1. The Heritage of Modern Socialist Ideas

Of the total heritage which gave birth to modern socialism, brief attention may be given to certain of the predecessors of Karl Marx. Although some now are saved from obscurity only by the diligence of interested historians, others generated powerful ideas still not extinguished today. Together they created an amorphous body of thought from which Marx freelv drew. Consequently, an understanding of the varieties of later socialism, and specifically of Marx, requires a brief survey of these men. [excerpt

Marx\u27s Political Universalism

My main aim in this paper is to arrive at a defensible form of Marxian or socialist political universalism through a critical examination of Marx\u27s own political universalism. In the next section, I will outline several moral errors that Walzer ascribes to political universalism, including Marx\u27s, and show that Walzer largely misdirects his criticisms because what primarily accounts for Marx committing the errors is his Hegelian metaphysical conception of history, not his political universalism as such

Sean Sayers' Concept of Immaterial Labor and the Information Economy

The concept “immaterial labor” is one of the most hotly debated topics in contemporary social theory. In his 2007 work The Concept of Labor: Marx and His Critics, Sean Sayers offered an extensive response to several critical redefinitions of labor (Habermas, Benton, Arendt) and immaterial labor (Lazzarato, Hardt and Negri). Sayers returned to the subject in his more recent book, Marx and Alienation: Essays on Hegelian Themes.1 As one of the few accounts that contests the contemporary Marx critics with regard to fundamental concepts such as labor and immaterial labor, his contribution should be taken seriously

Transistorized Marx bank pulse circuit provides voltage multiplication with nanosecond rise-time

Base-triggered avalanche transistor circuit used in a Marx bank pulser configuration provides voltage multiplication with nanosecond rise-time. The avalanche-mode transistors replace conventional spark gaps in the Marx bank. The delay time from an input signal to the output signal to the output is typically 6 nanoseconds

When Society Meets the Individual: Marx contra Nietzsche, Antipodal Views on Society, Morality, and Religion

An irony, however, is that although Nietzsche had read extensively important philosophers of his time, and in fact, had been known for his ad hominem criticisms on his predecessors, there is an astonishing silence on Marx in the Nietzsche literature, as if Marx is unheard-of in Nietzsche’s time despite the very close world they lived in as though neighbors, and also despite the growing influence of socialism in Nietzsche’s time. Nietzsche openly utters his strong disgust to the German National Socialist Party which was later commonly referred as the Nazis. In this connection, he never mentioned the name of Marx as though it did not exist in his vocabulary. Although at first glance, they appear similar in the sense that both of them revolted against morality and religion, and made a distinction of society into opposing classes. But, in truth, they are worlds apart. They lived on two opposite worlds. Nietzsche is from the start an antipode of Marx. Aside from presenting a clear contrast of these two thinkers, here I also come up with a Nietzschean critique on the Marxian thought

Marx on Historical Materialism

Marx’s theory of historical materialism seeks to explain human history and development on the basis of the material conditions underlying all human existence. For Marx, the most important of all human activities is the activity of production by means of labor. With his focus on production through labor, Marx argues that it is possible to provide a materialistic explanation of how human beings not only transform the world (by applying the “forces of production” to it) but also transform themselves in transforming the world (by entering into “relations of production” with one another). For Marx, the productive labor of human beings – and the resulting interplay between the forces and relations of production – function together as the engine which drives all historical change and development. By understanding how the productive activities of human beings give rise to the division of labor and class conflict, it becomes possible, according to Marx, to understand how different historical epochs succeed one another, and how the trajectory of human history points towards a communist society within which the division of labor and class conflict will be abolished

Marx, Justice, and the Dialectic Method

An interesting controversy has recently been provoked by Allen Wood. He argues that capitalism, for Marx, cannot be faulted as far as justice is concerned. For Marx, the concept of justice belonging to any society is rooted in, grows out of, and expresses that particular society\u27s mode of production. Justice is not a standard by which human reason in the abstract measures actions or institutions--there is no eternal, unchanging norm of justice. Each social epoch gives rise to its own standard; each generally lives up to it; and each must be measured by this standard alone. Thus, in Wood\u27s view, capitalism is perfectly just for Marx.

Value and Marx: why it matters

This is the English version of ‘Valore e Marx: Perche sono importanti’ which appeared in Vasopollo, L (2002) (ed) ‘Un Vecchio Falso Problema: La Transformazione dei valori in prezzi nel Capital di Marx’, Roma: Laboratoria per la critica sociale. It was presented at the May 2002 conference organised by the Laboratorio per la critica sociale in Rome. It summarises the debate to this point on the temporal and simultaneous approaches to value and on the alleged inconsistencies in Marx’s approach.TSSI; MELT; value; Marx; price; profit rate; Okishio; non-equilibrium; equilibrium; money; sraffaTSSI, MELT, value, Marx, price, profit rate, Okishio, non-equilibrium, equilibrium, money, sraffa