The Marxist Tradition

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The Marxist TraditionIntroduction to RCP

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Background

• Marxs Intellectual Sources
• German Speculative Philosophy
• Kant, Hegel, Feuerbach
• French Socialism
• Proudhon, Fourier, Saint-Simon
• English Political Economy
• Adam Smith, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus

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Marxs Political Activities

• Communist League - Communist Manifesto
• 1848 Revolutions - in Germany
• First International (1864-1872)
• Dies in 1883

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Engels Marxism

• Engels Survivied Marx
• 2nd International (1898-1914)
• Engels, Kautsky, Bernstein
• Social Democracry - Revolutionary Marxism Split
• WWI - Russian Revolution

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USSR Orthodox Marxism

• Success of Bolsheviks
• Undermines other revolutionaries (e.g.,
  anarchists)
• Puts power of Soviet State behind
  Marxism-Leninism
• Marxism theory of capitalism
• Leninism theory of socialism

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Orthodox Marxism-Leninism

• Theory Historical Materialism
• Theory Dialectical Materialism
• Pactice dictatorship of proletariat
• Pactice building state capitalism

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Orthodox Spin-offs

• Chinese Communism Maoism
• 3rd World Communist Parties
• sometimes reform
• sometimes revolution
• Trotskyism 4th International

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Western Marxism

• Non-orthodox
• Critical Theory
• Georgy Luckas
• Karl Korsch
• Gramsci
• Frankfurt School
• Marcuse, Adorno, Horkheimer, Pollock

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Autonomist Marxism

• Anarcho-communism
• Council Communism
• Johson-Forest, Tony Cliff, Cornelius Castoriadis
• Italian New Left -Wages for Housework
• Zerowork - Midnight Notes

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Reading Capital

• As political economy
• As philosophy
• Politically

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Reading Capital as Political Economy

• Capital work in economics
• Laws of Motion
• Competition
• Working Class as Victim
• Leaves politics to the Party
• Basic Problem one-sided, working class has no
  effective subjectivity

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Reading Capital as Philosophy

• Capital as exercise in dialectical/historical
  materialism
• Neo-Hegelian Western Marxist emphasis on
  manipulation of consciousness via culture
• Althusserian revamping of historical materialism
• Basic Problem one sided, working class has no
  effective subjectivity

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Reading Capital Politically - 1

• Denies split between economics politics
• Emphasizes working class subjectivity
• within capitalist society
• against against capitalist society
• transcending capitalist society

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Reading Capital Politically - 2

• Recasts dynamic of capitalist development as
  dynamic of class struggle
• within production
• within culture (reproduction)
• Insists on two-sided, strategic reading of
  Capital and of all the elements of capitalist
  society

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Example 1 Part VIII

• Can be read one-sidely
• as economic history, story of capital, working
  class victimized
• as philosophy, case study of historical
  materialism
• Can be read two-sidedly
• capitals coming into being, imposition of its
  rules
• peoples resistance to that imposition

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Example 2 Chapter One-1

• Can be read one sidedly
• as economic value theory, narrowly defined
• as story of money (pre-K, K)
• as correction of Classical labor theory of value
• as example of commodity fetishism

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Example 2 Chapter One-2

• Can be read two-sidedly
• in terms of class relations
• substance (work) core of class relationship
• measure (work time) of that core
• form (exchange value) form of class
  relationship
• so, money embodiement of class relation
• imposed and contested rules of game

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