Comments on: Review: From Marxism to Post-Marxism

By: » Social weight and stopping the BNP Though Cowards Flinch: “We all know what happens to those who stand in the middle of the road — they get run down.” - Aneurin Bevan

Sun, 17 May 2009 13:52:28 +0000

[...] or critiquing popular fronts and electoral alliances. I’ve examined the ramifications of post-Marxist theory for political practice, studied the electoral slate No2EU and been bitterly resentful of yet more [...]

By: David Semple

David Semple — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 08:13:30 +0000

That’s actually something else I’ll be dedicating an article to at some point – the extent to which the ‘cultural studies’ (i.e. movie quoting) of people like Zizek are of any use whatsoever, or can tell us anything that can be generalised.

But for the article, I thought you particularly might appreciate the way I’ve tried to link Therborn to other post-marxists, both to show their differences and their similarities, since ‘post-marxism’ is not a uniform concept.

I had a big area into which I was going to patch some commentary on Habermas’ communicative theory of action but the article was getting long as it was and I wanted it to focus on the Therborn book.

By: Paul

Paul — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 07:36:30 +0000

Thanks for the review. I’ve not read it so I can’t comment much. Mind you, the thought that in some way your level of irreverence is in any way a measure of how leftwing you are does intrigue me, as though the main indicator of the capacity for struggle is who’s on at the Comedy Club this week.

By: Charlie Marks

Charlie Marks — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 04:38:10 +0000

I read Therborn’s article in Crudass and Rutherford’s e-book, “The Crash – a view from the left”. He speaks about inequality without touching upon the main division under capitalism between the owners of capital, seeking to maximise their investments, and the workers they hire to produce goods and services. For the capitalist to survive in this crisis, he must withdraw from investing – who knows what will go bust next? – and ensure jobs are cut, wages are frozen, etc. so that the rate of return on an investment will increase within the economy. To make up for falling profits, our post-crash society is being drastically restructured to meet the needs of the capitalist class at the expense of working people – deepening inequalities.

Yet Therborn finishes up by citing the lower levels of inequality in the Nordic countries and their success from a capitalist perspective, arguing that within the current system reforms are possible short of defeating the capitalist class, which suggests that post-marxism does away with analysis of political economy. Either that or his essay was written earlier without the intention of giving “a view from the left” on the Crash, and just slotted into the book. For surely their greater integration in the global economy, which Therborn cites to counter pro-capitalist objections, will result in great instability and threaten to reverse moves towards equality?