Marx on Capitalism

Marx on Capitalism

In Marx on Capitalism, James Furner offers a new answer to the fundamental question of Marxism: can a thesis connecting capital, the state and classes with the desirability of socialism be developed from an analysis of the commodity? The Interaction-Recognition-Antinomy Thesis is anchored in a systematic retranslation of Marx's writings. It provides an antinomy-based strategy for grounding the value of social humanity in working-class agency, facilitates a dialectical derivation of political representation, and condemns capitalism as unjust without appeal to rights.

Acknowledgements References and Abbreviations

1 The Interaction-Recognition-Antinomy Thesis

1 The Interaction Component

2 The Recognition Component

3 The First Antinomy

4 The Second Antinomy

5 An Outline of the Argument Appendix: A Note on Translation



2 Analytical Marxism

1 The Project of Analytical Marxism

2 Dialectical Contradiction

3 Intrastructuration

4 Conclusion



3 Commodity Form Philosophy

1 Use-Value

2 Value

3 Commodities and Goods

4 Use-Values, Goods and Duties to the Whole

5 The Commodity, Dialectical Contradiction and Real Abstraction

6 Antinomies of the Commodity Form



4 Action

1 Capital's Description of Human Labour

2 In-Order-To Motives and Because Motives

3 Orientation to an In-Order-To Motive

4 The Form of an In-Order-To Motive

5 Action and Abstraction



5 Social Relations

1 Marx's General Remarks on Social Relations

2 Schutz's Typology of Social Action

3 Interaction as a Relation of Mutual Affecting

4 The Problem of Normativity

5 An Interactional Conception of a Social Relation of Production

6 Some Objections

7 The Objection from Structure

8 The Objection from Consciousness

9 The Problem of Legality



6 System and Bearer

1 A Generalised Interactions Conception of Social Structure

2 Sociological Thought and the Concept of Social Role

3 The Features of a System

4 The Capitalist Structure as a System

5 The Capitalist Structure as a System (Continued)

6 Actors as Bearers



7 Purchase and Sale

1 Exchange

2 Independent Exchange of Products

3 Possession:Savigny and Marx

4 Commodities and Money



8 Exploitation

1 The Quantitative Marxist View of Exploitation

2 A Non-Normative Concept of Exploitation

3 Bazard, Marx and the Five Conditions for Exploitation

4 The Benefit Condition

5 The Harm Condition

6 The Causal Condition

7 The Consequence Condition

8 The Means-to-Ends Condition

9 The System Universalisability Conception of Exploitation

10 Capitalist Labour-Exploitation

11 The Exploitation and Need Problem

12 The Agency Problem

13 The Capitalism, Rights and Injustice Problem

14 Summary



9 Recognition and Self-Ownership

1 A Pragmatic Conception of Recognition

2 Possession, Private Property Ownership and Recognition

3 As-If Mutual Recognition in Purchase and Sale

4 Marx's Concept of a Person

5 Security and Self-Ownership



10 Recognition and Bureaucratic Domination

1 Marx's General Conception of Domination

2 Domination and the Will

3 Domination and Alien Will

4 Domination and Recognition

5 Marx's Conception of Domination Restated

6 Formal and Real Subsumption

7 Domination and Formal Subsumption

8 Domination and Real Subsumption

9 The Recognition Condition and Occupational Identity

10 Summary



11 Antinomy and State Form

1 A Derivation of the Juridical Logic of Freedom of Choice

2 Individual Human Rights

3 The System of Capitalist Production and Popular Sovereignty

4 The Antinomy of Natural Rights and Popular Authorisation

5 Parliamentary Representation

6 The Separation of Po