Keywords
Exploitation
Mode of production
Optimality-thesis
Production relations
Productive forces
Social forms
How to Cite
Abstract
During the 1980s and 1990s, the debate on the Marxist theory of history centered largely around the work of Robert Brenner’s property-relations-centered construal of it, and G.A. Cohen’s attempt to revive the classical, determinist argument. This article examines two influential arguments by Erik Wright and his colleagues, and by Alan Carling, which acknowledge important weaknesses in Cohen’s work, but which also try to construct a more plausible version of his theory. I show that the attempts to rescue Cohen are largely unsuccessful. And, to the extent that they render the argument plausible, they do so at the cost of turning it, willy-nilly, into a kind of class-struggle theory. I conclude that this spells the demise of the classical version of historical materialism, but also observe that this does not leave us with a voluntaristic understanding of history, as some of its defenders fear.
References
ASTON, Trevor Henry; PHILPIN, C.H.E. (orgs.). The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
BRENNER, Robert. The Social Basis of Economic Development. In: ROEMER, John (org.). Analytical Marxism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
BRENNER, Robert. Marx and the Bourgeois Revolution. In: BEIER A.L., CANNADINE, David; ROSENHEIM, James M. (orgs.). The First Modern Society: Essays in English History in Honour of Lawrence Stone. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
CALLINICOS, Alex. Preface. In: . Making History: Agency, Structure, and Change in Social Theory. 2.ed. Historical Materialism Book Series, Leiden: Brill, 2004.
CARLING, Alan H. Social Division. London: Verso, 2004.
CARLING, Alan H. Analytical Marxism and Historical Materialism – The Debate on Social Evolution, Science and Society, v.57, n.1, 1993, p.31-65.
CARLING, Alan H. Karl Marx’s Theory of History and the Recovery of the Marxian Tradition, Science and Society, v.70, n.2, 2006, p.275-97.
CARLING, Alan H. Problems of the Deep: Intention and History, Science and Society, v.73, n.1, 2009, p.97-109.
COHN, Gerald Allan. Karl Marx’s Theory of History: a Defense. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978.
COHN, Gerald Allan. History, Labour and Freedom: Themes from Marx. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
COHN, Gerald Allan. Karl Marx’s Theory of History: a Defense. 2.ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.
GELLNER, Ernest. Plough, Sword, and Book: The Structure of Human History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988.
HILTON, Rodney (org.). The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism. London: Verso, 1976.
KATZ, Claudio J. From Feudalism to Capitalism: Marxian Theories of Class Struggle and Social Change, Westport: Greenwood Press, 1989.
LOCKE, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. (Clarendon Edition of the Works of John Locke) [Paperback]. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975.
MANN, Michael. The Sources of Social Power: vol. 1, A History of Power from the Beginning to AD 1760. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
MARTIN, John E. Feudalism to Capitalism: Peasant and Landlord in English Agrian Development. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press, 1983.
RIGBY, Stephen H. Marxism and History: a Critical Introduction. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987.
WRIGHT, Erik Olin. “Giddens” Critique of Marxism. New Left Review, v.I, n.138, 1983, p.11-35.
WRIGHT, Erik Olin. Foundations for a Neo-Marxist Class Analysis. In: WRIGHT, Erik Olin (org.). Approaches to Class Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
WRIGHT, Erik Olin; LEVINE, Andrew. Rationality and Class Struggle, New Left Review, v.I, n.123, 1980, p.47-68.
WRIGHT, Erik Olin; LEVINE, Andrew; SOBER, Elliott. Reconstructing Marxism: Essays on Explanation and the Theory of History. London: Verso, 1993.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright (c) 2012 Vivek Chibber