Stephen Cullenberg

Analytical Marxism: A Critical Overview*

The school of Analytical Marxism (henceforth, AM) has presented its work as response to certain crisis elements within Traditional Marxism (henceforth, TM). These crisis elements are both theoretico-analytical and historico-political; they involve questions about the validity of traditional Marxian categories (labor-values, exploitation, and so forth) and about the ability of TM to understand historical developments in both socialism and capitalism (Roemer 1986, 1-2 and 191). As a response to these crisis elements, AM has proposed that Marxian theory be reformulated from the standpoint of the principle of methodological individualism, and AM has indeed produced a transformation of the Marxian conceptual landscape, rejecting some concepts (labor values) while redefining others (exploitation). Our own view is rather critical of AM. While we recognize that there are problems with TM, and while we agree that these problems are significant enough to require a fundamental rethinking of Marxian theory, we do not believe that AM represents a successful attempt to reconceive the structure of Marxian theory. We believe, on the contrary, that AM represents a retreat from Marxian theory and, more precisely, a retreat even from those aspects of the Marxian tradition in which AM professes an interest. We believe, moreover, that whereas AM has claimed itself to be more scientific and analytically rigorous than TM, these claims of analytical rigor are a rhetorical device that only camouflages (though, perhaps, not consciously) the retreat from Marxian theory.1

Human Development in the Era of Globalization

Honoring Keith Griffin’s more than 40 years of fundamental contributions to the discipline of economics, the papers in this volume reflect his deep commitment to advancing the well-being of the world’s poor majority and his unflinching willingness to question conventional wisdom as to how this should be done.

Unproductive Labor and the Contradictory Movement of the Rate of Profit: A Comment on Moseley

This paper criticizes Moseleys claim that the cause in the fall in the conventional rate of profit in the postwar U.S. is due to the rise in unproductive labor over this period. I argue that Moseley employs a one-sided and static conception of unproductive labor. Unproductive labor is seen by Moseley to be simply a drag on surplus value production. In contrast, I argue that unproductive labor should be understood as both a drag and as an enhancement for the dynamic production of surplus value. I show in a model of the distribution of surplus value how the redistribution of unproductive labor can have contradictory effects on the value rate of profit.

Economics and the Historian

Economics and the HistorianIssues on the Study of Economic Trends Institutions and Economic Analysis Labor Economics and the Historian The Economics of Choice: Neoclassical Supply and Demand Macroeconomics: An Introduction for Historians Money, Banking, and Inflation: An Introduction for Historians International Economics and the Historian

Economic integration in an uneven world: an internationalist perspective

This paper discusses two progressive schools of thought that have evolved in response to international neoliberalism and the consequent competitive pressures in global markets emanating from the low-cost conditions obtained in many less developed countries. The paper identifies these as the ‘competitiveness-enhancing’ and the ‘competition-reducing’ approaches. The former is shown to be ill-suited to present circumstances of the global economy and, in any event, nationalist. The latter seeks to minimize the adverse consequences of international neoliberalism, and comprises proposals for expansive social charters and social tariffs. The paper provides a theoretical basis for this approach, and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of each of these proposals. The paper then develops and defends a new multilateral, rule-based trade proposal, called the ‘social index tariff structure’ (SITS), which would reward nations for high levels of development achieved relative to their economic means. Drawing on human ...

Deconstructing the Peasantry: Class and Development in Rural Kenya

This essay illustrates the power and reach of the new Marxian class analysis when it is applied to the economic development of the third world. Economic development in third world countries has been analyzed, debated, and promoted but the implications of class analysis (in the surplus labor sense) have rarely been explored. This essay will reexamine the concept of the peasantry that has played such an important theoretical role in Marxist theories of development. In contrast to the typical concept of the peasantry as a rather homogeneous group differentiated according to levels of income and/or property ownership, we develop a theory of the peasantry based on a surplus labor theory of class. A surplus labor theory of class will allow us to investigate in a systematic way how the multiple class structures of so-called less developed rural economies contributed to their “underdevelopment.” This question derives in part from Kautskys parallel inquiry into the nature of the class structure in the rural economy of a country supposedly in transition from pre-capitalist to capitalist forms of production. We redirect this question to investigate empirically the complex class nature of rural Kenya by looking at data concerning household productive activities. Based on our findings we will explore the implications for political action and policy that promote various forms of non-exploitative class structures in rural Kenya.

Rethinking Poverty: Class and Ethical Dimensions of Poverty Eradication

Marxism and poverty have always lived a contradictory existence, especially in the global South. While socialism/communisms ethical imperative aspires to create a nonexploitative society, poverty eradication has been concerned with overcoming the material threat to peoples livelihoods. An exploitation-free world does not necessarily mean the eradication of poverty, while the eradication of poverty does not automatically entail the erasure of exploitative relations. Struggles to eradicate poverty are distributional problems pertaining to the allotment of social surplus, which is also a class question since production surplus originates there. Correcting the injustice of poverty is not simply a distributional question, as most discourses on poverty tend to emphasize. Not only is it also a question of production, but it is very much a class question as well.

Un)doing Marxism from the Outside

The essay’s focus is on the outside. The urgency of rethinking an outside to (global) capitalism stems from the need for critical reflection on two sets of ideas incumbent upon the South: one set marked by globality and the other marked by a continuum of terms such as “local,” “third world,” and “pre-capital.” Such a critical reflection takes the essay to a rethinking of the given script of Marxism from the outside, reengaging with advanced Marxian reflections on questions of “hegemony” and psychoanalytic exegeses on questions of “foreclosure” (verwerfung). Interrogation of extant theorizations on hegemony and foreclosure lead both to more abstract considerations on the Lacanian symbolic and the real and also to apparently more concrete reflections on “global capitalism” and its outside: the “world of the third.” Other than defamiliarizing the given script of capitalist development, this has the potential to open up new avenues to think of politics and subject.

Revisiting Transition and Development in India

We begin by thanking the reviewers for their thoughtful comments and critiques of our attempt to recast Marxist theories of transition and development. More broadly, we took on the rather ambitious project to begin to rethink Marxism in the context of the postcolonial, and also thereby to rethink postcoloniality through Marxism. It was our hope that Transition and Development in India would spark new theoretical openings and even controversies, and, if the reviews are anything to go by, we can claim some satisfaction. Having acknowledged this, it is important to place Transition and Development in India in context.

Orientalism and the New Global: The Example of India

N owadays we are often told that the third world is dead. This underlies another proposition that, with the third world as the Other disappearing, the Orientalist framework is no longer relevant. We consider the pronounced death of the third world and the implied irrelevance of the Orientalist framework as theoretically weak, premature, and politically counterproductive. With the new global order emerging, the third world gets displaced as its external Other into a new plane. We trace the economic history of India and deconstruct the mainstream Indian development paradigm to reveal this emerging contour of Orientalism. Specifically we attempt to read the economic history of India and its transition through different moments of Orientalism, moments that are distinct but each nevertheless help one space—the West, North, or New Global Order—define itself and protract its superiority by producing an external Other.