The Concept of “Prophetic” Socialism by Max Scheler

The article analyzes the conceptual foundations of “prophetic” socialism by Max Scheler (1874–1928). The main principles of a new political and ideological doctrine at that time, designed to become, according to the plan of its creator, an “antidote” to Marxism, are considered. The author analyzes Scheler's argumentation, directed, on the one hand, against socialism in the Marxist interpretation, and on the other, at proving the legitimacy of using the terms “Christian socialism” and “Christian prophetic socialism”. Scheler opposes socialism, first of all, to individualism, which he interprets in social and moral-philosophical senses, and only secondarily to liberalism and capitalism. Socialism and individualism, which now appear as antagonistic tendencies of sociocultural development, are for him two equally necessary and interrelated essential principles of the social being of a person, understood as a spiritual-bodily social being. Individualistic tendencies, according to Scheler, prevailed over socialist tendencies in the West in modern times, therefore socialism in its Marxist interpretation turned out to be so in demand in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But the destruction of private property is contrary to Christianity. “Forced communism” does not bring with it heaven on earth, but catastrophe and cultural degradation, he foreshadows. Based on the teachings of the Church Fathers and starting from the Catholic social doctrine, Scheler offers his vision of an ideal society in the form of a “personal community” (Personengemeinschaft), corresponding to the true destiny of a person. In it, the individual and social principles are in harmony and interdependent development. Scheler opposes the “prophetic” method of comprehending socio-historical reality, applied proceeding from the Christian solidarism ideal, to the materialistic understanding of history. He points to three advantages of his methodology: it takes into account human freedom, the uniqueness of a historical event, combines all types and methods of human cognition, without absolutizing the scientific form of knowledge. The author reveals the deep content of Scheler's definition of Marxism as “the protest ideology of oppressed classes”, drawing on the analysis of the “sociological doctrine of idols” of the late Scheler. In it, he reveals the pre-reflexive prerequisites for the formation of class ideologies. The author points to the essential kinship of the class prejudices about which the German philosopher wrote, and the national-mental prejudices of the political elites of the leading Western countries. In conclusion, he raises the question of how relevant the problems raised in Scheler's article are today in the context of modern Russian realities.

V. Gordon Childe and Arnold Hauser on the social origins of the artist

Vere Gordon Childe’s theory of craft specialisation was an important influence on Arnold Hauser’s book The Social History of Art, published in 1951. Childe’s Marxist interpretation of prehistory enabled Hauser to establish a material foundation for the occupation of the artist in Western art history. However, Hauser’s effort to construct a progressive basis for artistic labour was complicated by art’s ancient connections to religion and superstition. While the artist’s social position and class loyalties were ambiguous in Childe’s accounts of early civilisations, Hauser consigned artists to the lower echelons of society. This relegation did not imply that Hauser had a low regard for artistic skills. Quite the opposite, the artist’s inferior social status enabled Hauser to distance artists from the ruling class, and consequently, to separate artistic handiwork from the dominant ideology that works of art manifested.

The Problem of a Courtly Literature

This chapter analyses the seventeenth-century shift from aristocratic forms of literary evaluation to the book market as a key source of prestige—from a courtly to a commercial model of literary judgment and value. Setting the literature of the Caroline court within larger debates about the monarchy’s authority over an increasingly powerful commercial sector, it argues that English courtly culture crystalized in response to the challenges to royal authority posed by market growth and autonomy. It thus returns to a Marxist interpretation of the causes of the English Revolution, while using recent research on the book market, print censorship, and coterie literary circulation to draw new connections between socioeconomic change and literary history.

Labour-saving technology and advanced marginality – A study of unemployed workers’ experiences of displacement in Finland

The article explores the experiences of people displaced from work by the introduction of labour-saving technology in Finland. Interviews with 13 unemployed individuals are used as data. The study is underpinned by a Marxist interpretation of potentially emancipatory technology under capitalism reduced to an instrument for reorganizing skilled workers into an exploitable, precarious cadre of surplus and abstract labour. Loïc Wacquant’s thesis on advanced marginality is used as a theoretical framework to unpack and understand the little-studied experience of being displaced from work by technology. The interviewees share a sense of growing alienation and social exclusion. Feeding these experiences are capricious changes in skill-demands and deskilling under automation and robotisation of work. The experiences are exacerbated by digitalised, vertiginous and isolating job-seeking and employment services that cast responsibility on the unemployed individual. While the participants of this study were not on the brink of acute or extreme socio-economic marginalisation, their experiences are rooted in the very same social, economic and political dynamics as advanced marginality. The findings of the study help anticipate the risk of advancing marginality faced by displaced workers, if social policy reforms are not carried out in the short term. In the long term, the findings support the argument that studies on labour-saving technologies and unemployment pay closer attention to the particular role of technology under capitalism.

From the history of the soviet political economy of socialism: «the Stalin trap»

The article is devoted to the influence on the evolution of the Soviet political economy of the statement of I.V. Stalin, which appeared in 1936, about the implementation in the USSR of «basically the first phase of communism-socialism». This formulation became canonical and was not questioned throughout the Soviet period. Reacting to the apparent inconsistencies of socio-economic practice with classical Marxist ideas about socialism, some political economists went out of criticism of Marxism, leaning towards essentially non-Marxist interpretations of socialism in general and Soviet socialism in particular. Other scholars have sought ways to reconcile Soviet reality with the Marxist classics by improving the former, while remaining convinced that the USSR is a completely socialist country. Why did this Stalinist formula appear and was sincerely accepted, including for theoretical reasons, by the scientific community? In what historical and methodological plane could the problem of a completely Marxist interpretation of Soviet socialism be adequately resolved? The answers to these questions are offered by the author of the article.

Filozofia polityczna Hegla w interpretacji Joachima Rittera

Hegel’s Political Philosophy in Joachim Ritter’s InterpretationThis article outlines Joachim Ritter’s attempt to detach Hegel’s political and social philosophy from its Marxist interpretation. The first section examines the differences between the reception of Hegel’s legacy by Ritter and by the Frankfurt School. The latter views Hegel primarily as a forerunner of Marx, while Ritter perceives Hegel as committed theorist and advocate of modern state and civil society. The second section focuses on Ritter’s attitude towards the post-revolutionary society. In particular, it explores Ritter’s interpretation of the concept of modern university and interest in history as a reaction to rapid modernization. The last section turns to Ritter’s criticism of the rejection of the contemporary social and political realities – represented by both right-winged reactionaries and far-left progressivists – and also demonstrates Ritter and his School’s contribution to intellectual legitimization of the post-war German Federal Republic.

Exploitation and Estrangement of Migrant Workers in a Capitalist Society: A Marxist Interpretation of John Steinbeck’s of Mice and Men

John Steinbeck, who was deeply influenced by his own experiences with migrant workers, sets Of Mice and Men in a time dominated by capitalism and class differences. The migrant workers in the novel stand for the exploited and alienated working class in the society. The aim of the article is to show how the ideologies developed by the capitalist society are inscribed within the workers in the novel. It aims to show how the migrant workers in the novel are alienated and exploited by the capitalist mode. It also aims to prove that Steinbeck, through his characters, attempts to show four characteristics of alienation or alienated labour as mentioned by Marx: workers’ alienation from the product; alienation from the act of production; alienation from human essence through alienation from work; and, alienation from fellow workers and the resulting objectification and degradation. Last but not least, the article also aims to show how effectively Steinbeck displaces the centre by giving a voice to the marginalised and by denying it to the oppressors.

The Party in Peril

This chapter describes the decline of the communist party and its attempts to salvage major disasters, such as the Chernobyl fallout. Unlike in the preceding decades of communist rule, when they could supplement a Marxist interpretation of their conditions with references to looming threats to national security, Cold War tensions, and economic perils, the credibility of these rationales had faded. This is not to say that opponents of significant change were equally disadvantaged in other parts of the communist world. In the case of China, the chapter highlights, the regime managed to defend its rule. But China's leaders faced a different type of party crisis and responded with a different remedy—the use of brute force—that neither the Soviet Union's leader nor his Eastern European allies dared to implement. Otherwise, the need for the vanguard that had made sense in its original European and Russian contexts vanished.

Raskolnikov’s Breaking the Law

In this article we analyse the Marxist interpretation of F. M. Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Although Raskolnikov’s worldview may share some features with a socialist point of view, the hero of Dostoevsky’s first novel of ideas represents a complete ideological antithesis to Socialism. Thanks to a careful analysis of Raskolnikov’s utterances and with the help of Merezhkovsky’s reading of the novel, we conclude that if there is a Dostoevsky novel which resists a Socialist understanding, then this novel is Crime and Punishment.