Rosa Luxemburg’s Global Class Analysis

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcel van der Linden

How did Rosa Luxemburg, in herThe Accumulation of Capitaland other writings, analyse the development of the working class and other subordinate classes under capitalism, and how did she view the relationship between these classes and those living in ‘natural economic societies’? Following primary sources closely, the present essay reconstructs and evaluates Luxemburg’s class analysis of global society. It is shown that Luxemburg pioneered a truly global concept of solidarity from below, including the most oppressed – women and colonised peoples.

2018 ◽  
Vol XVI (2) ◽  
pp. 332-332
Author(s):  
Marko Marina ◽  
Ivan Karlić

Historical Jesus Studies represent the attempts of historians and New Testament scholars to, using different methodologies, deduce certain facts about his life and acts. This present essay is primarily concerned with the standard methodology based on criteria of authenticity. By characterising this methodology in a clearer way, the article strives to critically analyse it, and show its disadvantages. The conclusion of the article is that the criteria of authenticity cannot be only basis of studying Historical Jesus, and that such criteria could be replaced by a more sophisticated approach. Basic problem with such criteria lies in the fact of their incompatibility with respect to the way history is remembered. Such a methodological approach assumes that history, if done properly, will be able to tell us how it really was. Also, trying to find exact words of Jesus does not take into account that people tend to remember gist of the event, not exact details. Numerous psychological studies have shown that. Also, very own act of remembering past events always includes present context. We are inclined to fill the gaps of our memory with things that are of great importance to us from the perspective of present events. Furthermore, present essay deals with specific criteria (e.g. Criterion of embarrassment, Criterion of dissimilarity etc.) and problems they have when one tries to use them as a means of getting to the real »historical« Jesus. The Criterion of dissimilarity, for example, ends up in a picture of historical Jesus whose foremost characteristics are his dissimilarity to Judaism. Getting there means that one has to have a presupposition that embeds anti-Judaism in methodology, a presupposition that is obviously wrong. Jesus was a 1st century Jewish teacher and that context is crucial if one wants to understand historical Jesus. The second part of the article presents a different approach to studying Historical Jesus based primarily on a more adequate understanding of the relationship between the past and the present. Also, this approach takes the studies of social memory and perception into consideration and use those studies when dealing with primary sources for Historical Jesus.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fernando Varela

In the present essay, I argue that taxidermy is a fundamental element in Brazilian novelist Santiago Nazarian’s Neve negra (2017). To do so, I frame my argument by using studies on anthropocentrism and the relationship between the human and the non-human through taxidermy. The first part of the essay examines recent studies on taxidermy and primary sources from the nineteenth century that center on the art and science of skinning, preparing, and mounting dead specimens. The second part focuses on a close reading of Nazarian’s novel by studying the narrator’s patriarchal and masculine anxieties in conjunction with taxidermy and the non-human characters that appear in the novel.


2016 ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Mariana Giaretto ◽  
Victoria Naffa

ResumenEn este trabajo analizamos las relaciones entre tomas de tierras y Estado, en elAlto Valle de Río Negro en Argentina. En un contexto general de especulacióninmobiliaria, por la que se encarecen los precios de alquileres y terrenos, y depolíticas de vivienda selectivas y acotadas, los sectores populares acceden aun espacio en la ciudad mediante tomas de tierras. Frente a estos conflictos,el Estado, en sus diferentes niveles y poderes, despliega una forma deintervención basada en la criminalización de las luchas por tierra y vivienda.Al mismo tiempo, el poder ejecutivo nacional crea la Secretaría de Acceso alHábitat, para posibilitar la intervención política orientada a la regularizaciónde los asentamientos. Sin embargo, esta intervención tiende a reinscribir laproblemática habitacional en el campo político, para reducirla a un conflicto“entre partes”, eludiendo la responsabilidad estatal.Desde un enfoque metodológico cualitativo, seleccionamos como referenteempírico el caso del asentamiento de Villa Obrera en Fiske, Menuco (Gral.Roca), y las técnicas de recolección de datos se basan en fuentes secundarias,como expedientes judiciales y normativa, y en fuentes primarias como son losrelatos de los protagonistas mediante entrevistas individuales y colectivas.Palabras clave: tomas de tierras, Estado, criminalización de los conflictos.Conflicts caused by land occupation and modesof State intervention: analysis of an experience ofAlto Valle in Río Negro (Argentina)AbstractThis paper analyzes the relationship between State and land occupation,at Alto Valle in Río Negro, Argentina. In a general context of real estatespeculation, where rents and land prices are expensive, and a policy ofselective and limited housing, popular sectors can have access to a spacein the city through land occupation. In front of these conflicts, the Statein its different levels and powers, displays a form of intervention basedon the criminalization of struggles for land and housing. At the sametime, the national executive creates the Secretariat of Access to Habitat,oriented to allow political intervention for the regularization of settlements.However, this intervention tends to re-register the housing problems in thepolitical arena, reducing it to a conflict “between parties” and eluding theresponsibility of the State.From a qualitative methodological approach, we selected as empirical referencethe case of the settlement of Villa Obrera in Fiske, Menuco (GeneralRoca). The techniques of data collection are based on secondary sources, suchas policy and legal records, and primary sources as the stories of protagoniststhrough individual and collective interviews.Keywords: land occupation, State, criminalization of conflicts.Conflitos sobre ocupações de terras e modos deintervenção do estado: análise de uma experiênciado Alto Valle do Rio Preto (Argentina)ResumoEste trabalho analisa as relações entre a posse de terra e o Estado, no AltoValle do Rio Preto, na Argentina. Num contexto geral da especulaçãoimobiliária, por qual se encarecem os preços do aluguel e das terras, e depolíticas de habitação seletivas e limitadas, os setores populares acedem aum espaço na cidade através de ocupações de terras. Frente a estes conflitos,o Estado, em seus diferentes níveis e poderes, desenvolve uma forma deintervenção com base na criminalização das lutas pela terra e vivenda. Aomesmo tempo, o poder executivo nacional cria a Secretaria de Acesso àHabitat para possibilitar à intervenção política orientada a regularização dosassentamentos. No entanto, esta intervenção tende a registrar os problemasde habitação no campo político, para reduzi-la a um conflito “entre aspartes”, iludindo a responsabilidade do Estado.A partir de uma abordagem metodológica qualitativa, foi selecionado comoreferência empírica o caso do Assentamento de Villa Obrera em Fiske,Menuco (Gral. Roca), e as técnicas de recolecção de dados são baseados emfontes secundárias, como expedientes judiciais e normativos, e em fontes primárias como são as histórias dos protagonistas através de entrevistasindividuais e coletivas.Palavras-chave: tomada de terras, Estado, criminalização dos conflitos.


Author(s):  
Elizabeth Gaskell

‘It's the masters as has wrought this woe; it's the masters as should pay for it.’ Set in Manchester in the 1840s - a period of industrial unrest and extreme deprivation - Mary Barton depicts the effects of economic and physical hardship upon the city's working-class community. Paralleling the novel's treatment of the relationship between masters and men, the suffering of the poor, and the workmen's angry response, is the story of Mary herself: a factory-worker's daughter who attracts the attentions of the mill-owner's son, she becomes caught up in the violence of class conflict when a brutal murder forces her to confront her true feelings and allegiances. Mary Barton was praised by contemporary critics for its vivid realism, its convincing characters and its deep sympathy with the poor, and it still has the power to engage and move readers today. This edition reproduces the last edition of the novel supervised by Elizabeth Gaskell and includes her husband's two lectures on the Lancashire dialect.


Soundings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 79 (79) ◽  
pp. 78-93
Author(s):  
Tony Jefferson

This article addresses the Labour Party's apparent inability to capitalise on the ready availability of good, progressive ideas. It suggests the key is to be found in the idea that the Labour Party no longer represents working-class people, a disjunction that can be best understood using Gramsci's distinction between 'common sense' and 'good sense'. Good sense is a more coherent development of everyday, commonsense thinking, based on its 'healthy nucleus'. However, it must never lose contact with common sense and become abstract and disconnected from life. Using this distinction, a critique of the common-sense notion of meritocracy follows, since the educational disconnect between Labour politicians and their working-class supporters is one of its malign results. This critique builds from the evidence of working-class rejection of meritocracy - the healthy nucleus that recognises the inadequacy of its justifying principle of equality of opportunity. To this is counterposed a good-sense notion of equality - one that embraces equal access to the means for achieving a flourishing life. This notion of equality is then used to explore a number of currently circulating political ideas concerned with equality, both their relationship to common sense and their potential to meet good sense criteria. These ideas include universal basic income, the Conservatives' proposed 'levelling up' agenda, and the demands of Black Lives Matter for racial justice, including the demand to 'defund the police'. A second thread is focused on the relationship between these discourses of common or good sense and the social forces with which they can be connected.


2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodolfo Elbert

The dynamics of peripheral capitalism in Latin America includes the employment or self-employment of a significant proportion of the working class under informal arrangements. The neoliberal transformations of the 1990s deepened this feature of Latin American labor markets, and it was not reversed during the period of economic growth that followed the collapse of neoliberalism. In this context, sociological debates have focused on the relationship between the formal and the informal fractions of the working class. Examination of the biographical and family linkages between formal and informal workers in Argentina and the effect of these connections on the patterns of class self-identification of individuals shows that lived experience across the informality boundary makes formal workers similar to informal workers in terms of class self-identification. This research provides preliminary evidence that the two kinds of workers belong to the same social class because of the fluidity of the boundary that separates them. Instead of a class cleavage, this boundary is better defined as the separation between fractions of the working class. La dinámica del capitalismo periférico en América Latina implica la informalidad laboral (sea entre trabajadores contratados o autónomos) de una sustancial parte de la clase obrera. Las transformaciones neoliberales de los años noventa profundizaron esta característica de los mercados de trabajo latinoamericanos, y el problema no se revirtió durante el período de crecimiento económico que siguió al colapso del neoliberalismo. En este contexto, los debates sociológicos se han centrado en la relación entre los grupos formales e informales de la clase obrera. Un análisis de los vínculos biográficos y familiares entre los trabajadores formales e informales en Argentina y el efecto de dichas conexiones en los patrones individuales de autoidentificación de clase muestra que la experiencia vivida en los límites de la informalidad hace que los trabajadores formales se consideren similares a los informales en términos de identificación de clase. Esta investigación brinda evidencia preliminar de que los dos tipos de trabajadores pertenecen a la misma clase social.


2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 1365-1370
Author(s):  
Vesna Stefanovska

Left realism emerges in the early 1980s as a separate department, or direction within the neo-Marxist critical criminology. It results from dissatisfaction and certain criticisms of the foundations on which critical criminology is built, which left realists call left idealism. Namely, they are called realists because, in their view, crime should be considered in its reality, and the causes that led to criminal behavior should be seriously looked at, which means that leftist realists focus on already experienced realities. Hence, the issues of interest to left realists are the problems faced by certain groups regarding their age, class, sex, race and place of residence. They have some similarities with structural subcultural theories, arguing that crime is a form of subcultural adaptation to lived problems and realities. The basis is that due to material constraints and circumstances, the required cultural goals and aspirations cannot be achieved by legally disposable means. The central postulate of left realism is to reflect the reality of crime, in its origin, nature and influence. This means that crime cannot be romanticized or it cannot be explained as a product of the offender's pathology or other personal characteristics. Real problems related to the crime need to be considered and resolved. In this respect, the issues of left realism are the problems that citizens face, the relationship between the victim and the perpetrator, the geographical distribution of crime, as well as the prevalence of crime in certain social areas and sectors of the community. They are particularly concerned about ignoring the crime that is taking place on the streets by truly disadvantaged and marginalized citizens, as well as the crime that takes place behind closed doors, particularly in the family. So, the perspectives of the left realists are that street crime is a serious problem for the working class, working class crime is primarily committed against other working class members, relative poverty feeds the dissatisfaction and that dissatisfaction, in the absence of political solutions creates crime, and crime can be reduced by implementing practical social policies.On the basis of what has been stated, in this paper we will elaborate the critiques of critical criminology stated by the proponents of Left Realism , a Square of crime that offers appropriate solutions for criminal and social response to crime and perspectives of left realism that predominantly rely on community-based policies.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 492-508
Author(s):  
Muhammad Asif ◽  
Majid Ali ◽  
Abdoulaye M’Begniga ◽  
Zhou Guoqing ◽  
Liu Yang ◽  
...  

China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is an important Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) project that integrates many countries. The CPEC project will play a vital role to make more strong relationship between China and Pakistan. CPEC project will enhance cooperation between Pakistan and China in field of socio-cultural and regional Bilateral Cooperation and exchange. Despite growth between two countries in the economic and trade field, there is a vital area to explore the cultural exchange, cooperation, and communication needed to improve from both sides. In this theoretical study method, the data has been obtained from primary and secondary sources. The primary sources consisted of books, official databases of China and Pakistan, MoU signed b/w both countries, etc., as the secondary sources consisted of research papers, newspapers, journals, online databases, etc. This paper has an analytical overview of the time value and general cultural and artistic exchanges between China and Pakistan. Further, the paper discussed the relationship between literature, art, and economics. In this paper, researchers have also examined the significant role of people-to-people contact for socio-cultural exchange and cooperation between China and Pakistan.


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