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Due to the erratic switching phenomenon of the Si avalanche bipolar junction transistor (ABJT) in the Marx bank circuit (MBC), an explanation of the leakage current trigger mode in the overvoltage state with a lack of displacement current is proposed. There are random switching properties (i.e., switching or non-switching) in the ABJT with emitter–base shorted, triggered by a voltage ramp to the overvoltage state temporarily with dV/dt rate close to 0 V/ns. The experimental conditions and characteristics of erratic behaviors are summarized. The optical visualization of the current channel in an erratic switching state is obtained, and the corresponding physical model of the leakage current trigger mode is established. It shows that the switching event occurs with the change in the position of the conductive channel. The process of emitter electron injection is caused by the leakage current in the overvoltage state instead of the displacement current. Meanwhile, the intensity of this trigger mode is weak, and the instability of the leakage current may cause the failure of switching. The study of erratic switching is of great significance for the working reliability of MBCs and failure analysis of ABJTs. The proposed explanation is validated by the agreement between the simulation results and the experimental observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Appendix to his dissertation, with respect to Kant, Marx provided an in-depth analysis of the ontological proof of the existence of God. Here, we explore this analysis in detail. Firstly, we argue that "faith" (Glaube) is the foundation of Marx's interpretation of the ontological proof of God and its difference from that of Kant. On one hand, Marx's understanding of the ontological argument can be called the "Realization of Belief" (RB). The object of faith is, for the believer, endowed with some kind of real power; that is to say, the object is real for the believer who has faith in it. This line of argument differs from the Kantian Hypostatization of Idea (HI), which attempts to prove the transcendental God as an a priori concept that implies itself as an empirical being or a posteriori phenomenon. On the other hand, "faith" was also the foundation upon which Marx based his interpretation of Kant. Subsequently, in the context of Marx's dissertation, we clarify the connotations of "reality", "belief", and "faith". "Reality" refers to objects exerting a real force that works on those with faith in their imagination while not necessarily entailing that the imagined object of belief is an empirical one. "Belief" refers either to an opinion (doxa) based on "faith" or to an idea without necessity in the sense of David Hume's philosophy. As for "faith", Marx uses this term in the Protestant sense, meaning obedience to the object one believes in, where obedience refers to the absence of self-righteousness. In a state of "faith", the faithful one possesses "the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen" (Heb. 11:1). Finally, on the basis of these two considerations, we reflect on the existing academic interpretations of the theme of this article and highlight some differences between these interpretations and the present article. We show that existing interpretations of Marx's summary either conflate the two theories of the HI and RB or miss the importance of "faith" in Marx's arguments. We conclude that Marx, at the time of his dissertation, interpreted the ontological argument by way of the RB, which was based on the concept of "faith", and that his critical understanding of Kant's refutation of the ontological proof was founded on the same interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To say that the humanities – "the core of the university" (J.M. Coetzee) – are coming to an end is to invite a counterclaim: the humanities will continue to survive, outlasting the predictions of their demise. Either way, ends can turn into immobilising ideals: as we look to the future, the time for collective action passes us by. So this essay starts from the premise that the humanities' time is up. Turning to a range of thinkers, including G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Theodor W. Adorno, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Wendy Brown, it looks for a critical orientation toward an ongoing crisis, and for a way to exit the troubling interregnum in which humanists now find themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1868, Marx investigated the effect of turnover on profit rate in two large manuscripts, which were published in MEGA in 2012. The present study is the first attempt to analytically explore these manuscripts. As Chapter 4 of Capital Volume III titled "The effect of turnover on the rate of profit" was written by Engels, and not by Marx, those manuscripts shed the first light on Marx's own thoughts that remained unknown so far. We show that Marx's exposition differs completely from that of Engels. Furthermore, we try to consistently reconstruct Marx's findings in a general framework of input-output analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term 'breakthrough generation' was coined by the German philosopher Hugo Fischer (1897–1975) in 1930, at the very beginning of the Great Depression. This structural notion represents a timeless, emancipation oriented ideal that effectively integrates the relevant positive qualities and abilities of modern and critically thinking man, which he has potentially picked up in the course of his historical development towards a higher humanity as a European and realist, and which he actually possesses as qualities and norms. This complex ethos is intended to form the initial basis on which the modern idea of a European federation is consciously realised. The purpose of this paper is not only to creatively point to these concrete and supporting motivational starting points and qualitative-historical assumptions of the modern European and to place them in a functional framework of intelligibility, but also to recall the important historical-philosophical fact that Fischer's specifically grasped and developed idea of the formation of post-war Europe is very closely linked to the thinking of T. G. Masaryk, whom Fischer admired and respected as a philosopher and statesman and whose democratizing idea of a 'new' Central European space fundamentally inspired him in many ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical experience shows that politics, despite all its shortcomings, is the best tool created by people to organize the common life of large groups of the population and manage them. Therefore, the desire of thinkers of all times and peoples to obtain knowledge about politics is understandable, which, in its rigor, clarity, and accuracy of forecast, would be comparable to scientific knowledge. The present review analyzes the works of the Russian social scientist Viktor P. Makarenko, who researched the triad "politics–authority–bureaucracy" for fifty years. The result was the creation of a political conceptology, which the author positions as a transdisciplinary approach to the study of politics. Analytical philosophy became the theoretical and methodological platform of political conceptology. The monographs, articles, and speeches of Makarenko reflect the process of establishing the author's position, expanding the scope of problems, identifying additional points of contact between bureaucracy and politics, as well as improving the methodology of political analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most scholars interpret Marx's prices of production as those which achieve simple reproduction assuming profit rates are equal and all capitals turn over completely each year. The dynamics of equalization, as circulation intertwines with production over the business cycle, is absent. The traditional 'Marxist' equation for the profit rate likewise considers only simple reproduction. This leaves a gap in our understanding of Marx, particularly regarding the impact of turnover time on the profit rate, one of Ricardo's original problems which Marx claimed to solve. Starting from a critique of Veronese Passarella's and Baron's attempt to extend the traditional equation to expanded reproduction, I develop a more general equation showing how changes in turnover times, rate of surplus value and accumulation affect the equalization process, the formation of the general profit rate and hence of prices of production. Finally, considering Moseley's introduction to the recently published translation of a 27-page excerpt from Marx's Economic Manuscript of 1867–1868, I suggest an equation for decomposing the profit adjustment during equalization. JEL Classification: B24, B51, E11. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The abstracts from the December 2024 issue of the Review of Radical Political Economics cover various topics related to Marxist theory and economic analysis. The articles explore themes such as colonization, servitude, globalization, monetary supply fluctuations, fiscal crises in capitalist countries, and the dynamics of labor exploitation. The issue also includes discussions on the nature of vulnerability in labor exploitation, cost dynamics in fragmented industries, and the centrality of labor in Marx's philosophy. Additionally, there are book reviews and announcements in Chinese and Spanish. [Extracted from the article]

Marx's concepts of commodity and money fetishism explain the perception that money and commodities have "value," presumably as part of their intrinsic properties. In fact, the exchange value of commodities and money results from living labor and the extraction of surplus value. With a historic review of the institutions for production, circulation, and credit, this appearance of capitalism can be explained. Further, the view that money is valuable in itself can lead to overexpansion of credit, stagnation, and instability. The attribution of "value" to living labor and the environment instead of money would result in different policies and priorities, and a more stable and equitable economy, rather than "financialization" and crises. JEL Classification : N23, G15, G23, B52 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In chapter 15 of volume 2 of Capital, Marx introduced the concept of set-free money capital during the turnover process of industrial capital, positing its role in the credit system. Saros further formalized this process, suggesting that set-free money capital could serve as loanable funds, impacting the credit system. This article advances this research by making three significant contributions. Firstly, it offers a more succinct formalization of the turnover process, improving pedagogical clarity. Secondly, it reinterprets the significance of set-free money capital within the modern credit money system using post-Keynesian endogenous money theory, linking production directly to the money supply. Lastly, it demonstrates through simulations that production structure influences the periodic fluctuations of set-free money capital at the macro level, affecting the money supply. JEL Classification : B51, E32, E51 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concluding chapter of Karl Marx's Capital (volume 1) has received remarkably little scholarly commentary. This is especially surprising as Marx addresses there "the modern theory of colonization" developed by Edward Gibbon Wakefield. But rather than systematically pursue the issue of colonialism, Marx investigates Wakefield's theory in order to illuminate the processes of primitive accumulation (or "originary dispossession") that gave birth to capitalism in Europe. This article suggests directions in which Marx ought to have gone in order to analyze the globalization of capitalism outside of Europe by means of colonialism. In so doing, it proposes the need to recenter bondage, slavery, colonialism, and racism as constitutive elements of capitalism as a global system. JEL Classification: B51, N3, P1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief note concentrates solely on a section of the first part of The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy, specifically "Karl Marx on 'Production' Labour." I discuss several issues: Mazzucato's understanding of Marx's distinction between productive and unproductive labor (henceforth PUPL), her terminological vagueness and mistakes, and some inaccurate bibliographic and factual information. JEL Classification : B0, B5, P1 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explains the three dimensions of Marx's philosophy of work: work as production, work as subjectivation, and work as integration. From this, the article defends the following thesis: while Marx allows us to shed much light on exploitation (social pathology of work as production) and alienation (social pathology of work as subjectivation), in particular in capitalism, nonetheless, he lacks an understanding of the ins and outs of emancipation as it is effectively deployed in our wage societies, far from the radicalism of his communist utopia. JEL Classification: B14, B40, B52 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In what sense did Marx think that capitalism was 'immoral' or 'unjust'? There are four responses: for Marx, 1) capitalism is morally deficient according to some external criterion; 2) capitalism is just, at least on its own terms; 3) capitalism is both just and unjust because the terms capitalism uses to defend itself as just simultaneously reveal its injustice; 4) capitalism is neither just nor unjust, for justice is an inadequate evaluative standpoint that should be overcome. Marx's thinking cannot be fully captured by any one of these positions; he instead held all of them without contradiction. The crucial interpretive question is how they relate to each other. This article argues that while accepting that capitalism could be criticized externally, justified internally, and undermined by its self-justifications, Marx ultimately emphasized transcending the 'act-based' conception of morality and replacing the immanently contradictory capitalism with an alternative, ideal mode of human life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The massive development of technology, the use of data, and information systems have brought the popularity of crypto assets--also known as cryptocurrency--as part of the digital economy in the globalized political economy order. This study aims to capture structuralist criticisms by Karl Marx of crypto assets as a global political economy project and see its massive entanglement in the current global political order. Using the concepts of base and superstructure, this study will dismantle the discourse on the mode of production of commodities that have been questioned based on their digital and intangible commodity. It reveals the reproduction of the surplus labor process as a part of an initial understanding of how the crypto assets work from the social relations network's perspective. In further analysis, this study uses Dependency Theory to view crypto assets as a global system phenomenon that cannot escape the role of multi-sectors that perpetuate the presence of global structuralism in the current global economy. The research utilizes Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) to investigate the intertwining relationships between crypto assets and world dependency in the international political economy order. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Trans/Form/Ação is the property of Trans/Form/Acao and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article systematically presents Marx's ideas about political economy and historical materialism in the "Introduction" to the Grundrisse. Two questions are posed and addressed. The first one is: what implications does the "Introduction" have for the contemporary Marxist discussions on economic crisis, and on primitive accumulation? Underlying these two topics is the question of the importance of production relative to distribution, exchange and consumption. Marx sometimes appears to be ambivalent in his treatment of this question, and this partly explains why some Marxists can suggest that the production of commodities under capitalism is not the main aspect of late capitalism, and find the main reason for economic crisis outside of production. Read carefully, however, the "Introduction" does provide enough ground to critique these views. The second question addressed is: what implications might Marx's discussion on political economy and historical materialism, including the relation between culture and economic development, have for the fight for socialism? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the philosophies of Louis Althusser and István Mészáros, this article seeks to interpret Marx's theory of the transformation of value into price based on a philosophical view that emphasizes both the base/superstructure dialectic (Althusser) and alienation under capitalism (Mészáros). According to the logic of dialectical materialism, the economic base of the capitalist mode of production is determined by a historical dialectic (alienated labor) that produces an unsolvable contradiction with the capitalist imperatives of the superstructure. The alienation of the workers is perpetuated through their active subordination to the ideal and material power of the capitalist superstructure (including its ideal "law of value" which postulates the domination of exchange value over use value). They are led to believe that the profit-embedded prices of the commodities they produce have nothing to do with them. The illusion is that these prices are decided by an abstract "free market." In reality, the laborers, due to their alienation, contribute directly to the formation of these prices by allowing the capitalists to freely compete with each other by lowering their respective "price of production." There can be no profitable prices under capitalism without the contradictory condition of alienation perpetuated by the ideal power of the superstructure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Capital (3 vols, 1867–1894), Karl Marx personified Capital in gothic terms through a series of disordered ages whose shifting appearances defy natural ageing processes. He imaginatively represented capitalist derangements of age and ageing, portraying Capital as a perpetual newborn, strange god, machinic monster and undead vampire, whose inner drive to immortality violently disjoints, shortens and sacrifices human life. This article examines Marx's portrayal of Capital's Bildung as daily and eternally youthful, god-like, monstrous and verrückt (crazy and deranged). It argues that Capital's incessant rejuvenescence and its ossification and obliteration of life are inseparable processes, dialectically united, of its living-dead ageing. The article conceptualises the gerontological unconscious of capitalist society and demonstrates how Gothic Marxism can unfold the class struggles inhering in motifs of ageing and non-ageing shared by Capital and the Gothic. These include monstrous birth and rejuvenation, torturously foreshortened life, premature senescence, and vampiric longevity and immortality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existing critical literature has pinpointed how the concept of 'terrorism' has successfully been shaped as a powerful imperialist tool, especially since 9/11. This article adopts an Althusserian approach to examine how the imperialist concept of terrorism functions socially through a process of interpellation that leads privileged individuals to perceive themselves as 'potential victims' but ultimately positions them as consumers of warfare. This interpellation reinforces an idealist narrative that frames history as a relentless struggle of man against man, rather than as a social story shaped by historical relations of production. From an Althusserian perspective, human beings are social beings within a mode of production geared towards the profit of an imperialist elite. Furthermore, since the onset of capitalism's structural crisis in the 1970s, militarism and war-in-itself have become fundamental to the accumulation of monopoly-financial capital by the imperialist elite. In this context, terrorism is ideologically deployed to construct a division between the West and 'others,' justifying endless warfare while diverting attention from the underlying class contradictions of imperialism. The perpetual 'war on terror' has become a spectacle, obscuring individuals' class positions and the reality of global militarization in everyday life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper advances a reading of the social metabolism as a dynamic orchestration of heterogeneous rhythms, encompassing those intrinsic to human bodies and other natural processes, and those of relations mediating both. Contrary to pre‐capitalist societies, as the collective mediation of the social metabolism adopts a capitalist form, it becomes autonomised from its conditions of existence, and a "temporal rift" emerges, with two distinct dimensions: the rhythmic conditions of regeneration of human bodies and natural processes, as well as the terms of occurrence of non‐subsumed practices, become subordinated to capital's reproductive needs, thus compromising the reproduction of all Earthly life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to bring out the similarities and differences between Arendt's and Marx's conceptions of history and to state the position of Arendt as to whether she is a Marxist or non-Marxist. In the words of Philip Hansen “Arendt sees Marx as the last great thinker in the western traditional political thought.” Also, Young-Bruehl talking about the relationship between Arendt and Marx writes: “Towering over the work of Arendt is the figure of Karl Max” Young-Bruehl, 278). From the foregoing one might be tempted to conclude that Arendt was a Marxist. But, can this be true? In attempt to answer this question birthed this paper. The work uses the proper method of philosophical analysis which includes; the use of the method of exposition, the analysis of terms and concepts where necessary and general evaluation of arguments. The paper uncovered that though, Marx's and Arendt's conceptions of history shares a lot of common grounds in relation to methodology and focus but concluded that Arendt had a conservative conception of history while Marx believes in the dynamics of inevitable change in historical development of the society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Investigación Económica is the property of Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Facultad de Economia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Drawing on Karl Marx's ecological concepts of the "metabolic rift" and the "emancipation of senses", this paper explores an alternative ecocinema that integrates the ecological with the social and the economic. Early Hollywood films, such as Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) and The Good Earth (1937), represent the metabolic rift in human relationships as a byproduct of the metabolic rift with nature created in the process of urbanization; hence, they can be regarded as precursors to an alternative ecocinema, which I refer to as "metabolic cinema". The Story of the Golden Bell (Jinling Zhuan), a comedy film produced during the Chinese Great Leap Forward in 1958, offers an intriguing case for socialist metabolic cinema as a multisensory medianature that participates in and facilitates the metabolic process between humans and nature, as well as the social metabolism among humans, despite the period's notorious ecological record. The film not only consciously moves away from the visual-centric model associated with capitalist consumerism by using the aural to rectify the once-aberrant visual but also demonstrates how romantic love, as one of the human senses, must be emancipated along with other senses through denouncing utilitarianism and commercialism and, subsequently, returning to need-based labor as the universal condition for the metabolic interaction between humans and nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Trans/Form/Ação is the property of Trans/Form/Acao and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Engaging David Chidester's argument that takes up ideas from Marx and Benjamin, the article argues that the academic study of religion can make a contribution to understand the economy by conceptualising it as functioning like a religion. This is achieved by using theorised concepts of myth (sacred stories), rituals and institutions that serve not only to unite adherents, but also to establish, maintain or challenge power relations. The thesis is tentatively illustrated with reference to the Chinese economy that needs to be compared with other economic systems that function like a religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article systematically reconstructs the key elements of the articulation of Marx's new materialism by Karl Korsch, Weimar Germany's anti-Stalinist and anti-Social Democratic Marxist heretic. After a brief biographical presentation, and a sketch of the topography of philosophical positions prior and contemporary to him, I develop a thematic presentation of Korsch's reading of Marx's materialist dialectics, this-sidedness, the coincidence of consciousness and reality, the problem of application, his salvaging of the category of content, the materialist conception of history and his efforts to produce a theory of the material reproduction of ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are episodes in Marx's life that go unnoticed or that are considered insignificant in Marxian scholarship. A case in point is that Marx wrote a treatise on Christian art between 1841 and 1842 and a group of excerpts (the Bonn Notebooks) on the history of religious art that resulted from it. The treatise and the accompanying notebooks are either completely absent from Marx biographies and studies on young Marx or they are mentioned only in passing; if the notebooks are considered at all, one portion is usually singled out while the rest is effectively ignored. The present piece traces Marx's motives for occupying himself with religious art as well as his interests, shifting from Christian, Greek and Egyptian arts to fetishism and idolatry. This study intends to highlight that young Marx was more involved in questions concerning the political culture of aesthetics than we usually think. The Bonn Notebooks provide access to a more vivid image of Marx in this regard than previous scholarship has suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marx's critical theory of slavery is the operational subtext throughout his critique of political economy. For Marx, the movement from modern slavery to capital represents a historical transition of significance, not only (or foremost) as an empirical transition but also as a transformation of social substance. Marx reveals why, in retrospect, production based on slavery, as logical configuration, must give way to the generalising logic of wage labour. Marx's critical theory of slavery historicises wage labour (qua category) as the dissolution and inversion of enslaved labour (qua category). Plantation slavery production in the colonised territories initiates a qualitative development that constitutes the historical condition for the emergence of a mode of sociality that we can call 'value'. Marx's theoretical account of modern slavery is a lever in his broader critique of capital and is fundamentally distinct from empirical, historical accounts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Other times require other concepts" discusses the relevance of Critical Theory, with a focus on the interview between Jochen Baumann and Moishe Postone. Postone discusses the relationship between traditional Marxism and Critical Theory, highlighting the evolution of critical thinking since the 1930s. The discussion extends to the analysis of Adorno, Horkheimer, and Habermas, emphasizing the importance of social criticism and opposition in a context of social and economic changes. The interview also addresses the reception of Critical Theory in the USA compared to Germany, highlighting the relevance of critical thinkers such as Marx, Foucault, and Derrida. [Extracted from the article]

This article takes Georg Büchner's pamphlet "The Hessian Messenger" written in 1834 in collaboration with the theologian and revolutionist Friedrich Weidig as a starting point to explore the literary forms of peasant agitation and mobilization in the context of the German Vormärz (c. 1830–1848). Against the background of the conceptualization of the peasant as a genuinely conservative and anti-revolutionary force in the theory of the mid-19th century elaborated by such different thinkers like Karl Marx and Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl this article focuses on the possibilities that writers of the radical and progressive opposition like Büchner opened for the integration of peasants into the (liberal) revolutionary project. What is the function of literature in negotiating the political agency of the peasant and what literary forms aesthetics and strategies does it generate to portray and influence the peasant's perspective on the political conflicts of its time? In a close textual analysis I explore how by implementing specific rhetorical means (statistics agrarian references biblical narratives) the text first places the peasant world and the interests and problems of the rural population at the center of its argumentation. Second I show how the pamphlet connects the disclosure of the peasants' social and economic grievances inevitably with a discussion of the constitution and the institution of the state. The abstract liberal question of human rights is thus derived directly from power relations and economic exploitation in the countryside. By referring to those seemingly traditional 'characteristics' of the peasant which until then and later influenced the dominant image of the peasant as conservative that Büchner and Weidig were able to constitute the peasant as a political powerful collective and revolutionary disruptive force. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the theory of exploitation which Marx sets out in Capital. It argues that Marx assumes that there are five modes of extraction of surplus value. These are associated with the following principles: (1) extended duration of the working day; (2) enhanced productivity (due to the introduction of new technology); (3) efficient organization of the process of production; (4) increased intensity of labour and (5) depressed consumption of the labourer. The article argues that Marx's theory of exploitation is not as systematic as it could have been. For this reason it is ripe for a theoretical reconstruction. The article also discusses the views of recent commentators who have developed the idea of 'super-exploitation', which is taken from Marx's writings. There is a tendency in this literature to associate this notion with the principle of depressed consumption and to argue that it is especially relevant for understanding of what is happening in the societies of the Global South. Those concerned identify this as a third mode of extracting surplus value, in addition to the principle of extended duration (absolute surplus value) and enhanced productivity (relative surplus value). The article argues that this procedure overlooks certain aspects of Marx's theory of exploitation, especially those having to do with the efficient organization or rational administration of labour within the process of production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on a case study of taxi platforms in Oslo, Norway comprised of interviews with drivers and an ethnographic fieldwork working a driver, this article explores the platformization of the Norwegian taxi industry and the drivers' working conditions through Marx's concept of subsumption. In Norway, taxi platforms emerged in an already formally subsumed industry. The platforms have developed a new market segment, and also introduced an additional element in the subsumption of labor, whereby the platforms exert control over the market relations (by determining number of rides, earnings, and potential exclusions) through digital technology. While the platforms' 'algorithmic management' is often described as a technology that might reorganize the world of work, the analysis finds that this form of control does not radically transform the drivers' labor processes and cannot be seen as an example of what Marx termed real subsumption. However, the platformization of the industry, wherein the platforms appropriate the social and technological conditions of production, might result in a reorganization and transformation corresponding to a real subsumption in the future. The article concludes that exploring platform work through Marx's notion of subsumption highlights, on one hand, the relation between platforms and workers as characterized by subordination and domination and, on the other, that a detailed and critical assessment of the actual consequences of platform-based control is necessary to capture the contextual dynamics of platformization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Postage stamps are sites of nationalist imagery, produced continuously by the US government since 1847. Over time, a limited group of people deemed worthy of representing the nation on stamps—white male politicians and military heroes—was diversified to include different kinds of persons: women, Native Americans, African Americans, and people in the arts, sciences, athletics, and entertainment. This paper focuses on a singular exception to this iconographic diversification: workers, people who labor. Stamps that seem to be about labor (those devoted to such topics as labor leaders, collective bargaining, and employment for the disabled) are, we claim, about something other than "labor as such." Drawing on Marx's Grundrisse , we argue that in capitalist societies, waged labor and pauperism are indissolubly linked because laborers have no control over the reliability of their employment. Laborers are "humanity ground zero," people deemed (in capitalist common sense) to have accomplished nothing beyond working for a wage and who therefore cannot be represented in postal iconography as builders of the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Money is the epitome of Marx's fetishised commodity. And, in Marxist discussions of the connected topics of currency and commodity fetishism, it often is left under-appreciated that such fetishism reaches its apotheosis only with the development of 'interest-bearing capital.' Herein, I perform two complementary gestures, one as regards Marxism and another with respect to psychoanalysis. Apropos Marxism, I counter-balance the usual, long-standing (over)emphasis on commodity fetishism as per the first volume of Das Kapital with a foregrounding of this fetishism as per the third volume. Apropos psychoanalysis, I shift away from its traditional fixation on reducing financial matters to libidinal contents. I explore instead the implications of the forms of capitalist fetishism for reconsidering the forms of intra-subjective defence mechanisms. This leads me to posit a complementary inversion of Lacan's dictum according to which 'repression is always the return of the repressed': The return of the repressed sometimes is the most effective repression. To pose a rhetorical question paraphrasing Brecht: What is the laundering of money compared with the laundering that is money? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the distinction between money-as-money dealing capital (MMDC) and money-as-capital dealing capital (MCDC), laying the foundations for new developments in the field of Marxian political economy. First, it explains why banks, which manage the circulation of money-as-money, are able to issue instruments that perform monetary functions, and also why non-bank financial intermediaries, which manage the circulation of money-as-capital, tend to become increasingly important as the capitalist mode of production evolves. The distinction between MMDC and MCDC also allows for a more thorough understanding of the nature of Marx's category of interest-bearing capital (IBC), explaining when and why a capital's net income takes the form of profit and interest, unveiling the mechanisms that produce the (socially valid) illusion that every capital bears interest. JEL Classification: B14, B26, E11, E43, E44 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is imperative to explore the contribution of the Indian state to the country's impressive long-term growth performance during the free-market era, given the looming demand deficiency problem arising from this iniquitous growth process. Drawing on Marx's idea of circuit of capital, this article investigates the various ways in which the state contributes to the process of accumulation and economic growth, especially in the context of India during the period of market-oriented reforms. Additionally, this study aims to trace the changing nature of interventions of the Indian state to ascertain the domain and extent of its withdrawal and continued presence. Furthermore, it investigates the interventions undertaken by the Indian state to sustain or cushion the growth momentum at times of economic downturn during the free-market era. JEL Classification : B51, E62, O11, P16 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explored the experiences of unemployed graduates at Vleifontein Village Elim in Makhado Local Municipality in Limpopo Province, South Africa. To achieve the mandate of the study, the researcher adopted a unique qualitative research approach, which gathered in-depth data from the participants. This approach, distinct in its focus on understanding the experiences of unemployed graduates, aided in the elevated understanding of the research problem. The study adopted an exploratory qualitative research design to gather or collect data from the participants, and the researcher used semi-structured interviews consisting of open-ended questions administered face-to-face to observe gestures, emotions, feelings, or even how they react to the questions. Furthermore, purposive sampling was used to select the sample that formed part of the interviews. Additionally, the study adopted the Conflict theory by Karl Marx to integrate with the study. Therefore, the findings of the study deduced that most of the participants understood the meaning of unemployment as their current socio-economic state, both from a financial and psychological perspective. Moreover, on the issue of the challenges, the findings deduced that they are not experienced and skilled enough for the jobs they are applying for. In that light, the study emphasizes the need for increased employment opportunities to minimize the negative impacts faced by unemployed graduates, which includes specialized training of graduates to render services that would make it easier for the graduates to find employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The term 'counter-power' is widely used in political debates and social struggles. Scientifically, however, there is no clear distinction between powers and counter-powers. In the academic debate, largely based on methodological individualism, power is mostly conceived as an interpersonal relation, and counter-powers have no specific role, unless as opposing powers. In this paper, I develop an ontology of capitalist power, based on Marx's critique of capital, and I clarify the role of counter-powers in this ontology. With these lenses, I reconsider critically the debate on power in economics and I discuss the limits of the individualist approach, from neoclassical ultra-liberalism to radical political economics. Finally, I discuss the implications of my ontological enquiry into counter-powers as far as theoretical research and political struggle are concerned. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores German philosopher Karl Marx's views on morality, arguing that while he criticized moralism, he still engaged with ethical concerns through his emphasis on human flourishing. Topics discussed include the distinction between moralism and morality, Marx's conception of non-moral goods like freedom and dignity, and his critique of equality as a bourgeois value.

In order to deeply understand Marx's commodity fetishism theory and the phenomenon of fetishism in today's society, grasp the law of social development, and guide people to establish a correct view of consumption, the author studies Marx's commodity fetishism theory and its development forms, reveals the social relations and human alienation hidden behind material worship. To deeply understand the harm of fetishism has far reaching practical guiding effect on promoting China's economic system reform and building a modern socialist country in an all-round way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary right-wing populism mixes comic performance with authoritarian and reactionary sentiments in troubling ways, as much recent work has observed. We might thus be said to be living in an era of 'tragic farce' in which Marx's famous distinction between genres of historical action has collapsed. To engage with these questions, this article focuses on the clown as a figure in which aesthetics and politics intersect in crucial ways. Through readings of Adorno, Deleuze, Agamben and Žižek, I show how the clown has been an enduring concern for theory. I also analyze Todd Phillips' 2019 film Joker, including the furor that greeted its release, in order to argue for a mode of aesthetic populism in which the category of 'people' remains a virtual or potential category that can drive artistic practice. To describe this, I draw on what Deleuze, in his philosophy of cinema, termed fabulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foucault's corpus is animated by an ethical or political impulse: to liberate individuals from a kind of oppression, one which does not involve the familiar tyranny of the totalitarian state but exploits instead values that the victim of oppression herself accepts, and which then leads the oppressed agent to be complicit in her own subjugation. Foucault's critique also depends on a skeptical thesis about the epistemological authority of the social sciences that is supposed to be supported by his genealogies of those sciences. It is this conjunction of claims – that individuals oppress themselves in virtue of certain normative claims they accept because of their supposed epistemic merits – that marks Foucault's uniquely disturbing contribution to the literature whose diagnostic aim is, with Weber, to understand the oppressive character of modernity, and whose moral aim is, with the Frankfurt School, human liberation. Foucault is also a kind of 'realist' in his approach: he does not offer moral arguments to persuade people that they ought to behave differently than they do, but instead shows people the actual history of the institutions and norms to which they subjugate themselves. This essay explains Foucault's critical and realist project, and concludes with critical reflections on its plausibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most consequential distinction Habermas draws between Marx's and his own utopia of emancipation is that societal differentiation, in the former, is dissolved into the lifeworld, whereas in the latter it is preserved as an accomplishment of and necessary for the reproduction of modern complex societies. Despite Habermas's intention and arguments, his radical democratic utopia entails lifeworldization—in which the primacy of communicative reason is affirmed in all spheres of action as well as societal integration, which, however, can take a variety of modi operandi ranging from external influence to direct communicative coordination. This article makes a case for the lifeworldization thesis with the following arguments. First, contrary to Habermas's intention, "influence" and "countersteering," if successfully asserted, result in an ontological condition that amounts to lifeworldization. Second, Habermas's defense of differentiation and critique of dedifferentiation, which is predicated on his critique of society as a totality, is discredited by his own argument for the need of (re)integration of complexities of modern society and its necessary normative grounding. Third, the prescription of keeping the "internal logic" of steering media intact as constitutive of radical democracy is problematic both empirically and normatively. Fourth, for the functional coherence of radical democracy, "efficiency," conceived systems-theoretically, must be abandoned and, instead, be reconceived postmetaphysically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this essay is to do a "diffractive reading" of texts by Karl Marx and Michel Serres. A diffractive reading, as this term is used by thinkers like Karen Barad, aims at the appearance of something new from the confrontation of two texts that at first sight seem to have very little to do with each other. I do a close reading of the start of "The Chapter on Capital (Continuation)" (from Notebook 5 in the Grundrisse), where Marx speaks about nature, the land, and about how the common was lived by German tribes (he rejects the way the Romans speak of the Ager Publicus because of its already existing link to property). The German tribes on the contrary practice their community through a Vereinigung and not through a Verein which means that what binds them is temporary, caused by a need, and not institutionalized indefinitely. More important even, he speaks of the land as part of the commune, as part of us temporarily, and caused by a need. This "inorganic self," which is how he defines the land that feeds us, and thus belongs to us, is what gives rise to our being and is thus an inextricable part of who we are. Then, I turn to Serres, who, in his book The Five Senses also analyzes what gives form to us. Starting from the etymological analysis of the Homo sapiens, in which Homo refers to humus, the rich topsoil of the earth and sapiens to sapient, to "having a taste for something," Serres too speaks of the earth that feeds us. Their earthly analysis of what forces us to think then brings me to take another look at how we think about intelligence today, and how the alienation that both Marx and Serres are speaking of, seems to have installed itself in how we are imagining technology and food. I talk of how the American military designs meals for the American soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, knowing that "the sense of home" should be included in their ready-to-eat meals. I talk of the Museum for Forgotten Skills, an art project set up by Casco Art Institute, in Utrecht (the Netherlands), in which a new population was introduced to their land, to the idea of becoming part of the community again, taking part in its rituals, in understanding the land, the language and the history accompanying it. My conclusion, in line with Serres (and Marx) is not very uplifting though. Alienation, which in the end is all about how we have alienated ourselves from the land, from the earth, prevents us from living together, from becoming a community, and in the end, from living a life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Critique of Gotha Programme, Karl Marx famously argues that a communist society will be characterised by the principle, 'From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!' I take up a question about this principle that was originally posed by G.A. Cohen, namely: what makes communism (so conceived) possible for Marx? In reply to this question, Cohen interprets Marx as saying that communism is possible because of limitless abundance, a view that Cohen takes to be implausible for ecological reasons. I develop a new interpretation of Marx's position. On this interpretation, people in communist society achieve self-realisation through providing others with the goods and services required for their self-realisation. Coupled with a reasonably high (but not immense) development of productive power, self-realisation generates conditions in which people can produce according to their abilities and receive according to their needs. I defend this view as an interpretation of Marx and I argue that it represents a more plausible account of what makes communism possible than Cohen's interpretation in which technological advance and limitless abundance play the predominant role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the relationship between Gilles Deleuze's philosophical endeavours and Marxism, with a particular focus on his unfinished work, Grandeur de Marx. Despite the collapse of Soviet socialism, Deleuze acknowledged that his philosophical pursuits were profoundly intertwined with Marxist thought. His insistence on this connection was not a mere expression of regret or an apology for his political leanings. In the 1990s, as neoliberal globalisation spread beyond the United States and Europe, Marxism persisted as a rallying cry for resistance. The ascendancy of global capitalism was not a consequence of Marxism's failure; rather, it was a manifestation of what Marx had presciently predicted in his works. Thus, Deleuze's unfinished project on Marx can be viewed as a response to anti-Marxist reactionism from a distinct vantage point. While several interpretations of Deleuze's unwritten Marx exist, the argument in this essay is that Deleuze attempted to recreate the conditions for Marx's critical analysis by employing communism as an event. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a numerical method to solve parameter-dependent scalar hyperbolic partial differential equations (PDEs) with a moment approach, based on a previous work from Marx et al. (2020). This approach relies on a very weak notion of solution of nonlinear equations, namely parametric entropy measure-valued (MV) solutions, satisfying linear equations in the space of Borel measures. The infinite-dimensional linear problem is approximated by a hierarchy of convex, finite-dimensional, semidefinite programming problems, called Lasserre's hierarchy. This gives us a sequence of approximations of the moments of the occupation measure associated with the parametric entropy MV solution, which is proved to converge. In the end, several post-treatments can be performed from this approximate moments sequence. In particular, the graph of the solution can be reconstructed from an optimization of the Christoffel–Darboux kernel associated with the approximate measure, that is a powerful approximation tool able to capture a large class of irregular functions. Also, for uncertainty quantification problems, several quantities of interest can be estimated, sometimes directly such as the expectation of smooth functionals of the solutions. The performance of our approach is evaluated through numerical experiments on the inviscid Burgers equation with parametrised initial conditions or parametrised flux function. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a new form of social wealth, digital wealth is becoming an important force in the promotion of common prosperity. In the digital economy era, digital labor and data factors are important sources for creating digital wealth. The creation of digital commodity wealth is reflected in the process of value formation and value appreciation of digital goods, as well as in the expansion and reproduction process of data production factors. The creation of digital non-commodity wealth needs to rely on the coordination of multiple supply systems including government, enterprises, society and platforms. In the distribution of digital wealth in a socialist market economy, it is necessary to adhere to the basic distribution system with remuneration based on work as the main form and the coexistence of multiple distribution methods. It should fully reflect the value contribution of data factors while also addressing and resolving potential polarization effects caused by the distribution of digital wealth. On the basis of the new development stage, China should steadily advance the creation and accumulation of digital wealth on the basis of constantly strengthening, improving and expanding the digital economy, and should pay attention to standardizing the distribution of digital wealth in order to achieve a solid advance in the common prosperity of all the people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the dialectics of freedom in the poem "Ode on a Grecian Urn" by John Keats and its connection with the concepts of truth and beauty according to interpretations by philosophers Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx. It discusses Hegel's aesthetics in reading the poem as an embodiment of subjectivity and transcendence of freedom in Romantic art drawing from the Eleusinian mystery. It examines the Marxian aesthetics oriented around historicity and immanence of freedom.