Marx, Praxis and Socialism from Below

This thesis distinguishes between a scientistic-deterministic Marxism and a critical-emancipatory Marxism in order to establish Marx within the tradition of socialism from below, a conception which affirms the principle of self-emancipation. The thesis argues that Marx developed the most powerful practical critique of the capital system that exists. I shall demonstrate that the point of Marx's emancipatory project was to facilitate the recovery of human subjectivity from behind the alienated forms through which sociability has come to be expressed, thus affirming conscious, creative human agency in a self-made social world. I shall further argue that Marx could only go so far conceptually and theoretically so as to leave the space for the reality creating constitutive power of praxis. I shall argue that Marx belongs to the tradition of ‘socialism from below’, a tradition which emphasises democratisation as a process based upon the principle of self-emancipation. This tradition is defined against the tradition of ‘socialism from above’. I argue that the abandonment of the principle and the practice of self-emancipation lies behind the distortions and deviations of Marxism in the twentieth century. To demonstrate this clearly it is necessary but not sufficient to expose the failures of party political and state socialism. The thesis, therefore, also identifies some deep-rooted conceptual problems in the Marxist tradition, highlighting those principles which remain pertinent to emancipatory struggles in the modern world. Marx is shown to have made the move from theory to practical struggles in order to transform the world from within its own material sphere. Marxism can, in this sense, reclaim its relevance as a viable emancipatory-revolutionary project capable of being a factor in the transformation of society. And it is as such that Marxism remains the most intellectually and politically cogent hope we have in the struggle against the rule of capital

Autonomy, Authenticity and Authority: The Rational Freedom of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

This book argues that what makes Rousseau’s philosophy so vibrant and meaningful is its grounding in the most profound questions of being. Although Rousseau valued rational understanding as much as any philosopher, he was aware that reason was thin and misleading if it was concerned solely with pure intellect detached from human being. Hence Rousseau’s view that true philosophy rests upon an inner determination which makes it clear that the philosopher loves the truth rather than merely wants to identify it. Philosophy needs to rest on something more profound than the abstracted intellect; this is the human ontology. For Rousseau, the philosophical enterprise is inextricably connected with the consideration of being as a whole. Limited to intellectual activity alone, philosophy is not a genuine search for truth and is certain to leave the most important questions unanswered to the extent that it fails to engage with humanity’s whole existence. Philosophers need to penetrate beyond the intellect to identify the principles which were ‘engraved in the human heart in indelible characters’ and thus find truth in the comprehension of the depths of being. This book shows that Rousseau's great achievement is to have embodied this true philosophy in a viable social and political order, uniting the inner landscape and the outer landscape. In coming to understand essential being, Rousseau makes it possible to comprehend the fundamental features of human society, thus enabling us to reach the level of universal principle. The moral "ought-to-be" of philosophy is thus grounded in something real, in human nature and its potentialities, rather than in something impossibly ideal, some abstract standard. Rousseau thus gives individuals a vision of the ideal human society that they would, by nature, create and flourish in in order to become truly human beings. With Rousseau, politics and ethics are united in a social order that enables the creative realisation of the human ontology

A Case Study into Supplier Dominance in the Commercial Airline Industry

The current theoretical axiom is that an organisation’s supply chain system is synchronised and has a common goal. In this context, the constructs of dominance and power may identified through review of dyadic and static models of the supply chain. The extant literature points to the possibility of a single or central player within a given supply chain either dominating or controlling its behaviour and performance, through various means. However, the ownership of a supply chain in certain industries may not be attributed to a single organisation as it is not designed by any particular entity that makes up the supply chain. Moreover, supply chains evolve over time leading to unrecognised legacy issues that may impede the optimal performance and desired outcomes at the supply chain level. Even where opportunities arise to design supply chains from a ‘blank sheet of paper’, existing structures and constraints are typically incorporated. This study considered several theoretical perspectives, including resource dependency, transaction cost and supply chain management to understand and explain supplier dominance in the commercial airline industry. Informed by a comprehensive literature review, the study set out to identify the existence of supplier dominance in the commercial airline industry. To this end, a case study into the commercial airline supply system with particular focus on the Qantas-operated Kangaroo Route between Australia and the United Kingdom, was conducted. More specifically, this thesis addressed the research question “What evidence is there that a supplier can unduly influence the long term strategy of an organisation and own the supply chain?” by way of explaining the three propositions outlined below. The insights from this case study may be applied across a range of industries including land (e.g. rail) and marine transportation and similar industries where large scale and long term assets are involved

Of Gods and Gaia

This book examines the case for planetary engineering and management that seeks to redefine and reorganise environmentalism around nuclear power, biotechnology, GM food and geoengineering. This amounts to moral and political disarmament of the environmental movement and can be resisted. This book examines what these proposals amount to and what kind of thinking – and politics – lies behind them. Stewart Brand opens his book Whole Earth Discipline with the quote: ‘We are as gods and HAVE to get good at it.’ Mark Lynas follows suit and entitles his book The God Species. These books focus almost exclusively on technology and offer technological solutions to the environmental crisis. There is nothing on morality, an explicit repudiation of ‘ideology’, little on social practices, and a disdain of politics which always seems to slant against socialism and the left. The environmental crisis ought to have concentrated minds and caused us to take the notion of natural limits and planetary boundaries more seriously. However, far from coming to terms with the Faustian bargains which lie at the heart of modernity, the inversion of means and ends, the enlargement of means at the expense of ends, the planetary engineers come to invest our technologies with a divine power. I shall take these books on with respect to specific points, examining the cases made for nuclear energy, biotechnology, GE food and geoengineering. I shall set the books by Lovelock, Brand and Lynas within a broader philosophical discussion of human power and progress. Above all, I call for the integration of our moral and technical capacities so as to achieve a balanced development of the human ontology. This also requires a deeper understanding of the human essence and how it flourishes only when we find our true place within nature

A Home and a Resting Place Homo Religiosus: The Reality of Religious Truth and Experience

Volume 3 of Marx's Socialism from Within. Here I examine the necessity for transcendent standards vs conventionalism, checking relativism, subjectivism and scepticism. I address Nietzsche's 'death of God' and its moral implications with respect to politics. I close with a substantial chapter on Alasdair MacIntyre's virtuous communities of practice, arguing for the necessity of political community in order to extend these communities on a large scale to achieve the widespread social and moral transformation required in the modern diremptive world

Lewis Mumford and the Architectonics of Ecological Civilisation

This book traces the connection of ecology, regionalism and civilisation in the life's work of Lewis Mumford. The argument demonstrates Mumford's ecological regionalism as being grounded in a moral sense of place, Mumford offering an ecological civilisation as an alternative to the false imperatives of the megamachine. Mumford is shown to offer an alternative future based on organic plenitude as against the 'aimless dynamism' of endless material quantity within the megamachine. The book seeks to develop the moral and critical purpose at work behind the varied writings of Lewis Mumford. The attempt is made to identify the contours of Mumford’s ideal city as a city of human dimensions enabling and encouraging a vigorous reciprocity and interaction between inhabitants as citizens; a city which brings the touch, sense and smell of the countryside into the core market life of the city, brings neighbourhoods in close connection with each other, brings all city dwellers within close walking distance of parks and green spaces. Mumford’s objective is to make the city a communal theatre, a collective experience in which city dwellers are actors rather than mere spectators in the unfolding drama of urban life. Mumford is shown to offer a unique insight into the myriad political, social, cultural, urban, moral, psychological and ecological problems of a rationalised modernity. The solutions that Mumford articulates bring the soundest features of past cities to bear upon present forms. The awareness of the past enables Mumford to address thefundamental problems of rational modernity. Although Mumford wrote on a wide variety of topics, his purpose possessed a unifying thread concerning the mode of life within modern technological society. The key to Mumford's vision is the scaling of social life to human dimension and proportion, thus producing a life of balance and harmony with respect to the moral and technical capacities of human beings

Critical Studies in Rational Freedom: The Radical Transfiguration of the Greco-Germanic Principle of Rational Freedom

This thesis approaches 'Marx's politics' from its 'rational' origins in ancient Greek thought. Stated briefly, ‘rational freedom’ affirms a socio-relational and ethical conception of freedom in which individual liberty depends upon and is constituted by the quality of relations with other individuals. The argument of this thesis is that Marx both transforms and incorporates the 'rational' themes and values developed by Plato and Aristotle, Rousseau, Kant and Hegel. The thesis locates communism as a 'true' public within a normative philosophical concern with the appropriate regimen for the human good. This reconstructs a tradition and a concept of 'rational freedom' around principles of reciprocity, mutual respect, communication, communality, solidarity. The 'rational' here comprehends subjectivity as an intersubjectivity which secures the unity of the freedom of each and the freedom of all. This tradition rejects the atomistic model of freedom as self-cancelling in equating freedom with unrestricted individual choice and the unregulated pursuit of self-interest. The 'rational ‘ conception defines freedom as conceivable only by locating individual interactions within a network of relationships. Marx certainly realised that the automatic connection between reason and freedom under law could no longer be assumed in class society. But this led him less to abandon the 'rational' conception of freedom than to seek its material foundation in a classless society dissolves the abstracted legal-institutional form of reason into a self-organising democratic society. This thesis argues that Marx radicalised the 'rational' principle of collective and reciprocal freedom beyond the state in a new associational public. In transcending the legalistic and moralistic framework of the 'rational' tradition, This thesis demonstrates how Marx actualises rational unity of each individual with all individuals within the social world of everyday exchange, reciprocity and solidarity

Spinoza and the Rule of Reason

Spinoza is the rationalist philosopher par excellence, making every conceivable emancipatory claim for reason in delineating the connection of reason to freedom and power. This kind of philosophy has been challenged in recent times by postmodernist modes of thought. Whereas Spinoza affirms knowledge as power in a positive sense, the likes of Michel Foucault argue a knowledge/power nexus that savours more of an Hobbesian ceaseless conflict. This thesis highlights the ‘radical’ aspects of Spinoza’s rationalist philosophy, finding inspiration in his God-Nature relation, his democratic politics and his commitment to free rational thinking as subversive of all forms of coercive or state-sanctioned religious doctrine. The book argues that Spinoza makes it possible to resist the postmodernist drift by affirming the possibility of separating truth from illusion, reason from rhetoric. In this manner, philosophy can retain its emancipatory function and engage the political, social and economic issues of the day in a critical and emancipatory sense. In delineating the terms of freedom, knowledge and power and in showing their connection to each other, Spinoza offers a means of resisting the relativising tendencies of contemporary theory and, indeed, the way that this relativism in ethics serves existing power and entrenches the forces of political conservatism. The truth, for Spinoza, is the product not of consensus-belief but of rational critique which subjects existing norms and values to question. Not the least of Spinoza’s achievements is to have shown how such rational critique – the very stuff of philosophy – is no longer an elitist concern leading to the philosopher-ruler but has the potential to emancipate all humankind, since knowledge is key to an active relation to the world.

Dante's Enamoured Mind

Dante as the poet-philosopher of living hope

Philosophizing Through the Eye of the Mind: Philosophy as Ethos and Praxis

This book conceives philosophy in terms of philosophising as an active process. The intention of the argument is to restore philosophy to its origins as an ethos, a practice, a way of living for rational beings. Philosophy is therefore presented more as a practice or an activity than as an intellectual exercise or subject discipline. Philosophy is something that one does as a rational being. This is not an invitation to sloppy thinking; it is an invitation to all to philosophize as rational beings. A questioning, critical approach grounded in the rational faculty is taken to be the most salient characteristic of philosophy. This emphasises intelligence and its application over knowledge. Philosophy is not a question of knowledge but of the application of intelligence. The book proceeds from Socrates as the key figure in this conception of philosophy as philosophizing. Socrates was no ivory tower philosopher but took philosophy to the men and women of 'the real world' in an attempt to get them to support their views and activities with arguments, with good reasons for doing, thinking, stating the things they did. The 'real world' is not the one revealed to ordinary sense experience. This book shows that only by philosophizing can individuals enter the real world