MARX AND MARXISM

Summary:

The course is an advanced level course providing the opportunity to read

canonical texts in the history of Marxism and engage with the more recent
normative literature related to these texts. In the first half of the course we will
cover some key issues in the study of Marxism such as the materialist conception
of history, the idea of class and class struggle, the role of the state, the analysis of
exploitation, the defence of revolution, the role of the party. In the second half we
will discuss in more detail Marxist conceptions of the state, their relation to
parliamentary democracy, the relation between capitalism and democracy and
the contemporary relevance of Marx’s analysis. The course should be of interest
to MSc students taking existing courses on liberalism and justice but also to
students in Law, IR, Sociology, and International History. It will introduce to the
thought of authors that are often referred to in a range of literatures and will
provide the opportunity to read original texts and engage with scholarly
controversies (both historical and normative) generated by these texts.

Learning outcomes:

At the end of the course students will be expected to be familiar with the key
concepts in the study of Marx and Marxism, engage critically with them, relate
debates and authors with one another, evaluate their arguments and establish
links with other key thinkers in the history of political thought.

Teaching method:

The course consists of a combination of lectures and seminars, the lectures will
be introduced by the teacher but conducted with the help of student
interventions, and will aim at providing basic orientation with the readings for
each week. Seminars will be student-led and consist in more detailed critical
engagement with particular questions raised in the readings, analysis of case
studies, and debates in class. There will be one formative essay of roughly 2000
words and one marked essay of roughly 3000 words to be submitted at the end
of the course. Written feedback will be provided within ten days of submission
(sometimes earlier).

General readings:
Primary

 McLellan, D. (2000), Karl Marx: Selected Writings, Oxford, Oxford

University Press.

Introductory

 Wolff, Jonathan, Why Read Marx Today? (Oxford: OUP 2002).

Historical

 McLellan, David. Marxism after Marx. 4th ed. ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2007, ch. 3, 6 and 7.
 Kolakowski, L. (1978), Main Currents of Marxism, Oxford, Oxford
University Press.

Analytical Marxism

 Roemer, J. (ed.) (1986), Analytical Marxism, Cambridge, Cambridge

University Press.

Online

www.marxists.org – This is a very useful website which contains most of

the primary texts mentioned in the reading list.

Week 1: FREEDOM AND ALIENATION

From McLellan, D. (2000), Karl Marx: Selected Writings, cited above.

 Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Introduction

 Theses on Feuerbach
 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts

Cohen, G.A., ‘The Dialectic of Labour in Marx’, in his History, Labour and Freedom
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), ch. 10; an earlier version appeared in
Philosophy and Public Affairs 3, 3 (1974), pp. 235-61.

WEEK 2: The materialist conception of history

From: McLellan, D. (2000), Karl Marx: Selected Writings, cit. above.

 German Ideology
 Letter to Annenkov
 Grundrisse
 Preface to a Critique of Political Economy.

Cohen, G.A., ‘Forces and Relations of Production’, in Analytical Marxism, cit.

above, ch. 1.
Wright, Erik Olin and Levine, Andrew, 'Rationality and Class Struggle', New Left
Review 123 (1980); reprinted in Alex Callinicos ed., Marxist Theory (CUP, 1989).

Week 3: Marxism and justice

From McLellan, D. (2000), Karl Marx: Selected Writings, cited above.

 The Communist Manifesto

 Wage-Labour and Capital
 Address to the Central Committee of the Communist League
 Critique of the Gotha Programme

Geras, Norman, ‘The Controversy about Marx and Justice’, in his Literature Of
Revolution (1985), ch.1 or in New Left Review, 150 (1985).

Wood, Allen, Karl Marx (London Routledge, 2004), chs. 9 and 16.

Week 4: Marxism and liberal egalitarianism

William Edmundson, John Rawls: Reticent Socialist, Introduction and Chs. 2, 3, 10

and 12.

Lea Ypi, “The Politics of Reticent Socialism”, The Catalyst, forthcoming.

Week 5: The Marxian theory of the state

From McLellan, D. (2000), Karl Marx: Selected Writings, cited above.

 The Class Struggles in France

 The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
 The Civil War in France
 Articles for the Neue Reinische Zeitung
 Circular letter
Miliband, Ralph, ‘Marx and the State’, Socialist Register 1965; reprinted in Tom
Bottomore ed., Karl Marx (Oxford: Blackwell, 1979) and in Tom Bottomore ed.,
Modern Interpretations of Marx (Oxford: Blackwell, 1981).

Week 6: The revisionist controversy and the rise of social democracy

The Preconditions of Socialism (1899) The Preconditions of Socialism. Edited by H.

Tudor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993 (selected passages).

Rosa Luxemburg, Social Reform or Revolution? (1899) reprinted in various

collections, e.g.: Tudor and Tudor eds., Marxism and Social Democracy (CUP,
1988), pp. 249-275; and in Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson eds., The Rosa
Luxemburg Reader (Monthly Review Press, 2004).
Przeworski, Adam, Capitalism and Social Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1985), chs. 1 and 2.

Week 7: Revolutionary socialism

From V. I. Lenin, Essential Works, ed. by H. Christman, New York, Bantam Books.
 What is to be done?
 The State and Revolution

From Rosa Luxemburg Reader (Monthly Review Press, 2004).

 The Mass Strike, The Political Party and the Trade Unions.
 The Russian Revolution.
 Organizational Questions of Russian Social Democracy [NB. published by
subsequent editors under the title 'Leninism or Marxism?']

Blackburn, Robin, Revolution and Class Struggle (Fontana, 1977), esp. Ernest Mandel,
'The Leninist Theory of Organisation' and Lucio Colletti, 'Lenin’s State and Revolution'
249-263.

Ralph Miliband, “Lenin’s state and revolution” reprinted in Jacobin Magazine, link
below

https://jacobinmag.com/2018/08/lenin-state-and-revolution-miliband

Week 8: Capitalism, democracy and the state (1)

Miliband, Ralph, The State in Capitalist Society, New York: Basic Books 1969.

Week 9: Capitalism, democracy and the state (2)

Poulantzas, The problem of the capitalist state, in Poulantzas, Nicos, The

Poulantzas Reader (London: Verso 2008), ch. 7.

Miliband, Ralph "Poulantzas and the Capitalist State", New Left Review, No. 82,1973, pp. 83-93;

Offe, Claus and Volker Ronge (1982) ‘Theses on the theory of the state’ in
Anthony Giddens and David Held (eds) Classes, power, and conflict (Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press), 249–256

Week 10: Marxism today?

Adam Tooze, Crashed, Penguin 2018.