being essentially similar to commodity production, and thus implied that commodity production and the bourgeois form of life corresponding to it are “natural” not historical and transitory. In Marx's conception there are no super-historical economic categories or laws.I argue moreover that Marx's methodology of reconstructing the “development” of socioeconomic entities and categories from their “germ” or “cell” also serves his critical intention. Whereas social theorists of the time referred with organic metaphors to human collectives (“family,” “community,” etc.), Marx referred with such metaphors to economic entities only (“commodity,”“money,” etc.). The difference is crucial, since the first carries deterministic consequences for the development of society while the latter does not: Social form and historical development in Marx are contingent and not necessary, historical and not natural, transitory and not eternal.I also stress that Marx's procedure of critique is internal. He uses only such assumptions, observations, and arguments as could in principle also be used by the scholars criticized. Nevertheless the outcome of the critique is not merely a new theory but an entirely different one — i.e., a historical conception of the discipline of political economy and of its laws.

1997 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-198 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gideon Freudenthal

The ArgumentIn this paper I argue first that Marx's Critique of Political Economy employs “critique” in the Kantian meaning of the term—i.e., determining the domain of legitimate application of the categories involved and maintaining that outside these borders understanding is led into error and entangled in metaphysics.According to Marx, his predecessors in political economy transgressed these boundaries of application, and therefore conceived of all different modes of production as being essentially similar to commodity production, and thus implied that commodity production and the bourgeois form of life corresponding to it are “natural” not historical and transitory. In Marx's conception there are no super-historical economic categories or laws.I argue moreover that Marx's methodology of reconstructing the “development” of socioeconomic entities and categories from their “germ” or “cell” also serves his critical intention. Whereas social theorists of the time referred with organic metaphors to human collectives (“family,” “community,” etc.), Marx referred with such metaphors to economic entities only (“commodity,”“money,” etc.). The difference is crucial, since the first carries deterministic consequences for the development of society while the latter does not: Social form and historical development in Marx are contingent and not necessary, historical and not natural, transitory and not eternal.I also stress that Marx's procedure of critique is internal. He uses only such assumptions, observations, and arguments as could in principle also be used by the scholars criticized. Nevertheless the outcome of the critique is not merely a new theory but an entirely different one — i.e., a historical conception of the discipline of political economy and of its laws.


2019 ◽  
pp. 74-98
Author(s):  
A.B. Lyubinin

Review of the monograph indicated in the subtitle V.T. Ryazanov. The reviewer is critical of the position of the author of the book, believing that it is possible and even necessary (to increase the effectiveness of General economic theory and bring it closer to practice) substantial (and not just formal-conventional) synthesis of the Marxist system of political economy with its non-Marxist systems. The article emphasizes the difference between the subject and the method of the classical, including Marxist, school of political economy with its characteristic objective perception of the subject from the neoclassical school with its reduction of objective reality to subjective assessments; this excludes their meaningful synthesis as part of a single «modern political economy». V.T. Ryazanov’s interpretation of commodity production in the economic system of «Capital» of K. Marx as a purely mental abstraction, in fact — a fiction, myth is also counter-argued. On the issue of identification of the discipline «national economy», the reviewer, unlike the author of the book, takes the position that it is a concrete economic science that does not have a political economic status.


Author(s):  
Desintha Asriani

This paper attempts to explain the discourse of motherhood in both South Korea and Indonesia. It is based on the interesting dynamic of being mother that is much influenced by the interrelated actions played by number of dominant actors around woman itself. By using a comparative study, it is found that the map or the trace of political economy in terms of developmental agenda, in fact drives the difference flows in shaping the notion of motherhood. In Indonesia, for being mother, women exist in the intersection of state intention, industrialization and culture pressure. Indonesian motherhood is interestingly in line with another analysis, such in their relation with housemaids. Meanwhile, in South Korea, the description of motherhood occurs in the middle of nationalism spirit, competition, ambience and family routine. Hence, this study concludes that being mother is highly contested and closely associated with the endless structural and cultural issues.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
HARZIKO

Language is a tool used to convey ideas, ideas, feelings, and thoughts to others. Language, which is an arbiter sound symbol system that is used by members of one community to work together, interact, and identify themselves. In other words, language can be a means to convey intent or purpose so that the desired thing is achieved. As a communication tool, language develops over time. Therefore, language will never die if its speakers still care and love for the language comparative linguistics as a study or study of language which includes the comparison of cognate languages or the historical development of a language. This research aims to elucidate the use of Indonesian language at students of Iqra Buru University with Comparative Analysis. The method used in this research is descriptive with a qualitative approach. Data collected by observation, interview, and documentation techniques. Sources of data in this study were 5 speakers 5 speakers language Analyzing the data by means of data selection, data classification, and data presentation. The results of the study stated that there were phonological differences, namely the Jamee vowel system contained / ɛ / and / ɔ /, while the vocal system was / a / and the consonant system was Jamee / ɣ / or / R /, while the language / r /, then the difference pronunciations include single vowels, for example makɛn, bɔRa in Jamee and eating, bara in Language used by iqra Rush university students. Keywords


Author(s):  
Ilona Tkachuk

Background. A painting perception is a complex multilevel process of reception and transformation of information, which forms a subjective image of objects, serves as a communicative form of interaction between individuals, societies and cultures. A painting is a complicated system, which reflects the cultural situation in a society of a certain epoch, the worldview, conveys the complex of human feelings and beliefs, arises as a means of cognition. Everyone deliberately or involuntarily becomes a painting recipient, more or less engaging himself into the process of communication. Therefore, the approach to a painting is valid according to individual matrices of ideological notions complexes, concepts, principles, mentality, education and preparedness of a creator and a perceiver as a kind of non-verbal communication with a transfer of certain information during this process. Published scientific works refer to the narrow specifics of certain disciplines in the study of perception process of the painting, therefore, they do not constitute a holistic system of knowledge concerning this phenomenon. Among them we note the fundamental researches, which, in particular, set out aesthetic theories: perceptual (M. Beardsley), cognitive (R. Arnheim, D. Berlyne), informational (A. Moles); achievements in neuroaesthetics (V. Ramachandran), psychology of painting perception (V. Molyako, J. Gibson, S. Kosslyn). However, known presented painting perception algorithms do not take into account the entire range of components, parameters and the context of current communication process with art creation. It was revealed that the establishment of variants of components' interaction within the system «artist—painting—recipient», as different ways of cognition and coexistence in the information space, remains at the stage of formation and needs a fundamental development. Objectives. The objectives of the research are to identify concrete models of subjective-objective interaction within the system «artist—painting—recipient» as a result of perception the paintings of the groups «Zhyvopysnyi zapovidnyk» and «Paryzka komuna» in the artistic environment. As a material for conducting a practical investigation there were chosen the paintings of above-mentioned groups, because their art, both — as horizontal and vertical, formed a peculiar matrix of Ukrainian visuality. The art code of their works gives the opportunity to see the regularities of historical development of National visual experience. The range of painting form in all its aspects, from transavantgarde — to abstract, makes it possible to consider and analyze the difference between its specific characteristics and accordingly, different models of recipients' perception. Methods. Studying the disclosure of interactive features of interplay between painting and the recipient is related with certain difficulties, mainly of a methodical nature. Exceptionally an interdisciplinary research approach makes the most complete disclosure of the specifics of this process possible, determines its place in culture. During the research the system approach was used as well as such methods: experiment, modeling, structural-functional, statistical and comparative. In order to test the hypothesis, to reproduce the model of information system developed by author in real conditions, arose the need of organization of empirical study. An experiment was chosen as a method that assumes the allocation of significant factors which affect the results of the formation of a particular interaction model within the system «artist—painting—recipient». The investigation with recipients' poll aims to study cause-effect relationships in painting perception process, which assumes the practical modeling of the phenomenon and conditions of its course. Results. It is substantiated that the artistic strategy of two groups — narrative «Paryzka komuna» and non-narrative «Zhyvopysnyi zapovidnyk», has created a unique matrix of Ukrainian visuality, and the art code of paintings enables the revealing of patterns of historical development of National visual experience. Review and analysis of the specific features complex of modernist and postmodernist paintings allowed to identify the origins of four different perception models formation by recipients. Within the framework of the study there were critically comprehended known published painting perception algorithms. As a result of investigation, the informational painting perception system was formed and at the same time there was carried out its correlation with fundamental researches of Western scientists. In particular, they relate to perceptual, cognitive and informational aesthetic theories; achievements in neuroaesthetics and psychology of painting perception. Present model is an attempt to take into account the whole complex of components, parameters and context of communication process with the painting, as well as interpretive art models of corresponding period. Conclusions. Summarizing the results of the experiment, we can conclude that recipients from the range of artistic community clearly manifested the change of perception model — from nonclassical to post-nonclassical. It depended on presented painting — whether narrative artwork or «painting-opened-structure-object» was shown. The first one personifies the painters' works of «Paryzka komuna», and the second — artists' painting practice of «Zhyvopysnyi zapovidnyk». Also there were stated the individual manifestations of primordial and classical interaction painting models with their complexes of inherent specific features. Obtained results can form the support material for the evaluation of artworks — both within and outside the art institutions. Also the main theoretical positions can be relevant for artists in process of their work with the construction of further strategy, as well as for recipients interacting with painting


differences ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-93
Author(s):  
Sara-Maria Sorentino

Recent texts in the historiography of slavery have focused on slave-owning women in an attempt to overturn the paradigm of the benevolent mistress. While “benevolence” has silenced and exceptionalized mistresses’ violence, newer interpretations draw from slave testimony to establish forms of equivalence between the power of the mistress and that of the master. Because this normalization of white women’s power nonetheless relies on standards of historiographical interpretation—the predominance of political economy, the imperatives of affect and agency—it does not sufficiently access how historiographical methods participate in stabilizing gender and pathologizing black rage. This article proposes that the difference between the mistress and master is a fantasy necessary to the circulation of the libidinal economy of slavery. In doing so, it pursues an inquiry into the pleasures of interpretation and speculates on the ways historiography invests in the white woman in order to extend its interlocutory life.


2020 ◽  
pp. 198-214
Author(s):  
Thomas Nail

This chapter argues that since the fetish of value is something produced kinetically, its alternative, communism, must also be something understood kinetically, that is, having its own form of motion. In particular, the previous chapters have aimed to show that what is fundamentally at stake in the difference between material production and fetishism is the transparency and direction of the form of motion. Only when the social form of motion is left fully uncovered by coats, mirrors, and fogs can it be collectively organized without devalorization, appropriation, and mystical domination. Communism is the material social condition in which production is treated not as if it were coming from what is produced but as a threefold metabolic process itself. The thesis of this chapter then is that previous social forms of motion have always relied on a certain degree of fetishism of this motion.


Author(s):  
Nicola P. Randall ◽  
Barbara Smith

This chapter outlines the origin and historical development of global agriculture. Agricultural systems around the world are extremely diverse, but all involve the management of land for the production of food and other commodities. Agroecosystems encompass a wide variety of production systems, both within and between different regions, and different classifications are used to order these. Characteristics and classifications of some major types of contemporary agricultural systems are introduced. The difference between agricultural and natural (or alternatively managed) ecosystems and farmed versus unfarmed habitats on agricultural land is explored, and examples of each are provided. Some of the impacts of agriculture on wider ecosystems are introduced.


2012 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sam Ashman

AbstractEconomics has long been the ‘dismal science’. The crisis in classical political economy at the end of the nineteenth century produced radically differing intellectual responses: Marx’s reconstitution of value theory on the basis of his dialectical method, the marginalists’ development of subjective value theory, and the historical school’s advocacy of inductive and historical reasoning. It is against this background that economics was established as a discrete academic discipline, consciously modelling itself on maths and physics and developing its focus on theorising exchange. This entailed extraordinary reductionism, with humans regarded as rational, self-interested actors, and class, society, history and ‘the social’ being excised from economic analysis. On the basis of this narrowing of its concerns, particularly from the 1980s onwards, economics has sought to expand its sphere of influence through a form of imperialism which seeks to apply mainstream economic approaches to other social sciences and sees economics as ‘the universal grammar of social science’. The implications of this shift are discussed in Ben Fine and Dimitris Milonakis’s two volumes, where they analyse the fate of the social, the political and the historical in economic thought, and assess the future for an inter-disciplinary critique of economic reason.


Slavic Review ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 572-596 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan P. McCaffray

A key moment in the evolution of modern European states was the halfcentury or so that straddles the year 1800. Confronted by commercial and colonial expansion across the seas and the steppes, as well as by the fiscal consequences of two long world wars (1756-63 and 1792-1815), monarchy and ministers increasingly viewed the state as a great engine for mobilizing “economic” resources. This period marks the culmination of what Paul Kennedy calls the European “financial revolution,” which was generated primarily by war. “If the difference between the financial burdens of the age of Philip II and that of Napoleon was one of degree, it still was remarkable enough,” Kennedy observes. The stresses of generating income in such quantities changed individual states as well as the international economy.


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