V7075 FIGURES IN SOCIAL POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY



V7075 FIGURES IN SOCIAL POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

3rd year Philosophy course

Autumn Term 2009

Course outline and reading list

Lecturer: Andrew Chitty, a.e.chitty@sussex.ac.uk, tel. 678296, office Arts B241

Office hours: Tuesdays 12.00-1.00, Thursdays 11.30-12.30 (variations in some weeks)

To book an office hour slot online please go to the wiki at

Philosophy Programme Coordinator: Robbie Robb, s.l.robb@sussex.ac.uk, tel. 877378, office Arts A7

Course description

This course will examine Marx as a social and political philosopher deeply formed by the German idealist tradition. It will begin by looking at Hegel’s political thought and philosophy of history, focusing on his ideas of self-consciousness, recognition and spirit, his intersubjective conception of freedom, and his account of the modern state in the Philosophy of Right as the realisation of this freedom. We will go on to look at the ideas of species-being and alienation in Feuerbach and in Marx’s early accounts of the state and capital, and his theory of history. Finally we examine key sections of Marx’s Grundrisse, Capital, and later political writings, focusing on the ideas of fetishism and reification, Marx’s conception of capitalism as a self-perpetuating system of human self-subjugation, and his account of how and why it must be superseded by communism.

The syllabus page at gives the official course description and expected learning outcomes.

Teaching method

One 2-hour interactive lecture (for everyone on the course) and one 1-hour seminar (for seminar groups of 10-15) per week. See your Sussex Direct site for times and venues. In addition to the lectures and seminars, you should be doing 12 hours of reading each week for this course.

Structure of the course

There will be a lecture but no seminars in week 5, so as to give you time to work on your coursework essays for submission the following week. I will be available in my office for individual consultations during the seminar times. I also hope to arrange a training session in the Library on ‘using Philosophy electronic resources’ week 5.

Non-contributory coursework

You will be asked to write an essay of 1800-2000 words, on a topic from the course, which is to be submitted at the lecture on Tuesday 10 November (week 6). This is a non-contributory essay, i.e. the mark given for it will not contribute to the assessment for the course. Please use one of the seminar/essay questions given under topics 1-5.

In one seminar you will also be asked to give a short presentation to introduce a discussion of one of the seminar/essay questions.

Assessment

The course is assessed by a dissertation (max 6,000 words) to be submitted by the official BA and LLB Summer-term submission deadline for final-year courses. Dissertation titles are chosen by students and must be agreed by the lecturer.

The generic assessment criteria for the Department of Philosophy are at the end of this course outline.

Please note that the authoritative source for formal assessment requirements is Sussex Direct. Go to ‘View my study pages’, then ‘Course results’, then to this course. The Philosophy BA assessment page at provides further information on the assessment of Philosophy courses, which is designed to co-ordinate with the requirements provided via Sussex Direct. Please do not rely solely on tutors’ information about assessment, as such information is not authoritative and may occasionally be mistaken.

Plagiarism

The University’s definition of plagiarism is:

“Plagiarism is the use, without acknowledgement, of the intellectual work of other people, and the act of representing the ideas or discoveries of another as one’s own in written work submitted for assessment. To copy sentences, phrases or even striking expressions without acknowledgement of the source (either by inadequate citation or failure to indicate verbatim quotations), is plagiarism; to paraphrase without acknowledgement is likewise plagiarism. Where such copying or paraphrase has occurred the mere mention of the source in the bibliography shall not be deemed sufficient acknowledgement; each such instance must be referred specifically to its source. Verbatim quotations must be either in inverted commas, or indented, and directly acknowledged.”

There is a fuller discussion at . Please consult this page and others on the University’s plagiarism site so as to make sure that you do not commit plagiarism in an essay or dissertation, as doing so can have serious consequences.

References and bibliography

References and bibliographical details in essays and dissertations should follow the guidelines at . The essays will be returned with comments within three weeks of receipt.

Student feedback

Anonymous informal written feedback will be taken mid-way through the course, and the lecturer and/or tutor will respond informally. A formal student evaluation questionnaire will be completed at the end of the course.

Books for purchase

You will need to purchase the following two books:

Karl Marx, Early Writings, ed. Lucio Colletti (Penguin)

Karl Marx, Capital Volume 1, trans. Ben Fowkes (Penguin)

You will also need to purchase a Study Pack containing other essential readings for the course.

Study Direct

The Study Direct site for this course gives online access to a number of useful course readings. You can access it at , or from your Sussex Direct home page or Study Direct home page .

Readings and seminar questions

Readings marked # are essential reading. These are all in the Study Pack. Please read them before the lecture. (Students who have evidently not done this reading are asked not to take part in the seminar discussion. The further readings for the topic (or sub-topics) are given roughly in order of recommendation. They are for you to use as background or as further reading when preparing for an essay or the dissertation. The seminar/essay questions are for discussion in the seminars, and the ones for topics 1-5 are for your coursework essay.

Most journal articles in this reading list are available via the electronic library.

Online resources

A Marx bibliography

Marx internet archive at (has most of Marx’s works in English)

MLWerke (has the best collection of Marx’s works in German)

The Philosophy Department’s philosophy internet resources page

Abbreviations

# = essential reading for the seminar

* = particularly recommended

+ = introductory

[6] = 6 copies of this book in the library

[el] = available via electronic library

[sd] = available via Study Direct site

[sp 3] = in Study Pack, item 3

EW = L. Colletti (ed.) Karl Marx: Early Writings

Introductory and general reading

Two descriptions of Marx:

Eleanor Marx-Aveling, ‘Karl Marx’ in E. Fromm, Marx’s Concept of Man, 1966 [sd]

Interview with Karl Marx in the Chicago Tribune, 5 January 1879 [sd]

On reading Marx:

Wood, A.W. (2004) Karl Marx, Preface to the second edition [sd]

Osborne, P. (2005) How to Read Marx, Introduction [sd]

Introductions to Marx’s thought:

McLellan, D. (1975) Marx, Fontana Modern Masters, 2nd ed. 1986 [11]

Singer, P. (1980) Marx, Pastmasters, reissued as Marx: A Very Short Introduction, 2001 [4]

McCarney, J. (1990) Social Theory and the Crisis of Marxism. chs. 6-8

Wolff, J. (2003) Why Read Marx Today? [6]

Collier, A. (2004) Marx

Osborne, P. (2005) How to Read Marx

Fuller commentaries:

Avineri, S. (1968) The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx [12]

McLellan, D. (1971) The Thought of Karl Marx, 3rd ed. 1995 (an excellent selection of passages from Marx on a range of central topics, with commentaries on each topic) [6]

Kolakowski, L. (1978) Main Currents of Marxism, Vol. 1: The Founders (a classic) [4]

Wood, A. (1981) Karl Marx, 2nd ed. 2004 (the best discussion by an analytical philosopher) [2]

Elster, J. (1985) Making Sense of Marx (a ‘rational choice’ interpretation, abridged as An Introduction to Karl Marx, 1986) [7]

Communism and socialism before Marx

Primary texts:

Communist and socialist ideas before the French Revolution: some quotes [sd]

Maréchal, Sylvain [1796] ‘Manifesto of the equals’ [sd]

Babeuf, Gracchus [1797] ‘Babeuf’s defence’ (excerpt) [sd]

Owen, Robert (1813) A New View of Society (excerpts) [sd]

Hodgskin, Thomas (1825) Labour Defended against the Claims of Capital (introduction and conclusion) [sd]

Bazard, Saint-Amande [1828] ‘Exposition of the doctrine of Saint-Simon’ (excerpts) [sd]

Blanqui, Auguste [1834] ‘Who makes the soup should eat it’ [sd]

Fourier, Charles [1838] ‘The Phalanstery’ and ‘Attractive labour’ [sd]

Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph [1840] What is Property?, chapter 1 (introduction and conclusion) [sd]

Cabet, Etienne [1840] Voyage en Icarie (excerpts) [sd]

Considérant, Victor [1843] Principles of Socialism: Manifesto of 19th Century Democracy (part 1)

Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph [1851] General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century (study 6, part 3) [sd]

Introductory commentaries:

Engels, F. (1843) ‘Progress of social reform on the continent’ (A succinct survey of communist and socialist thinkers in the early and middle 19th century by Marx’s future collaborator) [sd]

Berki, R.N. (1975) Socialism, ch. 3 ‘The emergence of socialism’

Birchall, I. (2003) ‘On Alain Maillard’s La Communauté des égaux …’, Historical Materialism 11(1) (a review of three recent books on Babeuf which is a very good introduction to his ideas) [el]

Kreis, S. (2005) Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History (lectures 19-22 are on early French communism and socialism)

Fuller commentaries:

Cole, G.D.H. (1953) A History of Socialist Thought, Volume 1 The Forerunners 1789-1850

Stein, L. von [1842] The History of the Social Movement in France, 1789-1850 (This book introduced young Germans of Marx’s generation to French communist and socialist ideas)

Lichtheim, G. (1970) A Short History of Socialism, first chapters

Marx’s relation to pre-Marxist communism and socialism:

Engels, F. [1880] Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, part 1, in editions of Marx and Engels, Selected Works

Leopold, D. (2005) ‘The structure of Marx and Engels’ considered account of utopian socialism’, History of Political Thought 26(3) [el]

1. Hegel on self-consciousness, spirit and the modern state

Marx’s philosophy is impossible to understand in isolation from Hegel’s philosophy, and in particular his social and political philosophy. This week we will look at Hegel’s philosophical account of the modern state, tracing it back to its foundations in his concepts of self-consciousness, mutual recognition and spirit.

# Fichte, J.G. [1796] The Science of Knowledge (Wissenschaftslehre), part 1, §1, paras. 6-9 (pp. 97-99) (on the idea of the I as constituted by its own consciousness of itself) [sp 1]

# Hegel, G.W.F., passages on freedom [sp 2]

# Hegel, G.W.F. [1830] Philosophy of Mind, §§377, 424-438 [sp 3]

# Hegel, G.W.F. [1821] Philosophy of Right, Preface, §§1-7, 29-31, 35-41, 71-75, 141-9, 182-202, 205, 257-67, 273, 279, 287-9, 294 [sp 4, except for the last 2-3 pages on ‘World history’]

On mutual recognition and spirit in Hegel:

Solomon, R.C. (1970) ‘Hegel’s concept of “Geist”‘, Review of Metaphysics 23(4), reprinted in A. MacIntyre (ed.) Hegel: A Collection of Critical Essays (on the relation between Kant’s transcendental unity of apperception and Hegel’s spirit) [el]

+ Chitty, A. (1998) ‘Recognition and social relations of production’, Historical Materialism 2 (sections 2-4 of this article) [el]

+ Chitty, A. (2009) ‘Hegel and Marx’, section 1 ‘Humanity, mutual recognition and the state in Hegel’ [sd]

On Hegel’s conception of freedom:

McCarney, J. (2000) Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hegel on History, ch. 5 ‘Freedom’ [2, sd]

Pippin, R.B. (2000) ‘What is the question for which Hegel’s theory of recognition is the answer?’, European Journal of Philosophy 8(2) [el]

On Hegel’s political philosophy:

+ Singer, P. (1983) Hegel, Pastmasters, reissued as Hegel: A Very Short Introduction 2001, ch. 3. ‘Freedom and community’

Maletz, D.J. (1989) ‘Hegel on right as actualised will’, Political Theory 17(1) [el]

Hardimon, M. O. (1992) ‘The project of reconciliation: Hegel’s social philosophy’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 21(2) [el]

On Fichte and self-consciousness:

Wood, A. (1999) ‘The ‘I’ as principle of practical philosophy’, in S. Sedgwick (ed.) The Reception of Kant’s Critical Philosophy: Fichte, Schelling and Hegel (the first two sections of the article)

On mutual recognition in Kant and Fichte:

Kant, I. [1785] Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, part 2, section on treatings others as ends and the kingdom of ends (427-36)

Fichte, J.G. [1794] Some Lectures Concerning the Scholar’s Vocation, lectures 1-3 [sd]

Seminar/essay questions:

1. What does Hegel mean by ‘spirit’?

2. Why does Hegel think that mutual recognition is necessary for humans to become free?

3. How does Hegel think that the modern state ‘actualises’ freedom?

4. Why does civil society need to be supplemented by the state, according to Hegel?

Additional resources:

The Study Direct site for the course Hegel 08/09, under topics 4 and 5, has two lectures with handouts on Hegel’s earlier (and more famous) account of the struggle for recognition and the master-servant relationship in his Phenomenology of Spirit (1807).

2. Hegel and Feuerbach on estrangement

This week we will look at Hegel’s account of history as the ‘progress of the consciousness of freedom’, culminating apparently in the modern state. We will focus in particular on the idea that this progress involves a period of ‘estrangement’ of individuals from their own shared spirit, which reachs a height in the Roman Empire. Finally we will look at how Feuerbach, one of the ‘Young Hegelians’ who developed Hegel’s ideas in atheistic and democratic directions, takes up Hegel’s ideas of spirit and estrangement in his account of the human essence and religion, finally turning them against Hegel himself.

# Hegel, G.W.F. [1822-31] Lectures on the Philosophy of World History: Introduction. Reason in History, pp. 27-8, 33-4, 42-65, 93-9, 119-23, 145-9 [sp 5]

# Hegel, G.W.F. [1821] Philosophy of Right, ‘World history’ §341, 353-60 [sp 4, last 2-3 pages]

# Hegel, G.W.F. [1807] Phenomenology of Spirit §§347-55, 475-86 [sp 6]

# Feuerbach, L. [1841] The Essence of Christianity, Introduction, ch. 16 (middle part), ch. 23 [sp 7]

# Feuerbach, L. [1843] Principles of the Philosophy of the Future, §§53-63 [sp 8]

Hegel’s philosophy of history:

Taylor, C. (1975) Hegel, ch. 15 ‘Reason and history’ [7]

+ Chitty, A. (1997) ‘The direction of contemporary capitalism and the practical relevance of theory’, Review of International Political Economy 4(3) (see pp. 440-442) [el]

Hegel on estrangement and the Roman world:

Hegel, G.W.F. [1822-31] The Philosophy of History, part 3, ‘The Roman world’, introductory section, section on ‘The Elements of the Roman Spirit’, and section on ‘Rome under the emperors’

Norman, R. (1976) Hegel’s Phenomenology: A Philosophical Introduction, ch. 5 [11]

Inwood, M. (1992) A Hegel Dictionary, entry on ‘alienation and estrangement’, pp. 35-38 [sd]

Chitty, A. (2009) ‘Hegel and Marx’, section 3 ‘Hegel on the Roman world’ [sd]

Feuerbach on the human essence and religion:

Althusser, L. [1960] ‘Feuerbach’s philosophical manifestoes’, in his For Marx, tr. 1969 [3]

Breckman, W. (1992) ‘Ludwig Feuerbach and the political theology of restoration’, History of Political Thought 13(3) [el]

Feuerbach’s critique of Hegel:

Feuerbach, L. [1843] Principles of the Philosophy of the Future, §§1-31 [sd]

Feuerbach, L. [1843] ‘Provisional theses for the reform of philosophy’, in L. Stepelevich (ed.) The Young Hegelians [sd]

Young Hegelianism:

Löwith, K. [1941] From Hegel to Nietzsche (classic work on the Young Hegelians)

Pullman, P. (2001) ‘The kingdom of heaven’ (a recent lecture by the writer Philip Pullman with Young Hegelian themes)

Seminar/essay questions:

1. What does Hegel mean by saying that spirit ‘is its own product’ in the Introduction to the Lectures on the Philosophy of World History?

2. In what sense are people ‘estranged’ in the Roman world, according to Hegel, and what are they estranged from?

3. In the light of his philosophy of history, how should we understand Hegel’s statement in the Preface to the Philosophy of Right that ‘what is rational is actual and what is actual is rational’?

4. Why is a religion a necessary stage towards human self-knowledge, according to Feuerbach?

5. What is Feuerbach’s essential criticism of Hegel?

3. The early Marx on civil society and state (1843)

Marx first converted to Hegelianism while at university, and joined the ‘Young Hegelians’, using Hegel’s ideas to support a radical-democratic political outlook in his Rheinische Zeitung articles of 1842. In 1843 he turned against Hegel and used Feuerbachian ideas to develop a critique simultaneously of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and of the modern system of civil society and state. We will focus on these 1843 writings, asking what Marx finds wrong with the modern civil society and state system, and what he thinks should replace it.

# Marx, K. [1842] Passages from the Rheinische Zeitung articles [sp 9]

# Marx, K. [Mar-Aug 1843] Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of the State, in EW (pp. 58-91, 185-191 only)

# Marx, K. [Autumn 1843] On the Jewish Question (part 1 only), in EW

# Marx [Dec 1843] ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right. Introduction’ (the ‘1843 Introduction’), in EW (the first place in which Marx mentions the proletariat and calls for communism)

Supplementary texts:

Marx [1837] ‘Letter to his father’, in Collected Works vol. 1 (on Marx’s conversion to Hegelianism at the age of 19)

Marx, K. [Mar-May 1843] ‘Letters from the Franco-German Yearbooks’, in EW, the 1st and 2nd letters (focus on Marx’s notion of the ‘inverted world’ and his view of democracy)

On the Rheinische Zeitung articles:

Chitty, A. (2006) ‘The basis of the state in the Marx of 1842’, in D. Moggach (ed.) The New Hegelians: Politics and Philosophy in the Hegelian School

On the 1843 writings in general:

+ Colletti, L. (1975) ‘Introduction’ to Marx, Early Writings, ed. L. Colletti

Berki, R.N. (1990) ‘Through and through Hegel: Marx’s road to communism’, Political Studies 38 [el]

On the Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of the State:

Avineri, S. (1967) ‘The Hegelian origins of Marx’s political thought’, Review of Metaphysics 21(1) [el]

Duquette, D. (1989) ‘Marx’s idealist critique of Hegel’s theory of society and politics’, Review of Politics 51(2) [el]

Leopold, D. (2007) The Young Karl Marx: German Philosophy, Modern Politics, and Human Flourishing, pp. 62-82 [sd]

Democracy in the early Marx:

Marx [Aug 1844] ‘Critical marginal notes on “The King of Prussia and social reform”‘, in EW

Fischer, N. (1981) ‘Marx’s early concept of democracy and the ethical bases of socialism’, in J.P. Burke et als. (eds.) Marxism and the Good Society

Marx’s critique of rights:

Marx and Engels [1944] The Holy Family, excerpt from the section on ‘The Jewish Question no. 3’ [sd]

Lefort, C. [1980] ‘Politics and human rights’, in his The Political Forms of Modern Society

Seminar/essay questions:

1. What is Marx’s basic objection to the ‘abstract political state’ in the Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of the State?

2. What is Marx’s view of democracy in the Critique of Hegel’s Doctrine of the State?

3. Why does Marx object to the idea of human rights in On the Jewish Question?

4. In what sense does the Marx of 1843 think that we live in an ‘inverted world’?

4. The early Marx on species-being, estrangement and capital (1844)

In 1844 Marx engaged for the first time in a serious way with ‘civil society’, i.e. the capitalist economy. He formulated the idea (one that has roots in Hegel and Feuerbach) that human beings are ‘species-beings’ whose essential activity is production for each other and conceived money and capital as the ‘externalisation’ (Entäusserung) of this activity so that it takes a form that dominates humans themselves. He defines communism as the overcoming of this externalisation and the realisation of humans as species-beings. We will investigate the connections between these ideas, and between his 1843 account of the modern state and his 1844 account of money and capital.

A note on translations of Entäusserung and Entfremdung: EW and the Collected Works all translate Entäusserung as ‘alienation’ and Entfremdung as ‘estrangement’, in contrast to Miller in his translation of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit usually translates Entäusserung as ‘externalisation’ (usually) and Entfremdung as ‘alienation’. For other translators’ practice see the appendix to C.J. Arthur, Dialectics of Labour. Below I use ‘alienation’ as a vague term to cover both concepts.

# Marx [Autumn 1843] On the Jewish Question (part 2), in EW

# Marx [Apr-Aug 1844] Notes on James Mill (i.e. ‘Excerpts from James Mill’s Elements of Political Economy’), in EW

# Marx [Apr-Aug 1844] Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, in EW (please focus especially on pp. 322-379)

Supplementary text:

Aristotle, Politics, book 1 chs. 1-2 [many copies in library]

On species-being, alienation and communism:

Arthur, C.J. (1986) Dialectics of Labour: Marx and his Relation to Hegel, chs. 1-3 [2]

Wood, A. (1981, 2nd ed. 2004) Karl Marx, chs. 1-4 [2]

Chitty, A. (2009) ‘Species-being and capital’, in A. Chitty and M. McIvor (eds.) Karl Marx and Contemporary Philosophy

+ Chitty, A. (2009) ‘Hegel and Marx’, section 2 ‘Species-being and communism in Marx’ and section 4 ‘Marx on the modern state and capital’ [sd]

Specifically on species-being:

Nasser, A.G. (1975) ‘Marx’s ethical anthropology’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 35(4) (section 1 of this article) [el]

* Margolis, J. (1992) ‘Praxis and meaning: Marx’s species-being and Aristotle’s political animal’, in G.E. McCarthy (ed.) Marx and Aristotle: Nineteenth-Century German Thought and Classical Antiquity [sd]

Chitty, A. (1997) ‘First person plural ontology and praxis’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 97(1) [el]

Dyer-Witheford, N. (2004) ‘1844/2004/2044: the return of species-being’, Historical Materialism 12(4) [el]

Specifically on alienation:

Levine, A. (1978) ‘Alienation as heteronomy’, Philosophical Forum 8 [sd]

+ Wolff, J. (1992) ‘Playthings of alien forces: Karl Marx and the rejection of the market economy’, Cogito 6(1), reprinted in N. Warburton (ed.) Philosophy: Basic Readings, 1999 [sd]

Schmitt, R. (1996) ‘Marx’s concept of alienation’, Topoi 15(2) [el]

Holloway, J. (1997) ‘A note on alienation’, Historical Materialism 1(1) [el]

On communism and non-alienated labour in Marx’s early writings:

McLellan, D. (1969) ‘Marx’s view of the unalienated society’, Review of Politics 31(4) [el]

Berki, R.N. (1990) ‘Through and through Hegel: Marx’s road to communism’, Political Studies 38 [el]

On Marx’s 1844 critique of Hegel:

McCarney, J. (2009) ‘“The entire mystery”: Marx’s understanding of Hegel’, in A. Chitty and M. McIvor (eds) Karl Marx and Contemporary Philosophy

+ Chitty, A. (2009) ‘Hegel and Marx’, section 5 ‘Marx on his relation to Hegel’

On the Young Hegelians, Feuerbach and Marx:

Hess, M. [1845] ‘On the essence of money’, in J. Kovesi, Values and Evaluations: Essays on Ethics and Ideology 1998 (although it was published later, the ideas of this essay were probably an inspiration for part 2 of ‘On the Jewish Question’)

Sass, H.-M. (1983) ‘The ‘transition’ from Feuerbach to Marx: a re-interpretation’, Studies in Eastern European Thought (formerly Studies in Soviet Thought) 26(2) [el]

Arthur, C.J. (1986) Dialectics of Labour: Marx and his Relation to Hegel, ch. 9 ‘Marx and Feuerbach’ [2]

Seminar/essay questions:

1. What does Marx mean by saying that humans are ‘species-beings’?

2. What does Marx mean by saying that in modern society labour is entäussert (externalised)?

3. Does Marx think there is a connection between the ‘inverted’ character of capital and Hegel’s idealism?

4. Is Marx’s 1844 conception of communism modelled on Hegel’s idea of mutual recognition?

5. In On the Jewish Question Marx says that we should see the other as the ‘realisation’ rather than the ‘limitation’ on our freedom (EW 230). Could communism as he conceives it in 1844 achieve this?

5. Materialism, social relations and history (1845-46)

This week we will look at the Theses on Feuerbach, in which Marx attempts to outline a new kind of materialism based on the idea of praxis that goes beyond the ‘standpoint of civil society’. We will then look at his writings of 1845-46, especially The German Ideology, in which he first outlines the idea of ‘social relations of production’ and that of history as a succession of sets of such relations (or of economic structures or modes of production), whose rise and fall is driven by the development of human productive forces. (We will postpone a discussion of Marx’s concept of ideology until next week.)

# Marx [1845] ‘Theses on Feuerbach’, in EW

# Marx and Engels [1845-46] The German Ideology, ch. 1 and excerpts from ch. 3 [sp 11]

# Marx [1846] Letter to Annenkov, 18 December 1846 [sp 12]

# Marx [1859] ‘1859 Preface’ (Preface to Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy) [sp 19]

Supplementary text:

Stirner, M. [1844] The Ego and its Own, sections on ‘The spirit’ and ‘The possessed’ (The German Ideology is largely a response to the ideas of this book)

On the Theses on Feuerbach and Marx’s ontological materialism:

Marx and Engels [Sep-Nov 1844] The Holy Family, ch. 6, sec. 3d ‘Critical battle against French materialism’

Bender, F.L. (1983) ‘Marx, materialism and the limits of philosophy’, Studies in Soviet Thought (now Studies in East European Thought) 25(2) [el]

Kline, G.L. (1988) ‘The myth of Marx’s materialism’, in H. Dahm et al. (eds.) Philosophical Sovietology: The Pursuit of a Science, reprinted in S. Meikle (ed.) Marx 2002 [sd]

On the theory of history in general:

+ Roberts, M. (1996) Analytical Marxism: A Critique, pp. 47-59 (a clear summary of G.A. Cohen’s interpretation) [sd]

On social relations of production:

Cohen, G.A. (1978) Karl Marx’s Theory of History, chs. 2.1, 3, 8 (this book has become the standard interpretation of Marx’s theory of history) [5]

+ Collins, H. (1982) Marxism and Law, pp. 77-85 (on distinguishing social relations of production from property relations) [4]

Chitty, A. (1998) ‘Recognition and social relations of production’, Historical Materialism 2(1) [el]

On Marx’s explanation of change in social relations of production:

Marx [1867] Capital volume 1, chs. 26-30 (Marx’s fullest account of the transition from feudalism to capitalism)

Elster, J. (1982) ‘Marxism, functionalism and game theory: the case for methodological individualism’, Theory and Society 11(4) [el]

Cohen, G.A. (1982) ‘Reply to Elster on “Marxism, functionalism and game theory”‘, Theory and Society 11(4) [el]

Wood, E.M. (1984) ‘Marxism and the course of history’, New Left Review 1/147 [el]

Critiques of Marx as productivist or masculinist:

Baudrillard, J. [1973] The Mirror of Production, tr. 1975, chs. 1-2 [sd]

MacKinnon, C.A. (1989) Toward a Feminist Theory of the State, chs. 1-2 [6]

Seminar/essay questions:

1. Is Marx a materialist?

2. What distinguishes one set of social relations of production from another?

3. Does Marx have a coherent explanation of why one set of social relations of production is replaced by another in history?

4. Do the ideas of species-being and alienation still implicitly inform the theory of history in the German Ideology?

5. Are Marx’s concepts of human society and human history ‘productivist’?

6. Are they sexist?

6. Value, social form and fetishism

This week we will then work our way through chapters 1 and 2 of Capital, focusing on the ideas of commodity, use-value, exchange-value, value, abstract labour, and money. Our aim will be to grasp the idea of ‘social forms’ such as the commodity-form, the money-form and the capital-form, to ask in what sense Marx thinks they arise ‘logically’ from each other, and briefly to assess Marx’s labour theory of value. We will also look at Marx’s concept of commodity fetishism and ask how it is related to that of ideology.

# Marx [1873] Capital Volume 1, chapters 1-2

# Marx [1857-58] Grundrisse, pp. 145-151 (on the derivation of the money-form from the commodity-form) [sp 18 excerpt 1]

# Marx [1859] Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, first two pages [sp 20]

# Marx [1868] Letter to Kugelmann, 11 July 1868 [sp 21]

Supplementary text (on the transition from commodity to money):

Marx [1857-58] Grundrisse, pp. 145-151 [sp 18 excerpt 1]

On social relations, social forms and economic categories:

Marx [1846-47] The Poverty of Philosophy, chapter 2 section 1 second observation

Anton, A. (1974) ‘Commodities and exchange’, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 34 [el]

Chitty, A. (2000) ‘Social and physical form: Ilyenkov on the ideal and Marx on the value-form’, in V. Oittinen ed., Evald Ilyenkov’s Philosophy Revisited (sections 1-2 of this article)

On abstract labour:

Rubin, I.I. [1927] ‘Abstract labour and value in Marx’s system’, Capital & Class 5, 1978 [el]

Murray, P. (2000) ‘Marx’s ‘truly social’ labour theory of value: part 1, abstract labour in Marxian value theory’, Historical Materialism 6 [el]

On the labour theory of value:

Bailey, S. (1825) A Critical Dissertation on the Nature, Measure and Causes of Value, ch 1 ‘On the nature of value’ (Bailey’s empiricist theory of value is Marx’s chief object of attack in chapter 1 of Capital)

Marx [1846] Wage-Labour and Capital, section 2 ‘By what is the price of a commodity determined?’ [sp 14]

* Rubin, I.I. [1928] Essays on Marx’s Theory of Value, tr. 1972, ch. 17 ‘Value and social need’ [2]

Arthur, C.J. (2001) ‘Value, labour and negativity’, Capital & Class 73 [el]

On fetishism:

Marx [186-63] Capital Volume 3, ch. 48 ‘The trinity formula’ (on fetishism of capital and land)

* Geras, N. (1971) ‘Essence and appearance: aspects of fetishism in Marx’s Capital’, New Left Review 65 [el], reprinted with the title ‘Marx and the critique of political economy’) in R. Blackburn (ed.) Ideology in Social Science [4]

Cohen, G.A. (1978) Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence, ch. 5 ‘Fetishism’ [5]

Johnson, C. (1980) ‘The problem of reformism and Marx’s theory of fetishism’, New Left Review 119 [el]

Knafo, S. (2002) ‘The fetishising subject of Marx’s Capital’, Capital & Class 76 [el]

See also Marx’s remark in the Grundrisse, p. 687: ‘The crude materialism of the economists who regard as the natural properties of things what are social relations of production among people, and qualities which things obtain because they are subsumed under these relations, is at the same time just as crude an idealism, even fetishism, since it imputes social relations to things as inherent characteristics, and thus mystifies them.’

On ideology and ‘false consciousness’ in general in Marx:

Lichtheim, G. (1965) ‘The concept of ideology’, History and Theory 4 [el], reprinted in his The Concept of Ideology and Other Essays [2]

Cohen, G.A. (1978) Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence, pp. 289-293 [5]

* McCarney, J. (2005) ‘Ideology and false consciousness’, in The Marx Myths and Legends website

Clegg, J. (2008) ‘Rereading Marx on ideology’, paper given at the Joe McCarney memorial conference, 2008

Seminar/essay questions:

1. What is the difference between value and exchange-value, according to Marx?

2. What are concrete and abstract labour, and why does Marx make a distinction between them?

3. What kind of derivation is Marx’s derivation of the money-form from the commodity-form?

4. Is Marx’s labour theory of value defensible?

5. What is the fetishism of commodities, according to Marx, and who does it affect?

6. Is fetishism an example of what Marx means by ideology?

7. Capital, subsumption and colonialism

This week we will look at the introduction to the Grundrisse, in which Marx gives his fullest account of his intended method in writing Capital. Then we will continue reading Capital itself, focusing on the idea of capital as self-expanding value, as dependent on the exploitation of workers, and as a social relation which becomes an autonomous power over both worker and capitalist. We will also look at Marx’s argument (only fully developed by later Marxists) that the self-expansion of capital drives capitalist countries to colonialist and imperialist policies. Finally we will raise the question of whether the ideas of species-being and alienation still underlie Marx’s analysis of capitalism in Capital.

# Marx [1857] Introduction to the Grundrisse, first page and section 3 ‘The method of political economy’ [sp 17]

# Marx [1867] Capital Volume 1, chapters 3-7 (ch. 3 can be skim-read)

# Marx [1863-66] ‘Results of the Immediate Process of Production’, included in Penguin edition of Capital Volume 1 (originally planned as the final chapter of Capital volume 1) (pp. 1019-1038 only)

# Marx [1853] ‘Future Results of the British Rule in India’, in Marx and Engels, Collected Works, Volume 12 [sp 16]

Overviews of Capital:

Marx [1865] Value Price and Profit, in editions of Marx and Engels, Selected Works (Marx’s own summary of the ideas of Capital)

Fine, B. (1975) Marx’s Capital, 3rd ed. 1989 [4]

Harvey, D. (forthcoming, 2009) Introduction to Marx’s Capital

On the method of Capital:

Marx [1873] Capital Volume 1, ‘Postface to the second edition’ (also known as the ‘1873 Afterword’)

O’Malley, J. (1976) ‘Marx’s ‘Economics’ and Hegel’s Philosophy of Right: an essay on Marx’s Hegelianism’, Political Studies 24(1) [el]

Wood, A. (1981) Karl Marx, 2nd ed. 2004, part 5 ‘The dialectical method’ [2]

Rosenthal, J. (1999) ‘The escape from Hegel’, Science & Society 63(3) [el]

Arthur, C. (2005) ‘The myth of “simple commodity production”‘, in The Marx Myths and Legends website

On the concept of capital:

Marx [1846] Wage-Labour and Capital, section 4 ‘On the nature and growth of capital’ [sp 14]

Cohen, G.A. (1978) Karl Marx’s Theory of History, appendix 2 ‘some definitions’ [5]

On capital as an autonomous power:

Marx and Engels [1845-46] The German Ideology, two sections on ‘estrangement’ [sp pp. 107-8 and 124-5] (on the idea of social relations in general becoming autonomous of individuals)

Marx [1857-58] Grundrisse, pp. 450-55, 469-71 [sp 18 excerpts 8, 10]

Elster, J. (1980) Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences, ch. 11 ‘Equilibrium’ (explains the idea of equilibrium in game theory)

Arthur, C. (2001) ‘The spectral ontology of value’, Radical Philosophy 107 (pp. 32-35 only of this article, up to end of section on ‘Money’) [el – use subscription number 288640]

On formal and real subsumption:

Marx [1857-58] Grundrisse, pp. 585-7 [sp 18 excerpt 14]

Murray, P. (2004) ‘The social and material transformation of production by capital: formal and real subsumption in Capital volume 1’, in R. Bellofiore and N. Taylor (eds.) The Constitution of Capital: Essays on Volume 1 of Capital

On colonialism and imperialism:

Marx [1853] ‘The British rule in India’, in Marx and Engels, Collected Works, Volume 12 [sd]

Marx, Capital Volume 1, ch. 31 ‘Genesis of the industrial capitalist’

Marx (1968) Karl Marx on Colonialism and Modernization, ed. S. Avineri [2]

Kautsky, K. [1914] ‘Imperialism and the war’

Lenin, V.I. [1916] Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, chs. 3-6

On species-being and alienation in Marx’s later writings (the ‘epistemological break’ debate):

Althusser, L. [1965] For Marx, Introduction, section 2 [3]

Colletti, L. [1968] ‘Bernstein and the Marxism of the Second International’ in From Rousseau to Lenin (the sections on ‘The labour theory of value’ and ‘The theory of value and fetishism’) [2]

Colletti, L. [1969] Marxism and Hegel, ch. 8 ‘Kant, Hegel and Marx’

Hammen, O.J. (1980) ‘A note on the alienation motif in Marx’, Political Theory 8(2) [el]

Seminar/essay questions:

1. Is there a single principle behind the movement from commodity to money to capital in Capital?

2. Is Marx right that capital cannot exist without exploitation?

3. Can Marx’s idea that capital is an autonomous power be explained using game theory?

4. Is Marx’s argument that capitalism inevitably leads to colonialism persuasive?

5. Do the first few chapters of Capital implicitly rely on the ideas of species-being and alienation in Marx’s early writings?

8. Crisis, the proletariat and revolution

This and next week we will look at the question of how and why Marx thinks capitalism ‘must’ give way to communism. This week we will focus on the more empirical aspects of the question, specifically on the ideas that capitalism is necessarily prone to ever more severe crises, that the proletariat (the class of wage-labourers) is inherently ‘universal’ in its outlook and so is the agent that will eventually overthrow capitalism, and that a post-revolutionary democratic state will differ qualitatively from a capitalist state will eventually ‘wither away’.

# Marx [1873] Capital Volume 1, ch. 12 ‘The concept of relative surplus value’, ch. 25 ‘The general law of capitalist accumulation’, ch. 32 ‘The historical tendency of capitalist accumulation’

# Marx and Engels [1847] The Communist Manifesto, sections 1 and 2 [sp 15]

# Marx [1847] The Poverty of Philosophy, chapter 2 section 5 ‘Strikes and combinations of workers’ (the last few pages of the book) [sp 13]

# Marx [1871] The Civil War in France (first draft), section on ‘The character of the Commune’ [sp 23]

# Marx [1871] The Civil War in France (final version), section 5 ‘The Paris Commune’ [sp 24]

On crisis tendencies in capitalism:

Marx [1857-58] Grundrisse, pp. 421-3, 746-50 [sp 18 excerpts 7, 16]

Marx [1861-63] Capital volume 3, part 3 ‘The Law of the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall’

Mattick, P. (1981) Economic Crisis and Crisis Theory, ch. 2 ‘Marx’s crisis theory’ [sd]

Excursus: Marx and the financial crisis of 2008:

McNally, D. (2009) ‘From financial crisis to world-slump: accumulation, financialisation, and the global slowdown’, Historical Materialism 17(2) [el]

Choonara, J. (2009) ‘Marxist accounts of the current crisis’, International Socialism 123

On immiseration (the ‘iron law of wages’) and the industrial reserve army:

Marx [1867] Capital Volume 1, ch. 6 (pp. 274-5 only, beginning ‘The value of labour power is determined), ch. 22 ‘National differences in wages’

Baumol, W.J. (1983) ‘Marx and the iron law of wages’, American Economic Review 73(2) [el]

On the proletariat and its motivations:

Marx and Engels [Sep-Nov 1844] The Holy Family, chapter 4 section 4 ‘Proudhon’ (excerpt) [sp 10]

Lukacs, G. [1923] ‘Class consciousness’, in his History and Class Consciousness

Avineri, S. (1968) The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx, ch. 2 ‘The proletariat: the universal class’ [12]

Przeworski, A. (1980) ‘Material interests, class compromise, and the transition to socialism’, Politics and Society 10(2) [el], reprinted in J. Roemer (ed.) Analytical Marxism (a rational choice approach)

McCarney, J. (1990) Social Theory and the Crisis of Marxism, chs. 9-10

On the capitalist state, the post-revolutionary state, and democracy:

Marx [1852] The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, ch. 7 (on the idea of the capitalist state becoming increasingly autonomous of society)

Marx [1874-75] Conspectus of Bakunin’s Statism and Anarchy [sp 25]

Lenin, V.I. [1917] The State and Revolution, in editions of Lenin’s Selected Works, chs. 1, 4-5

Miliband, R. (1965) ‘Marx and the state’, Socialist Register 2, reprinted in T. Bottomore (ed.) Karl Marx 1973

Draper, H. (1970) ‘The death of the state in Marx and Engels’, The Socialist Register 7

Seminar/essay questions:

1. Is the tendency to capitalist crisis contingent or necessary according to Marx?

2. Why should the proletariat be motivated to bring about socialism?

3. Is the idea of a ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ compatible with that of democracy?

4. Why does Marx think that after a socialist revolution the state will ‘wither away’?

9. Justice, freedom and the philosophical necessity of communism

This week we will look Marx’s philosophical account of why communism must replace capitalism. We will begin with by examining his views of how individuals’ moral outlooks and even self-conceptions are formed by capitalism. In the light of this we will look at the question of whether Marx condemns capitalism on moral grounds, on the grounds of its inadequate realisation of modernity, or on some other grounds. Finally we will look at his descriptions of communism in his later writings and at passages in which he suggests a logical connection between capitalism and communism.

# Marx [1857-58] Grundrisse, pp. 156-65, 171-2, 239-47, 324-5, 408-10, 459-63, 487-8, 515, 539-42, 610-14, 831-2 [sp 18 excerpts 2- 6, 9-13, 15, 17]

# Marx [1861-3] Passage on the realm of freedom, Capital volume 3, ch. 48 [sp 22]

# Marx [1875] Critique of the Gotha Programme, parts 1 and 4 [sp 27]

Supplementary texts (on morality and freedom):

Marx and Engels [1844] The Holy Family, ch. 6.3b ‘The Jewish Question No. 3’

Marx and Engels [1845-46] The German Ideology, ch. 1 (see passages on morality), ch. 3 excerpts from ch. 3 on morality and humanity [sp 11 excerpts 1-3, 5]

The capitalist formation of human beings:

Marx and Engels, [1845-46] The German Ideology, in Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 5, pp. 213, 245-256, 439

Marx [1857-58] Grundrisse, pp. 297, 471-497, 717-718

Althusser, L. [1970] ‘Ideology and the ideological state apparatuses’, in Lenin and Philosophy, and Other Essays, the section ‘Ideology interpellates individuals as subjects’

Sayer, D. (1991) Capitalism and Modernity: An Excursus on Marx and Weber, ch. 2 ‘Power and the subject’ [sd]

Rikowski, G. (2003) ‘Marx and the future of the human’, Historical Materialism 11(2) [el]

On Marx, morality and justice:

Wood, A.W. (1972) ‘The Marxian critique of justice’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 1(3) [el]

Lukes, S. (1984) Marxism and Morality, chs. 1-4 [7]

Geras, N. (1985) ‘The controversy about Marx and justice’, New Left Review 150 [el]

On Marx, modernism and human self-determination:

Berman, M. (1983) All that is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity, ch. 2 ‘Marx, modernism and modernization’ [8]

Pippin, R. (1991) Modernism as a Philosophical Problem, 2nd ed. 1999, pp. 1-15 and 46-61 (on human self-determination as the central idea in modernist thought) [sd]

+ Kamenka, E. (1969) Marxism and Ethics, ch. 2 ‘The ethical impulse in the work of Karl Marx’ [2]

* McIvor, M. (2009) ‘Marx’s philosophical modernism: post-Kantian foundations of historical materialism’, in A. Chitty and M. McIvor (eds) Karl Marx and Contemporary Philosophy [sd]

On Capital as a non-moral critique of capitalism:

Marx, K. [Sep 1843] ‘Letters from the Franco-German Yearbooks’, in EW, the 3rd letter

* McCarney, J. (1990) Social Theory and the Crisis of Marxism, chs. 6-8

Chitty, A. (1997) ‘The direction of contemporary capitalism and the practical relevance of theory’, Review of International Political Economy 4(3)

See also Marx’s statement in his letter to Lassalle of 22 February 1858: ‘The work I am presently concerned with is a Critique of Economic Categories or, if you like, a critical exposé of the system of the bourgeois economy. It is at once an exposé and, by the same token, a critique of the system.’

On communism and unalienated labour in Marx’s later writings (for this topic in his early writings see week 4):

Cohen, G.A. (1978) Karl Marx’s Theory of History, pp. 129-33, ‘Communism as the liberation of the content’ [4]

* Maidan, M. (1989) ‘Alienated labour and free activity in Marx’s thought’, Political Science 41(1)

Zilbersheid, U. (2004) ‘The vicissitudes of the idea of the abolition of labour in Marx’s teachings - can the idea be revived?’, Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory 35 (or: vol. 32 no. 1) [el]

On the logical relation of capitalism to communism:

Cohen, G.A. (1974) ‘Marx’s dialectic of labour’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 3 [el]

* Gould, C.C. (1978) Marx’s Social Ontology: Individuality and Community in Marx’s Theory of Social Reality, ch. 1 ‘The ontology of society’ [sd]

* Berki, R.N. (1983) Insight and Vision: The Problem of Communism in Marx’s Thought, ch. 4 ‘Fusion’ [sd]

Smith, T. (1990) The Logic of Marx’s Capital: Replies to Hegelian Criticisms, chapter 1, section C

Chitty, A. (2009) ‘Capitalism and communism in the Notes on James Mill’ [sd]

1. Does Marx condemn capitalism as unjust?

2. Is Marx’s fundamental value freedom?

3. Could Capital provide a critique of capitalism that does not appeal to any absolute moral values?

4. Why does Marx think that communism is better than capitalism?

5. Does Marx think that capitalism suffers from a fundamental contradiction that logically drives it towards its supersession by communism?

10. Two critics: Simone Weil and Alasdair MacIntyre

This week we will stand back from Marx’s work to look at look at two influential critics of it, both of whom were at one time involved with radical socialist political movements, and both of whom wrote in the light of the emergence from the Russian Revolution of a society and state that had very little in common with Marx’s original vision of communism. Weil’s critique of Marxism is many-sided but a central point in it is that it fails to identify the real sources of the oppression of workers. MacIntyre’s critique of Marx is part of his critique of the modern world as a whole, a world he argues in his After Virtue is characterised at root by a ‘liberalism’ which has led to the abandonment of any belief in objective moral truths and to the emotivist view that every moral assertion is simply the expression of the subjective feelings of the speaker. Marxism, he argues, has failed to get beyond this nihilistic moral standpoint.

# Weil, S. [1834] ‘Reflections concerning the causes of liberty and social oppression’ (sections 1-3 only), in her Oppression and Liberty [sp 27]

# MacIntyre, A. [1994] ‘The Theses on Feuerbach: a road not taken’, reprinted in K. Knight (ed.) The MacIntyre Reader 1998 [sp 28]

Simone Weil’s critique of Marx:

Weil, S. [1933] ‘Prospects: are we headed for the proletarian revolution?’ in Oppression and Liberty

Weil, S. [1933-38] ‘On the contradictions of Marxism’, in Oppression and Liberty [sd]

Weil, S. [1943] ‘Is there a Marxist doctrine?’, in Oppression and Liberty

Rosen, F. (1979) ‘Marxism, mysticism, and liberty: the influence of Simone Weil on Albert Camus’, Political Theory 7(3) [el]

* Blum, L.A. and Seidler, V.J. (1989) A Truer Liberty: Simone Weil and Marxism, especially chapter 2 [sd] and chapter 3

McLellan, D. (1989) Simone Weil: Utopian Pessimist, reissued as Utopian Pessimist: The Life and Thought of Simone Weil 1990

Grey, C. (2007) ‘Towards a critique of managerialism: the contribution of Simone Weil’, Journal of Management Studies 33(5) [el]

Alasdair MacIntyre’s critique of Marx:

MacIntyre, A. [1958-9] ‘Notes from the moral wilderness’, New Reasoner 7 and 8, reprinted in K. Knight (ed.) The MacIntyre Reader 1998, also available online: part 1 and part 2 (written when MacIntyre was still a Marxist)

* MacIntyre, A. (1981) After Virtue, 2nd ed. 1984, pp. ix-x (on the ‘moral impoverishment’ of Marxism), 1-13 (on emotivism as the characteristic moral outlook of modernity), 186-196 (on the ideas of a ‘practice’ and an ‘internal good’), 256-63 (on Aristotle vs. Marx) [sd]

+ MacIntyre, A. (1992) The ethical project of Alasdair MacIntyre: “a disquieting suggestion”‘, Lyceum 4(1) (an introduction to MacIntyre’s critique of modernity)

MacIntyre, A. (1995) ‘Introduction’ to second edition of Marxism and Christianity [sd], reprinted as ‘Three perspectives on Marxism: 1953, 1968, 1995’, in his Ethics and Politics: Selected Essays Volume 2, 2006

Knight, K. (1996) ‘Revolutionary Aristotelianism’ in I. Hampsher-Monk and J. Stanyer (eds.) Contemporary Political Studies 1996, Vol. II, pp. 885-896 [sd]

MacIntyre, A. [1997] ‘Politics, philosophy and the common good’, in K. Knight (ed.) The MacIntyre Reader 1998 [sd]

1. Is Simone Weil’s central critique of Marxism in the ‘Reflections’ a fair critique of Marx himself?

2. How is Alasdair MacIntyre suggesting that Marx should have developed the ideas of the ‘Theses on Feuerbach’ in ‘The Theses on Feuerbach: a road not taken’?

Andrew Chitty

7 October 2009

With subsequent minor corrections (in red)

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