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Full-Text Articles in Intellectual History

Diabolical Frivolity Of Neoliberal Fundamentalism, Sefik Tatlic Jan 2009

Diabolical Frivolity Of Neoliberal Fundamentalism, Sefik Tatlic

Sefik Tatlic

Today, we cannot talk just about plain control, but we must talk about the nature of the interaction of the one who is being controlled and the one who controls, an interaction where the one that is “controlled” is asking for more control over himself/herself while expecting to be compensated by a surplus of freedom to satisfy trivial needs and wishes. Such a liberty for the fulfillment of trivial needs is being declared as freedom. But this implies as well the freedom to choose not to be engaged in any kind of socially sensible or politically articulated struggle.


What's Wrong With Exploitation?, Justin Schwartz Jan 1995

What's Wrong With Exploitation?, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

Abstract: Marx thinks that capitalism is exploitative, and that is a major basis for his objections to it. But what's wrong with exploitation, as Marx sees it? (The paper is exegetical in character: my object is to understand what Marx believed,) The received view, held by Norman Geras, G.A. Cohen, and others, is that Marx thought that capitalism was unjust, because in the crudest sense, capitalists robbed labor of property that was rightfully the workers' because the workers and not the capitalists produced it. This view depends on a Labor Theory of Property (LTP), that property rights are based ultimately …


The Paradox Of Ideology, Justin Schwartz Jan 1993

The Paradox Of Ideology, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

A standard problem with the objectivity of social scientific theory in particular is that it is either self-referential, in which case it seems to undermine itself as ideology, or self-excepting, which seem pragmatically self-refuting. Using the example of Marx and his theory of ideology, I show how self-referential theories that include themselves in their scope of explanation can be objective. Ideology may be roughly defined as belief distorted by class interest. I show how Marx thought that natural science was informed by class interest but not therefore necessarily ideology. Capitalists have an interest in understanding the natural world (to a …


Functional Explanation And Metaphysical Individualism, Justin Schwartz Jan 1993

Functional Explanation And Metaphysical Individualism, Justin Schwartz

Justin Schwartz

A number of (present or former) analytical Marxists, such as Jon Elster, have argued that functional explanation has almost no place in the social sciences. (Although the discussion is framed in terms of a debate among analytical Marxists, the point is quite general, and Marxism is used for illustrative purposes.) Functional explanation accounts for what is to be explained by reference to its function; thus, sighted organism have eyes because eyes enable them to see. Elster and other critics of functional explanation argue that this pattern of explanation is inconsistent with "methodological individualism," the idea, as they understand it, that …