The Self-Thinking Idea Does Not Mean You Thinking: A contribution to our ongoing effort to work out, in theory and practice, how to renew Marxist-Humanism organizationally

A new statement by the Marxist-Humanist Initiative, followed here by two writings by Raya Dunayevskaya from her last period of work on the relationship between philosophy and organization.  Read the rest of this entry »

On “New Passions and New Forces”: Marxist-Humanism’s Break from Both Spontaneism and Vanguardism

In a April 18, 1976 piece, “Our Original Contribution to the Dialectic of the Absolute Idea as New Beginning:  In Theory, and Leadership, and Practice,” Dunayevskaya stated,

[A]t the height of Capital, we see [Marx] breaking up the Absolute Idea by speaking about the general absolute law of capitalist accumulation.  But its opposite was always taken to be only the unemployed army – and not the absolutely, totally opposite which we take it to be now.  Marx only mentioned it as ‘the new passions and new forces for the reconstruction of society.’  The negation of the negation at that point certainly wasn’t spelled out. Read the rest of this entry »

Marx’s Marxism or Undifferentiated Totality? A further reply to Chris Cutrone

“[T]he existing society isn’t just capital.” — Andrew Kliman, June 3, 2009

“The present society is capital.” — Chris Cutrone, June 4, 2009

In a comment on Josh Skolnik’s recent essay on this site,  Critical Thoughts on Critical Theory: A Reexamination of the Holistic Critique of “Economism” (an essay which I think is extremely perceptive and profound), Chris Cutrone wrote,

I hope that Josh (following Andrew Kliman) doesn’t mean to say that we need a more adequate economic analysis to “figure out” the economic problems of capitalism before trying to “fix” them by proposing an alternative economic model!

But how does the view that Chris is trying to mock differ from what Marx did in the Critique of the Gotha Program (and elsewhere)? Read the rest of this entry »

Reply to Chicago Political Workshop, Chris Cutrone, and Principia Dialectica

On plagiarism, Postone, and “the” present

May 27, 2009

Dear Comrades,

1. First, I want to respond to the charge that I plagiarize Moishe Postone, by categorically denying it. Read the rest of this entry »

The concreteness of Marxist-Humanism

The author examines Dunayevskaya’s method of concretizing Marx and suggests that Hegel and Marx together spell out the material, conceptual ground for developing an alternative to capitalism today.
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