Marxism Missing, Missing Marxism

From Marxism to Identity Politics and Beyond
Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-90-04-44577-2
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 183, 302 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 650 g

Reihe: Studies in Critical Social Sciences

Examining how Marxist theory is missing but necessary, this book traces the theoretical maze in which Marxism currently finds itself, and from which it is trying to exit whilst at the same time remaining epistemologically intact. When stripped of any or all of its core elements – such as class formation/consciousness/struggle, and a socialist transition – it ceases to be what historically Marxists have claimed it is. Consequently, the book constitutes an attempt by Marxist political economy to extricate itself from mistaken attempts to conflate it with the cultural turn, identity politics, bourgeois economics, or varieties of populism and nationalism, together with the danger of not doing so.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Brass, Tom

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Wirtschaftspolitik, politische Ökonomie
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Ideologien Marxismus, Kommunismus
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Regierungspolitik Wirtschafts- und Finanzpolitik
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein Gesellschaftstheorie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION: Marxism missing – presumed dead?

How Marxism went missing

Why Marxism went missing

As clear as mud(de)

Essentializing rurality?

Marxism missing, but.

Themes

PART I: MARXISM MISSING

CHAPTER ONE - Marxism(s) Within/Beyond the Nation

Introduction

The external/eternal ‘other’

The source of social miracles

Because the country is hungry

Winning the peasantry?

A huge part of the people

Class solidarity and/or cultural autonomy

Nationalism beyond the nation

Privileged sections, cheap immigrants

An indispensable attribute

Conclusion

CHAPTER TWO - From Marxism to the Cultural Turn (via Social History)

Introduction

Marxism and Third World development

Populism, social history, and Third World (non-)development

Enemy of the (Capitalist) State?

History, methods, politics

Social history and/as the ‘cultural turn’

Ambiguity + authenticity = absent Marxism

Conclusion

CHAPTER THREE - From Marxism to Nationalism (via Imperialism)

Introduction

The authenticity of populism

The inapplicability of Marxism

Down the drain (once again)

India’s chief curse

Populism, nationalism, postmodernism

What did the Romans ever do for us?

Conclusion

CHAPTER FOUR - From Marxism to Agrarian Populism (via the Cultural Turn)

Introduction

Peasants, Marxism, Populism

The ‘cultural turn’ and/as the ‘new’ populist postmodernism

Russia then, India now

Old Believers?

Farmers, peasants, kulaks

Old/new agrarian populism?

A sense of robust realism?

Conclusion

PART II: MISSING MARXISM

CHAPTER FIVE - From Marxism to Late Antiquity (via Postmodernism)

Introduction

The world beyond

Citizens, state and economy

Not death but resurrection

Postmodernizing premodernity

Conclusion

CHAPTER SIX - From Modern to Ancient Capitalism (via Bourgeois Economics)

Introduction

Capitalism, capitalism everywhere

Money makes the world go round?

Fear of feudalism

All modes lead to Rome

Had Marx lived…

Marginalism is not Marxism

Building castles in the air

Conclusion

CHAPTER SEVEN - From Class Struggle to Identity Politics (via ‘Otherness’)

Introduction

Film, sameness, otherness

To keep them divided

Solidarity, struggle, socialism

Magical (un-)realism

Diasporic discourse

On the shoulders of giants?

Placid multiculturalism

Celebrating Otherness?

Conclusion

CHAPTER EIGHT - Great Replacement, or Reaping the Capitalist Whirlwind (via Populism/Nationalism)

Introduction: the last taboo

White Fright, White Fight

Demography, culture, civilization

Who/what is responsible?

Rival ethnicities, rival populisms

Political economy and/as Great Replacement

Migration and/as surplus labour

Marxism and the industrial reserve

Conclusion

CONCLUSION: Beyond Marxism, What?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

AUTHOR INDEX

SUBJECT INDEX

Über Autor(innen)

Tom Brass, D.Phil (1982) formerly lectured in the SPS Faculty at Cambridge University and directed studies for Queens’ College. He edited The Journal of Peasant Studies for almost two decades, and has published extensively on agrarian issues and rural labour relations, including Revolution and Its Alternatives (Brill, 2019).