GV4G7: Marx and Marxism

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These are my notes for GV4G7 at the London School of Economics for the 2017-2018 school year. I took this module as part of the one-year Inequalities and Social Science MSc program.

The usual disclaimer: all notes are my personal impressions and do not necessarily reflect the view of the lecturer.

Taught by Dr Lucia Rubinelli, Fellow in the Department of Government at LSE.

  1. The materialist conception of history (January 09)
  2. Economics and Exploitation (January 16)
  3. Marxism and justice (January 23)
  4. Freedom and alienation (January 30)
  5. Marx’s theory of the state and the role of social classes (February 06)

The materialist conception of history - week 1

Readings

Why Read Marx Today? by Jonathan Wolff (misc selections)

It’s a short book, so I just read the whole thing (some notes in Bookmarker). His coverage of various Marxist concepts seemed decent (I don’t really have enough knowledge to judge with any level of discernment) but his conclusions felt suspect to me. Worth reading though.

Karl Marx: selected writings, edited by David McLellan

This will be the reference text for all the primary readings. Sections for this week:

Forces and Relations of Production by G. A. Cohen

Recommended reading. No clue what book this is found in.

His core thesis (which he ascribes to Marx) that he states at the outset is that:

history is, fundamentally, the growth of human productive power, and that forms of society rise and fall according as they enable and promote, or prevent and discourage, that growth.

Defining relations of production (p13):

Relations of production are relations of economic power, of the economic power people enjoy or lack over labour power and means of production. In a capitalist society relations of production include the economic power capitalists have over means of production, the economic power workers (unlike slaves) have over their own labour power, and the lack of economic power workers have over means of production.

Distinguishing between the forces of production, the base, and the superstructure:

Now the sum total of relations of production in a given society is said to constitute the economic structure of that society, which is also called - in relation to the superstructure - the basis, or base, or foundation. The economic structure or base therefore consists of relations of production only: it does not include the productive forces. […] the forces […] are below the economic foundation, the ground on which it rests.

On his definition of “superstructure” being a lot narrower than others (this chapter is limited to consideration of the legal order):

It is certainiy false that every non-economic social phenomenon is superstructural: artistic creation, for example, is demonstrably not, as such, superstructural for Marx.

On the transition between one mode of relations to another (when they’ve become fetters):

it is because ruling classes have an interest in the maintenance of obsolete relations that their immediate replacement by freshly suitable relations is not to be expected. People do not rush towards the dustbin of history just as soon as they have played out their historical role. (p17)

He’s very insistent that the explanatory claims of historical materialism are functional (as opposed to deterministic? not entirely sure), as otherwise he can’t reconcile (3) and (5) with (6) and (7):

(3) the level of development of productive power explains the nature of the economic structure (5) the economic structure explains the nature of the superstructure (6) the economic structure promotes the development of the productive forces (7) the superstructure stabilizes the economic structure. (all p18)

He spends a couple of pages talking about class struggle and its relationship to the forces of production (complicated, as far as I can tell)—class struggle can bring about social change, and yet the ultimate success of class struggle also depends on the level of development of the production forces. I guess I agree overall though I should probably read more of his work to better understand his POV.

Rationality and Class Struggle by Andrew Levine and Erik Olin Wright

Recommended reading. Published in the New Left Review I/123, September-October 1980. Draws on Marx’s Preface to a Critique of Political Economy from the readings above.

They summarise Cohen’s Karl Marx’s Theory of History (possibly where the reading above comes from?), boiling it down to a defence of the Primary Thesis in Marx’s Preface:

the nature of a set of production relations is explained by the level of development of the productive forces embraced by it (to a far greater extent than vice versa)

I gave up midway through … way too dry for me sorry

Lecture

Seminar

I re-read my notes from the seminar and realised that most of what I wrote was already in the readings (which I hadn’t done by the time of the seminar). Only a few notes below.

Economics and Exploitation - week 2

Readings

Why Read Marx Today? by Jonathan Wolff (chapter 2)

Notes in Bookmarker.

Karl Marx: selected writings, edited by David McLellan

Sections:

Lecture

I missed this one, sadly. The seminar was great though.

Seminar

Marxism and justice - week 3

Readings

Why Read Marx Today? by Jonathan Wolff (chapter 2)

Notes in Bookmarker.

Karl Marx: selected writings, edited by David McLellan

Sections:

Lecture

Seminar

Freedom and alienation - week 4

todo

Marx’s theory of the state and the role of social classes - week 5

Readings

An introduction to Karl Marx by Jon Elster (chapters 7, 8)

Chapter 7: trying to define classes. The list below is criticised later on.

There are some fifteen groups that Marx refers to as classes: bureaucrats and theocrats in the Asiatic mode of production; freemen, slaves, plebeians, and patricians under slavery; lord, serf, guild master, and journeyman under feudalism; industrial capitalists, financial capitalists, landlords, peasantry, petty bourgeoisie, and wage laborers under capitalism. (p124)

Having rejected income, occupation, and status as criteria of class, four more plausible definitions must be considered: property, exploitation, market behavior, and domination. All have been seriously proposed by followers or scholars of Marx. With the exception of exploitation, all turn out to be necessary elements in the final, reconstructed definition. (p125)

Most frequently, class membership is defined by the ownership or lack of ownership of the means of production. For Marx’s purpose, this definition cannot be the whole story, although it surely is an important part of it. (p126)

on being forced to sell your labour-power as a decent def (thought: how do women, most of whom could easily marry and thus be free from the need to sell their labour-power, fit into this?)

[…] there is transfer of surplus from below; on the other, transfer of commands from above. Note that transfer of surplus is not the same as exploitation. Surplus is transferred from the capitalist tenant to the landowner, but the latter does not exploit the former. They are both exploiters, living off the labor of the workers they exploit. (p128)

[…] Since Tocqueville, the following two propositions have been widely accepted. First, collective action is more likely to be generated by small inequalities than by large ones, because the latter are usually seen as immutable, quasinatural facts of the society in which one is living. Second, revolutions are more likely to occur when conditions have begun to improve than when they are stably bad, because expectations about further improvement tend to outrun the actual possibilities and thus to generate frustration. (p133)

Chapter 8: on why the bourgeoisie doesn’t take power

There are two perspectives on politics in Marx’s writings. On the one hand, politics is part of the superstructure and hence of the forces that oppose social change. The political system stabilizes the dominant economic relations. On the other hand, politics is a medium for revolution and hence for social change. New relations of production are ushered in by political struggles. To see the relation between the two functions of politics, they must be seen in the wider context of historical materialism. This theory affirms that new relations of production emerge when and because the existing ones cease to be optimal for the further development of the productive forces: This is the ultimate explanation of a change in the economic relations. In this transition, political struggle has no independent causal force. It acts as a midwife, bringing about what is doomed to come about sooner or later. (p141)

[…] Revolution is more likely to occur in a society where the level of development has not reached the stage where widespread concessions to the workers are affordable - but at that stage a communist revolution will also be premature, as far as the ability to develop the productive forces is concerned. These problems were at the root of the controversy between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks in the Russian socialist movement. The former wanted the workers to pull their punches in the struggle with the capitalists, so that capitalism could have the time to reach the stage at which a viable communism could be introduced. The latter argued, more realistically, that by postponing the revolution one would take it off the agenda for good. (p161)

Karl Marx: selected writings, edited by David McLellan

Sections:

Political Philosophy: Marx and Radical Democracy

Marx’s views on the state as building on Aristotle, Hegel, Kant

Marx is often thought to offer two distinct theories of the state in exploitative, class-divided societies. In the first conception, he saw it as an alien body over and above society (On the Jewish Question, The Eighteenth Brumafue of Louis Bonaparte, The Civil War in France); in the second, he interpreted it primarily as the servant of a ruling class against workers, peâsants, and other oppressed groups (Communist Manifesto). In fact, Marx ioined these conceptions, recognizing the partial autonomt given specific social conflicts, of government policies yet capturing their generally repressive core. (p173)

Lecture