Download or read book Reclaiming Communist Philosophy written by Wilson W. S. Au and published by IAP. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is unique in its utilization of the natural sciences to explain and illustrate key concepts of communist philosophy. In its recapitulation of the spirit of Engels’s unfinished manuscript, The Dialectics of Nature, it relies on the physical sciences developed since Engels’s time to reaffirm the validity of materialist dialectics, a point which is more easily made in the context of natural phenomena than it is in social phenomena. The basic philosophical tenets underlying Communist ideology are all supported by the natural sciences. The book is situated within the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist tradition. Its overarching theme is the need to reclaim our most fundamental weapon of that tradition—it’s methodology or philosophy—which has been vitiated or even scrapped by well-intentioned revolutionaries throughout the 20th century. In particular, some of Mao’s philosophical formulations are found to be erroneous and in opposition to his practice. With the rapidly accelerating deterioration of the global capitalist order in progress since 2007, the urgency of this reclamation cannot be over-emphasized.
Download or read book Ethical Marxism written by Bill Martin and published by Open Court Publishing. This book was released on 2013-12-01 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book aims to reinvigorate the Marxist project and the role it might play in illuminating the way beyond capitalism. Though political economy and scientific investigation are needed for pure Marxism, Martin’s argument is that the extent to which these elements are needed cannot be determined within the conversations of political economy and other investigations into causal mechanisms. What has not been done, and what this book does, is to argue for the possibility of a rethought Marxism that takes ethics as its core, displacing political economy and "scientific" investigation.
Download or read book Marxism and the Call of the Future written by Bob Avakian and published by Open Court Publishing. This book was released on 2005 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers readers a rare chance to witness a mainstream thinker challenge an outlaw-activist. Avakian and Martin wrestle with big questions that have to do with the state of the world and the possibility for radical change. The scope and relevance of Marxism, and the nature and reach of communist revolution, are at the heart of this rich and lively dialogue. Avakian and Martin probe a wide range of issues: the place of ethics in a transformative revolutionary politics; Kant, Rousseau, and Hegel; Marx and the question of colonialism and Eurocentrism; the Maoist experience in China; sustainable agriculture and the task of overcoming the urban-rural divide; imperialism and lopsided development in the world, and the effects on social structure and revolution; animal rights; secularism and religion; the post-911 agenda of the U.S. ruling class, the political-social-cultural landscape of the U.S., and the prospects for resistance and revolution; Marxism and the question of homosexuality; the challenges confronting radical and communist intellectuals and the possibilities for engaged, creative intellectual work today.
Download or read book Kantian Ethics and Socialism written by Harry Van der Linden and published by Hackett Publishing. This book was released on 1988-01-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Awarded the 1985 Johnsonian Prize in Philosophy.
Download or read book Private Life and Communist Morality in Khrushchev s Russia written by Deborah A. Field and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2007 with total page 162 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on previously inaccessible records, this book discusses love, sex, marriage, divorce, and child-rearing during Khrushchev's «thaw» of the 1950s and early 1960s. It analyses the Soviet government's attempts to supervise private life and enforce communist morality, and it describes the diverse ways in which people responded to official prescriptions. Written in a lively and accessible style, this book provides an innovative exploration of the interactions between Soviet ideology and everyday life.
Download or read book Communism A Very Short Introduction written by Leslie Holmes and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-08-27 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The collapse of communism was one of the most defining moments of the twentieth century. This Very Short Introduction examines the history behind the political, economic, and social structures of communism as an ideology.
Download or read book Constructing Marxist Ethics written by and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2015-02-04 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does Marxism possess an ethical impulse? Is there a moral foundation that underpins the Marxist critique of capitalism and the vision for social progress? The essays collected in Constructing Marxist Ethics: Critique, Normativity, Praxis argue that there is such an ethical grounding for Marxist theory. The essays, each from different vantage points, construct what a Marxian ethics should look like: what kind of values should be at the heart of the Marxian enterprise. Contributors are: Dan Albanese, Paul Blackledge, Bob Cannon, Tony Burns, Ian Fraser, Ruth Groff, Wadood Hamad, Christoph Henning, Peter Hudis, Lauren Langman, George E. McCarthy, Sean Sayers, Michael J. Thompson, and Lawrence Wilde.
Download or read book Marxism Morality and Social Justice written by Rodney G. Peffer and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 541 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The interpreter of Marx's writings faces the task of reconciling, on the one hand, Marx's frequent explicit condemnations and criticisms of morality and, on the other, the obvious way in which his world-view reflects substantive moral judgments. In this book R. G. Peffer tackles the challenges of finding in Marx's work an implicit moral theory, of answering claims that Marxism is incompatible with morality, and of developing the outlines of an adequate Marxist moral and social theory. Peffer analyzes the moral components of Marx's thought and considers all the major interpretations of his moral perspective; he concludes that Marx is a mixed deontologist who is most committed to a maximum system of equal freedoms, both positive and negative. He then utilizes contemporary metaethical theory to show that Marxism is compatible with morality in general and with the concepts of justice and rights in particular. Peffer proposes a radically egalitarian theory of social justice (which subsumes Marx's own moral theory) and a minimal set of Marxist empirical theses, which together entail the Marxist's basic normative political positions. This book demonstrates that contemporary analytic political philosophy is invaluable for coming to terms with Marxism and that it is only Marx's less abstract empirical theories about classes and class struggle, the dysfunctions of capitalism, and the possibility of creating democratic, self-managing postcapitalist societies that are needed for the development of an adequate Marxist moral and social theory. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book Communist Ethics and Chinese Tradition written by David S. Nivison and published by . This book was released on 1954 with total page 174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Philosophy and the Idea of Communism written by Alain Badiou and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a well-known text called ‘The Communist Hypothesis’, first published in 2007, the renowned philosopher Alain Badiou breathed fresh life into the idea of communism as an intellectual representation that provides a critical perspective on existing politics and offers a systemic alternative to capitalism. Now, in the course of this wide-ranging conversation with Peter Engelmann, Alain Badiou explains why he continues to value the idea of communism against the background of current social crises and despite negative historical experiences. From the anticipation of a communism without a state to the problem of the concept of democracy and an analysis of capitalism as a system, the two thinkers discuss the key political issues of our time. Whilst explaining his political philosophy, Badiou also reflects on current socio-political developments such as the turmoil in the Middle East and the situation in China. This compelling dialogue is both a highly topical contribution to the question of how we might organize our societies differently and an accessible introduction to Badiou's philosophical thinking.
Download or read book Hermeneutic Communism written by Gianni Vattimo and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-18 with total page 267 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Having lost much of its political clout and theoretical power, communism no longer represents an appealing alternative to capitalism. In its original Marxist formulation, communism promised an ideal of development, but only through a logic of war, and while a number of reformist governments still promote this ideology, their legitimacy has steadily declined since the fall of the Berlin wall. Separating communism from its metaphysical foundations, which include an abiding faith in the immutable laws of history and an almost holy conception of the proletariat, Gianni Vattimo and Santiago Zabala recast Marx's theories at a time when capitalism's metaphysical moorings—in technology, empire, and industrialization—are buckling. While Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri call for a return of the revolutionary left, Vattimo and Zabala fear this would lead only to more violence and failed political policy. Instead, they adopt an antifoundationalist stance drawn from the hermeneutic thought of Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida, and Richard Rorty. Hermeneutic communism leaves aside the ideal of development and the general call for revolution; it relies on interpretation rather than truth and proves more flexible in different contexts. Hermeneutic communism motivates a resistance to capitalism's inequalities yet intervenes against violence and authoritarianism by emphasizing the interpretative nature of truth. Paralleling Vattimo and Zabala's well-known work on the weakening of religion, Hermeneutic Communism realizes the fully transformational, politically effective potential of Marxist thought.
Download or read book Marxism and Ethics written by Paul Blackledge and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-14 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marxism and Ethics is a comprehensive and highly readable introduction to the rich and complex history of Marxist ethical theory as it has evolved over the last century and a half. Paul Blackledge argues that Marx's ethics of freedom underpin his revolutionary critique of capitalism. Marx's conception of agency, he argues, is best understood through the lens of Hegel's synthesis of Kantian and Aristotelian ethical concepts. Marx's rejection of moralism is not, as suggested in crude materialist readings of his work, a dismissal of the free, purposive, subjective dimension of action. Freedom, for Marx, is both the essence and the goal of the socialist movement against alienation, and freedom's concrete modern form is the movement for real democracy against the capitalist separation of economics and politics. At the same time, Marxism and Ethics is also a distinctive contribution to, and critique of, contemporary political philosophy, one that fashions a powerful synthesis of the strongest elements of the Marxist tradition. Drawing on Alasdair MacIntyre's early contributions to British New Left debates on socialist humanism, Blackledge develops an alternative ethical theory for the Marxist tradition, one that avoids the inadequacies of approaches framed by Kant on the one hand and utilitarianism on the other.
Download or read book The Vodou Ethic and the Spirit of Communism written by Paul C. Mocombe and published by UPA. This book was released on 2016-02-04 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using a variant of structuration theory, what Paul C. Mocombe calls phenomenological structuralism, this work explores and highlights how the African religion of Vodou and its ethic, i.e., syncretism, materialism, communal living or social collectivism, democracy, individuality, cosmopolitanism, spirit of social justice, xenophilia, balance, harmony, and gentleness, gave rise, under the leadership of oungan yo, manbo yo, gangan yo, and granmoun yo, to the Haitian spirit of communism and the “counter-plantation system” (Jean Casimir’s term) in the provinces and mountains of Haiti. What Mocombe calls the Vodou Ethic and the spirit of communism of the African people of Haiti would be juxtaposed against the Catholic/Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism of the white, mulatto, gens de couleur, and petit-bourgeois free black classes of the island. This latter worldview, the Catholic/Protestant Ethic and the spirit of capitalism, Mocombe goes on to argue, exercised by the free bourgeois blacks and mulatto elites, Affranchis, on the island undermined the revolutionary and independence movement of Haiti commenced by subjects/agents, oungan yo, manbo yo, gangan yo/dokté fey, and granmoun yo, of the Vodou ethic and the spirit of communism, and made it the poorest, most racist, and tyrannical country in the Western Hemisphere.
Download or read book The Ethical Foundations of Marxism written by Eugene Kamenka and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-04-17 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Ethical Foundations of Marxism, first published in 1962 and corrected and revised for a 1972 edition, examines carefully and critically the origin, precise nature and subsequent role of Marx’s ethical beliefs. Drawing freely on Marx’s still largely untranslated philosophical works and drafts the author elicits the ethical presuppositions with which Marx began. He then examines the intellectual development that made Marx a Communist and seeks to clarify the place of Marx’s ethic in his mature, ‘materialist’ work. Professor Kamenka distinguishes sharply between the critical, ethical views of Marx and the inept, conventional applications of his doctrine by Engels. He appraises the ‘ethics’ of the Communist Party and traces the development of the moral and legal theory in the Soviet Union. He concludes by subjecting Marxism as a whole to a radical, ethical and philosophical criticism for which Marx himself laid some of the foundations.
Download or read book Facts on Communism Communist ideology written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Un-American Activities and published by . This book was released on 1959 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Communist Study written by Derek R. Ford and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2022-01-14 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the second edition of this groundbreaking work, Derek R. Ford contends that radical politics needs educational theory, posing a series of educational questions pertinent to revolutionary movements: How can pedagogy bridge the gap between what is and what can be, while respecting the gap and its uncertainty and contingency? How can pedagogy accommodate ambiguity while remaining faithful to the communist project? In answering these questions, Ford develops a dynamic pedagogical constellation that radically opens up what education is and what it can mean for revolutionary struggle. In charting this constellation, Ford takes the reader on a journey that traverses disciplinary boundaries, innovatively reading theorists as diverse as Lenin, Agamben, Marx, Lyotard, Althusser, and Butler. Demonstrating how learning underpins capitalism and democracy, Ford articulates a theory of communist study as an alternative and oppositional logic that, perhaps paradoxically, demands the revolutionary reclamation of testing. Poetic, performative, and provocative, Communist Study is oriented toward what Ford calls “the sublime feeling of being-in-common,” which, as he insists, is always a commonness against.
Download or read book Marx and Wittgenstein written by Gavin Kitching and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-01-11 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At first sight, Karl Marx and Ludwig Wittgenstein may well seem to be as different from each other as it is possible for the ideas of two major intellectuals to be. Despite this standard conception, however, a small number of scholars have long suggested that there are deeper philosophical commonalities between Marx and Wittgenstein. They have argued that, once grasped, these commonalities can radically change and enrich understanding both of Marxism and of Wittgensteinian philosophy. This book develops and extends this unorthodox view, emphasising the mutual enrichment that comes from bringing Marx's and Wittgenstein's ideas into dialogue with one another. Essential reading for all scholars and philosophers interested in the Marxist philosophy and the philosophy of Wittgenstein, this book will also be of vital interest to those studying and researching in the fields of social philosophy, political philosophy, philosophy of social science and political economy.