Historical Materialism: Social Structure and Social Change in the Middle Ages

Stephen H Rigby

2004, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies

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Marxism,

Historical Materialism,

Middle Ages,

Karl Marx Theory of the Mode of Production,

Marxist History, Philosophy and Theory

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This article sets out Marx and Engels' views on medieval society and examines how they have been used by modern Marxist historians. It shows how key Marxist concepts, including the productive forces, relations of production, surplus labour, class conflicts, base and superstructure, the state and ideology, have been applied to medieval history. Finally. it offers a critique of the Marxist approach, arguing that the implicit pluralism of much Marxist historiography has been at odds with Marxism's own explicit claims for the causal primacy of particular aspects of the social structure, whether these are the productive forces, the relations of production or society's so-called economic 'based'. It is this explanatory pluralism which allows Marxist approaches to be reconciled with non-Marxist historiographical traditions.

https://tinyurl.com/ydf62ez2

Zen After Zarathustra: 

The Problem of the Will in the Confrontation Between Nietzsche

and Buddhism

Bret W. Davis

https://tinyurl.com/y8pcq6dc

Is Nietzsche’s affirmation of the world and oneself as “the will to power—and nothing besides "the path to a self-overcoming of nihilism; or is it, as Heidegger contends, the “ultimate entanglement in nihilism”?

Is Buddhism the purest expression of a “passive nihilism,” as Nietzsche claims; or does it teach a radical “middle path” that twists free of both the life of the will to power and a pessimistic negation of the will to live? Does the Buddhist path go so far as to intimate a great affirmation of living otherwise than willing?

From the outset, one thing does seem certain: venturing out to sail on the "open sea”

 (GS343) of Nietzsche’s thought, we confront Buddhism as one of the most interesting and challenging “foreign perspectives” from which to "question one’s own.”

And yet, rather than let his exposure to this other tradition call into question his own philosophy of the will to power, Nietzsche him-self more often used his interpretation of Buddhism as a “rhetorical instrument” for his critique of Christianity, crediting the former religion in the end only with the dubious honor of representing a more honest expression of a more advanced stage of nihilism. Recent studies on this theme often begin by emphasizing Nietzsche's limited knowledge, his misunderstanding, and the distortions involved in his appropriation of Buddhism. Many then go on to develop what Robert Morrison has called the “ironic affinities” between Nietzsche and a Buddhism correctly understood.

Although Morrison and others have pursued these affinities with respect to the Theravada tradition, profounder resonances may in fact be found with the Mahayana tradition, of which Nietzsche remained unfortunately ignorant.

ERIC HOBSBAWM

 

https://tinyurl.com/y8xop5v9

 

   

https://tinyurl.com/ydc9x95m

 

Work, Bodies, and the Emerging Politics of Alienation - PhD thesis

Paul McFadden

252 Pages              https://tinyurl.com/y794vwxj

Labour in the “post-industrial” society alienates bodies’ political capacities; the embodied character of alienation renders the labour process and the sphere of reproduction as critical spaces for anticapitalist politics. The labour process of these emergent forms of labour is a political space in which bodies’ potential for praxis directly collides with the domination of value. The capacities and potentialities of bodies to engage in praxis – the properties of bodies with which humans express their Being as political Being – has become the social form of the domination of labour by capital. The social-fixing of indeterminate labour-power links and decouples the inner relations between power, consumption, reproduction, value, and subjectivity that constitute the emerging politics of alienation. My jumping-off points to these relations are concepts that purportedly describe “new” and “hegemonic” forms of labour in the post-industrial economy: ‘aesthetic labour’, ‘emotional labour’ and the triadic conception of ‘affective/immaterial/biopolitical labour’. I resolve the one-sidedness of these abstractions – their contending characterisations of the labour process, its relations, and their representations of the politics of emergent forms of labour – with an empirically-informed dialectical reconfiguration of the concept of body work. The factors of alienated body work are reciprocally related across productive and reproductive spheres and therein they bind articulations of capitalist politics together with the production of political subjectivities. This form of the organisation of labour creates a contradictory inner connection between the politics of production and modes of reproduction. This deepening connection between spheres of production and reproduction results in the potential for a capitalistic transformation of the body, foreclosing on the subversive potential of indeterminate labour-power, and simultaneously brings embodied political capacities into direct confrontation with the logic of value at the very centre of production.

Do Not Be Afraid, Join Us, Come Back? On the "Idea of Communism" in Our Time

Nick Thoburn

35 Pages

This article critically assesses the recent return of “communism” in contemporary political theory. The principal focus is Alain Badiou’s formulation of the “idea of communism” and its “sequences,” which are approached here in relation to the body of work collected in Douzinas and Žižek’s The Idea of Communism. Critical of Badiou, the article argues that communism should be understood as a “real movement” immanent to the mutating limits of capital, and not as a subjective “truth procedure.” In taking the latter route, Badiou not only produces a faulty philosophy of communism but also misdiagnoses its historical record, allowing Lenin and Mao, the spectacle of revolution, to stand as its genuine expressions. In this, Badiou contributes to the contemporary nostalgic image of a “real communism” that in practice was nothing of the sort.

https://tinyurl.com/y8as9o7g

The Nietzschean Communism of Alain Badiou

Ishay Landa

21 Pages

The main purpose of the essay is to claim that Badiou has developed a distinctive understanding of “communism” which is very different from the Marxist one. Several scholars have noticed the differences between Badiou and Marx, sometimes striking ones, but have generally failed to go beyond describing them. Here an attempt is made to trace these differences back to the—largely—Nietzschean footing of Badiou’s philosophy. I claim that we are dealing in fact not with different tactics, but with two different projects, envisioning distinct strategic goals. Marxist communism is about a dialectical overcoming of the capitalist present, in a way which transcends capitalism but which is predicated on the social, political and cultural transformation brought about by capitalism. Badiou’s project, by contrast, aims at achieving a clean break with history. Nietzsche is useful for Badiou inasmuch as he provides a critique of mass society and aims to create a new man, the Overman. The essay discusses the differences between these two projects, focusing on a number of topics, among them the nature of capitalism, the meaning of revolutionary subjectivity, and the attitude to history and to historical possibilities. Marx’s political project is vindicated vis-à-vis the elitism and anti-humanism, which vitiate Badiou’s alternative approach. A dialogue with Badiou’s position, however, is not foreclosed.

https://tinyurl.com/ybwlo8lh

Badiou and the Subject of Dialectics

This is based on a talk given under the name ―Badiou and the Hegelian Dialectic in 1960s

French Philosophy,‖ at a seminar that took place at the Historical Materialism
Tenth Annual Conference in London, United Kingdom, November 7-10, 2013.

In his article, ―Rational Kernel, Real Movement: Badiou and ThéorieCommuniste in the Age of Riots,‖ Nathan Brown presents a comparison between two contemporary tendencies in communist thought. While Alain Badiou extends the consequences of a life-long engagement largely inspired by Maoism, ThéorieCommuniste develop analyses initially rooted in the council communism inaugurated by Anton Pannekoek. While there are obvious and great political differences between these two tendencies, both Badiou and TC have each repudiated the role of the traditional Party and for this reason appear to converge in many of their arguments. Brown indicates that their remaining opposition might best be understood philosophically, and essentially in terms of the inheritance of the Althusserian legacy.

https://www.academia.edu/9744055/Badiou_and_the_Subject_of_Dialectics

“Hot Autumn” Italy’s Factory Councils and Autonomous Workers’ Assemblies, 1970s

Patrick Cuninghame

456 Pages

This chapter examines and analyzes the historical development of workers’ councils within the Italian factory system during the “Long 1968,” based on two rival models: the factory councils and the autonomous workers’ assemblies. Following the 1969 “Hot Autumn” wildcat strike wave, the autonomous workers’ movement aimed to topple the unions from their hegemonic position, while the three Italian union confederations—CGIL,1 CISL,2 and UIL3—attempted to recover their representative power. Conflicts over wage bargaining were used to destabilize the factory system and the capitalist division of labor, thus creating the conditions for workers’ counterpowerinthefactory.Thefactorycouncilsintegratedoftenradically different political positions, but with the shared ultimate objective of restoring the hegemony of the unions as a unitary organizational form while still expressing the will of at least part of the rank and file.

https://tinyurl.com/ydfkrj44

Ours to Master and to Own
Workers’ Councils from the Commune to the Present
___________________

Immanuel Ness and Dario Azzellini

Editors

Haymarket Books Chicago, Illinois

Re-visiting the Political Context of Manfredo Tafuri's " Toward a Critique of Architectural Ideology " : 'Having Corpses in our Mouths'

Emre Özyetiş

Published 2013

216 Pages

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Operaismo,

Architectural practice,

Manfredo Tafuri,

Operaismo, Autonomia and Post-workerism,

Toward a Critique of Architectural Ideology

In this thesis I revisit Manfredo Tafuri’s 1969 article “Per una critica dell’ideologia architettonica” (Toward a Critique of Architectural Ideology) within the political context of Italy in the 1960s. I address the research question: what is the contemporary relevance of the essay read in this context? I suggest that testing the arguments in Tafuri’s 1969 essay against his complete oeuvre and his subsequent career as a critic or a historian obfuscates and misconstrues the context and the essay. I argue that the essay was published in a moment when operaisti protagonists were processing the implications of the operaisti discourse they constructed in relation to the intensification of the social conflict in Italy in the late 1960s and the 1970s. This provides a convincing context for Tafuri’s application of this discourse as a total rejection of the possibility of the existence of an architectural profession outside participation in capitalist development. I conclude that, located with precision within the context of the journal Contropiano, where his essay was first published, “Toward a Critique of Architectural Ideology” is more likely to agitate intellectuals and architects than it has previously. It is important for the generation who has not yet acquired professional autonomy, such as architectural students or interns, to be reminded of Tafuri’s critique within its context as they assume their social vocation. Thus this is my target readership for this thesis. It is particularly important to revisit Tafuri and his 1969 essay at a time when there is a growing discussion around a social vocation or discourse on sustainability, participatory design, radical architecture and such. The social agenda still makes the art and the profession of architecture resilient to transforming political, economic and social structures. In this light, it is not only necessary but also relevant to revisit the nature of the social vocation of architects as it had been criticized in Tafuri’s 1969 essay within the intellectual debates Italian operaisti project initiated.

https://tinyurl.com/y7dz7s4p

The Making of Italian Radical Architecture

james dunbar

49 Pages

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Architectural History,

Italian Radical Thought,

Italy: The New Domestic Landscape,

Radical design,

Radical and Utopian Architecture

This paper is a study of the making of Italian Radical Architecture in its material form, as represented in selected key exhibitions from 1966-1978 and retrospectives from 2003-2012. It seeks to understand the political, cultural, and economic factors that construct 'Radical' as critique, to explore the dialogical relationship between the exhibitions and coeval publications in architectural journals as modes of production, and to assess the reception and impact of the works.

https://www.academia.edu/29380769/The_Making_of_Italian_Radical_Architecture

Deschooling, Manual Labour, and Emancipation: The Architecture and Design of Global Tools, 1973-1975

Jacopo Galimberti

Sara Catenacci

27 Pages

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Critical Theory,

Education,

Marxism,

Critical Pedagogy,

Autonomia,

Operaismo,

Italian Design,

Arts and Crafts,

Pedagogia,

Italian architecture,

Operaismo, Autonomia and Post-workerism,

Radical and Utopian Architecture,

Hippy Culture

 

 

https://tinyurl.com/yb2v3crg

Collaboration and its (Dis)Contents: Art, Architecture, and Photography since 1950

Meredith A Brown

Published 2017

183 Pages

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Art History,

Architecture,

Photography,

Collaboration

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Collaboration has been a component of art making for centuries—from ancient Greek potters and painters to nineteenth-century photographers Hill and Adamson to the contemporary Raqs Media Collective—yet it remains a complex topic for art historians of all periods. Taking its cue from Sigmund Freud’s 1929 publication, Civilization and its Discontents, in which the psychoanalyst wrestled with tensions between the individual and society, Collaboration and its (Dis)Contents: Art, Architecture, and Photography since 1950 asks what it means to produce work together as individuals and why this might matter for the creation of art and scholarship in the twenty-first century. This digital book stems from The Courtauld Research Forum’s 2013 flagship research initiative, led by Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow Meredith A. Brown, which brought together a group of early career scholars based in London and New York who spent the year engaged in transatlantic conversations about collaboration and its influence on the histories of modern and contemporary art, architecture, and photography. The resulting collaboratively written essays and artists’ projects are timely contributions to the growing art historical debates around collaboration and collectivity and their relationship to modernism, feminism, Marxism, and contemporary practice. Collaboration and its (Dis)Contents explores not only what constitutes collaboration in recent art globally but also opens up possibilities created by collaborative historical and artistic research in a field that historically has privileged the traditional single-author text.

https://tinyurl.com/y7wpnxgv

The Origins of Hannah Arendt's Council System

James Muldoon

2015, History of Political Thought

42 Pages

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This article reconsiders Arendt’s frequently ignored proposal of a federal council system. While Arendt’s references to a council system are usually dismissed as utopian, I re-examine Arendt’s political writings in order to demonstrate the centrality of the councils to her thought. The development of the council system is traced back to two primary sources: a council communist tradition of Rosa Luxemburg and Arendt’s husband, Heinrich Blücher, and Arendt’s Jewish writings of the 1930s and 1940s. The analysis reveals that Arendt’s republicanism undertakes an anarcho-communist inflection, which has not yet been fully appreciated.

https://www.academia.edu/12641775/The_Origins_of_Hannah_Arendts_Council_System

The Centrality of the Council System in Arendt's Political Thought.docx

Shmuel Lederman

2019, Arendt on Freedom, Liberation and Revolution

22 Pages

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In this chapter, I seek to show that the vision of radical, participatory democracy plays a much more important role in Arendt’s political thought than commentators usually allow. I begin by discussing the way federalist arrangements Arendt advocated in different contexts were meant to be complemented by a citizen council system, and reinterpret her call for new political structures that would guarantee human dignity in this light. I then turn to demonstrate the close links between Arendt’s conception of “the political” and her support for the council system. Finally, I suggest that Arendt’s discussions on the relations between philosophy, politics and judgment reflect her urgent sense of the need for participatory democracy. Arendt, I conclude, provides powerful normative foundations for the theory of participatory democracy.

https://www.academia.edu/38518348/The_Centrality_of_the_Council_System_in_Arendts_Political_Thought_docx

Council Democracy: Towards a Democratic Socialist Politics

James Muldoon

2018, Council Democracy: Towards a Democratic Socialist Politics

PaperRank: 3.950 Pages

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 https://tinyurl.com/y9qzxg4t

The return to public assemblies and direct democratic methods in the wave of the global "squares movements" since 2011 has rejuvenated interest in forms of council organisation and action. The European council movements, which developed in the immediate post-WWI era, were the first and most impressive of a number of attempts to develop workers' councils throughout the twentieth century. However, in spite of the recent challenges to liberal democracy, the question of council democracy has so far been neglected within democratic theory. This book seeks to interrogate contemporary democratic institutions from the perspective of the resources that can be drawn from a revival and re-evaluation of the forgotten ideal of council democracy. This collection brings together democratic theorists, socialists and labour historians on the question of the relevance of council democracy for contemporary democratic practices. Historical reflection on the councils opens our political imagination to an expanded scope of the possibilities for political transformation by drawing from debates and events at an important historical juncture before the dominance of current forms of liberal democracy. It offers a critical perspective on the limits of current democratic regimes for enabling widespread political participation and holding elites accountable. This timely read provides students and scholars with innovative analyses of the councils on the hundredth anniversary of their development. It offers new analytic frameworks for conceptualising the relationship between politics and the economy and contributes to emerging debates within political theory on workplace, economic and council democracy.

MARXISM AND ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS; TOWARDS A RED AND GREEN POLITICAL ECONOMY

 https://www.academia.edu/32106183/_Paul_Burkett_Marxism_and_Ecological_Economics_T_BookZZ_org_