Marxist History (Arguments)

Question 1

How does Marx’s historical thought privilege economic phenomena?

Answer 1

• Privileges economic phenomena as the driving force of history
• Economics always what determines the social/cultural/intellectual/political developments

Question 2

What does Marx argue human history has been a set of?

Answer 2

• Human history has been a set of stages determined by fundamental economic and technological and intellectual foundations
• Post-industrialist era is characterised by the dissolution of class

Question 3

How is Marx’s historical theory teleological?

Answer 3

• Teleological i.e. human history has an end, unfolds in this dialectical way, determined by economic and technological change
• History ends at the stage of communism

Question 4

What is Marx’s belief in a dialectical force in history?

Answer 4

• Dialectical force in history, i.e. what produces the change, is class
• The social order associated with one economic and technological era becomes redundant
• New classes emerge as a new economic order emerges
• New class not accommodate by political and cultural order of the older - tension emerges
• This tension takes the form of revolutionary change

Question 5

What are the three things to remember to characterise Marx’s thought of history?

Answer 5

Historical materialism - base-superstructure model - anti-capitalism

Question 6

Marx and Engels (1845) The German Ideology

Answer 6

• M and E first set out their materialist conception of history
• Influenced by Hegel, who posited that history was constant change, produced by oppositions
• Marx clarifies this - history produce by the conflict of social classes, not ideas as Hegel suggests
• Believed all social relations arose from economic relationships broadly speaking
• Deterministic view of history - predetermined view of the proletarian revolution
• By 1890, Marxism constituted the greatest challenge to the idealistic tradition

Question 7

Antonia Gramsci - The Prison Notebooks (1926-35) what is the significance of its provenance?

Answer 7

• Gramsci writing between 1926-35 whilst imprisoned by the Fascist regime - context of writing
• Not published until 1947 (1st edition) - immediate post-war Italy - Communists powerful political threat
• 1st English translation not printed until 1970s - important context post-1968 and cultural revolutions in Europe

Question 8

What does Gramsci argue economic determinism and philosophical materialism?

Answer 8

• Critical of economic determinism and philosophical materialism
• Vs principle of causal primacy of forces of production
• Misconception of Marxism
• Not a deterministic philosophy
• Economic and cultural changes both expressions of a “basic historical process” thus difficult to say one sphere had primacy over the other

Question 9

What does Gramsci’s revolutionary adaptation of Marxism argue about cultural hegemony?

Answer 9

• Cultural hegemony as a means of maintaining the capitalist state
• Fascist powers not purely capitalistic
• Established cultural and political hegemony over minds of working masses
• Cultural power of capitalism prevented revolution thus a cultural awakening of the masses needed for a revolutionary revival
• Distinction between political society which dominates directly and coercively and civil society where leadership is constituted through ideology or by means of consent
• Transplanted ideas of class struggle into the arena of cultural history - opens it up to new ways of analysis in terms of social power relations

Question 10

Who does Gramsci focus on - further adapting and moving away from core Marxist analysis?

Answer 10

• Focused on what would become know as the “subaltern” classes
• Need to mobilise the lower-classes as well as industrial workers - recognised uneven social development of Italy
• Need for popular workers’ education to encourage development of intellectuals from the lower classes

Question 11

What is the historical significance of EP Thompson’s (1963) The Making of the English Working class date wise?

Answer 11

• 1960s rise of social history and deviation from ‘normal’ historical practice in Europe
• process of democratising history
• 1960s Britain revival of interest in everyday life of ordinary people
• Coronation Street 1960 launch and Crossroads 1964 launch

Question 12

What is seminal about EP Thompson’s The Making of the English Working Class?

Answer 12

• Redefined class a relationship that changed over time, not a structure
• Addressed the lack of cultural understanding, often critiqued in Marxist thought
• Explanation of how class-consciousness arose from cultural relationships
• People come to see themselves as a class through cultural practice and consciousness, even though class experience largely determined by productive relations people born in to
• Thompsonian revision of class view historians tend to use today

Question 13

What does Hobsbawm argue in 1964?

Answer 13

• “General theory” of historical materialism
• Necessitates only a succession of modes of production
• Doesn’t require particular modes
• No predetermined order

Question 14

What is the significance of Cohen’s 1979 articulation of restricted historical materialism (date wise and contextually)?

Answer 14

• 1968 and 60s/70s protest movements brought on questions about whether Marxian ideas were outdated and still relevant
• Finding a way to adapt Marx and still make it relevant and compatible to the present day
• Also Era of decline in working-class and trade unions despite Reganism/Thatcherism
• Theorists and historians at this time not canonically Marxist theorist of society but still critiquing capitalist social order and calling for emancipation on a broader scale not limited to w-c
• Period of time when studies of social and cultural phenomena as separate to economics and not necessarily derived from it arise - trying to make Marx still relevant

Question 15

What is Cohen’s 1979 argument surrounding restricted historical materialism?

Answer 15

• History = the systematic growth of human’s productive capacity
• Different from inclusive historical materialism which argues growth of human productive capacity is the centre of human history - makes other transformations peripheral, problematic and incorrect
• Interprets historical materialism as a hypothesis focusing only on material developments, rather than a determinist explanation for all developments
• Separates Marx’s conception of human nature from historical theory and that disagreeing with this does not negate the value of Marx’s historical theory
• Attributes it to Marx’s views in the Preface to Political Economy which mostly leaves out how far material factors control social consciousness

Question 16

What is the historical significance of Wickham’s (2007) edited work Marxist Historical Writing for the 21st Century?

Answer 16

• Cultural turn
• Rise of gender history
• Rise of Subaltern schools
• Rise of race and ethnicity histories
• clear that Marx’s ideas about capitalism not coming to fruition
• Attempting to prove that Marxist Historical thought still valuable when people no longer thinking about class in society

Question 17

What do writers in Wickham’s volume argue to make it still valuable in 21st Century Historical Writing?

Answer 17

• Marx’s analysis of industrial w-c in 19th century excludes women and POC because not relevant to what he is trying to find out
• Doesn’t mean Marx incompatible with this, Marxist analysis not limited to class
  Marxist thought has become “normalised” now
• So well-known and present in contemporary historiography we should assume everyone is influenced by it
• 21st century historians no longer state their “long-range, strategic presuppositions” so less explicit than the clearly paradigm-based works of earlier Marxist historians but clearly still being used

Question 18

What does Runciman in Wickham’s volume argue?

Answer 18

• tool of historical analysis
• Not a prophecy or deterministic model historians should apply to different contexts
• Diagnostic tool which illuminates the power relations within society and helps understand historical change
• Counters criticism along the lines of USSR’s collapse appearing to disprove Marxist historical thought and discrediting its use

Question 19

What is the historical context/significance of Vonder Linden and Roth’s edited work Beyond Marx: Theorising the Global Labour Relations of the Twenty-First Century (2013)?

Answer 19

• globalisation
• rise of global histories
• Collection written/edited during 2000s crash
• Revival of class and querying triumph of capitalism

Question 20

What does Vonder Linden and Roth (eds) - Beyond Marx: Theorising the Global Labour Relations of the Twenty-First Century (2013) argue?

Answer 20

• concentrates on inadequacies of Marx’s conception of history and sp/ concept of labour
• Less convinced of triumph of capitalism
• Need for a critical analysis of dysunctions of capitalism proceeding from Marxist economic theory but going beyond it

Question 21

Why does Von der Linden and Roth (eds) - Beyond Marx: Theorising the Global Labour Relations of the Twenty-First Century (2013) argue there is still a need for a critical analysis of dysunctions of capitalism proceeding from Marxist economic theory but going beyond it?

Answer 21

• Marx misjudged capitalism’s durability and expected a socialist revolution in his life time
• Marx’s concept on capital neglected social and political dimension of history as it concretely affected lives of working people - didn’t take into account active role workers played e.g. labour union organising
• “Objectivism” - believed workers were objects of capitalist system - see him as a determinist
• Marx privileged the proletariat over other working-class and saw it as the only revolutionary class - must redefine the working-class/working-classes to do justice to - 21st century domestically and globally
  Eurocentricism - Western Europe embodied progress for Marx - present crisis of capitalism proves again the need for a response to the conditions of exploitation and growing inequality marking existing system

Question 22

Stephen Brooke (2001) Gender and Working-Class Identity in Britain during the 1950s

Answer 22

• Concludes discourse of transformation in working class life in Britain in 1950s/60s often bound up in the perception of changes in gender roles
• Emphasises the persistent interweaving of gender and class identity in mid-twentietch century Britain
• Emphasises importance of gender to development of class consciousness and that class identity distinctively gendered
• Thompsonian revision - explicitly mentions him and going beyond his conclusions
  Studies of popular subculture, sociologists accounts
• Acknowledges that progress and prosperity may have worn away the singularity and coherence of working class identity
• Time when gender history very popular, recognition of need to incorporate multianalaytical frameworks
• Also time when Labour Party has moved more to the centre and is in power - perhaps looking at how we have got to this point
• 2000s quite anti-class analysis - phase of history informed by new cultural history, much less willing to accept vulgar Marxism - unpicking narratives

Question 23

McKibbin, Classes and Cultures (1998)

Answer 23

• Study of England 1918-1951
• Incorporates both traditional Marxist thought and some unorthodox aspects - owing to linguistic turn?
• Considers the ways in which language was used (both spoken and written) to define one’s social grouping, and how far changes occurred to language and culture more generally as a result of increasing American influence
• Weberian influence - acknowledgment that class is not the same as status
• Thomsponian influence - acknowledgment class as a category is not fixed but fluid, argues British middle class consciousness formed in opposition or disdain to the working-classes
• Uses statistical analysis
• 1989 collapse of USSR and communism - era of people being anti-class analysis and vulgar Marxism

Question 24

Francis Fukuyama (1992) The End of History and the Last Man

Answer 24

• Era Quite anti-class analysis - phase of history informed by new cultural history, much less willing to accept vulgar Marxism - unpicking narratives
• Argued Western liberal democracy victory marked the end-point of mankind’s ideological evolution, while Soviet Communism had failed because of its ideological and economic backwardness
• Time when collapse of USSR percieved by some as proof of limitations of Marxist thought and a reason for discrediting Marxist historiographical tradition

Question 25

Subaltern studies discipline

Answer 25

• Emerges around 1980s in India
• Main goal was to retake history for the underclasses, voices had not been heard previous
• An adaptation of Gramsci: particularly through morality and understanding of community in culture that peasants come to an understanding of themselves as a class
• era of anti-class analysis in Europe - phase of history informed by new cultural history, much less willing to accept vulgar Marxism - unpicking narratives

Question 26

Theda Skocpol (1979) States and Social Revolutions

Answer 26

• Comparative analysis of Russian, French and Chinese revolutions
• Challenges and unpicks vulgar Marxist narratives/explanations of these
• Uses Marxism’s class struggle to assert that the main causes of social unrest are state social structures, intl competitive pressures, intl demos, and class relations
• State emerges as an autonomous actor with its own strength, whereas in Marx the state cannot be an individual actor
• Critics said she ignores the role of individuals and ideology
• Writing in the midst of the post-structuralist turn where linguistic and cultural turn more popular
• Era of decline in working-class and trade unions despite Reganism/Thatcherism
• Theorists and historians during this time not using Marxist theory of society, but critique of capitalist social order, and calling for emancipation on a broader scale not limited to working-class

Question 27

Pierre Bourdieu - La Distinction (1979)

Answer 27

• Study of French culture in the 1960s
• Argued social class was preserved in post-war despite economic prosperity through taste
• Judgements of taste are acts of social positioning
• Emphasised how social classes, especially the ruling and intellectual classes, preserve their social privileges across generations despite the myth that contemporary post-industrial society had more opportunity for social mobility
• Idea of cultural capital - non-financial social assets which promote social mobility by economic means - most likely to determine taste - Weberian influence
• Also Thompsonian influence
• Also Gramscian influence
• Era of decline in working-class and trade unions despite Reganism/Thatcherism
• Theorists and historians during this time not using Marxist theory of society, but critique of capitalist social order, and calling for

Question 28

Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975)

Answer 28

• Influenced by Gramsci
• Fundamentally interested in sociology and power - like Marx
• Discipline and Punish clearly analyses disciplinary institutions as instruments of political power and the socioeconomic exploitation that accompanied the rise of bourgeoise as a politically dominant class
• Study of Western penal system in mid-18th to 19-th century
• Shows how/why Western attitudes changed so radically
• Writing during the cultural turn
• Theorists and historians during this time not using Marxist theory of society, but critique of capitalist social order, and calling for emancipation on a broader scale not limited to working-class

Question 29

1950s historical background/context

Answer 29

• Historians not regarding themselves as Marxists and moving away from Communist Parties but though and analysis still v much Marxist
• Working-class integrated into the middle-class and political consciousness as separate class undermined
• Industrial economy (basis of Marx’s analysis) increasingly replaced by service industries
• Emergence of Cold War tensions - US schools reject class warfare trajectory arguing class and conflict didn’t exist in the US

Question 30

Max Weber (1905-17)

Answer 30

• Explained development of capitalism through Protestant ideology in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905)
• Counters idea all social relations arose from economic relationship broadly speaking with - - Weberian Stratification
• Social class = based on economically determined relationship to the market
• Status = based on non-economic qualities like honour, prestige, and religion
• Party = affiliations in the public domain
• Distinction between the 3 but all have consequences for people’s opportunities to improve their life, not just class
• Still - building on Marxist class analysis regardless

Question 31

Sheila Rowbotham (1974) Hidden From History

Answer 31

• Women’s history emerged from the 1960s/1970s women’s rights movement
• Firmly rooted in the political, sp. left-wing tradition
• Ties between feminist politics and women’s history in late 1960s and 1970s was esp. strong
• Focused on rediscovery of lives of women in the past
• At this point - inextricable link between commitment to women’s history and the women’s movements aims - not the same now
• Rowbotham and co also being pushed to sidelines of New Left movements by male ‘comrades.’
• Debt to Marxism focused the historical debate on certain issues more than others i.e. mostly looking at how class and sex, work and the family, personal life and social pressures hindered women’s struggles for equality

Question 32

Angela Davis (1981) Women, Race, and Class

Answer 32

• Similar to hooks looking at women, race, and class throughout American history
• Intersectional approach - highlight the issue with universal categories of womanhood and how lived experiences differed
• Looks both at masculinity and femininity as social constructs within black community and role of whites but also the layers of class dimensions too

Question 33

Nathalie Thomlinson (2012) ‘The Colour of Feminism’

Answer 33

• Looks at WLM in 1970s and 1980s and how they have since been accused of being racist and blind to ethnic minority women’s needs
  Interesting because it is again looking at the revisionist takes of it being liberatory
• But also argues relationships white feminists in UK had with race, Balck women and Black nationalism was more complex than accusation of racism suggests
• With anti-imperialism and black liberation white feminist periodical Shrew hints that the women supported the liberation movement of the oppressed group and analogised their oppression as women and of people oppressed as nations but not the women themselves
• Janet Hadley said she came to understanding women’s oppression by analogising it to the experience of Black people - experience of Black Power inspired WLM
• Difficulty for Jewish women, women not from London, non-white women, w-c women

Question 34

G Stevenson (2016) ‘The Women’s Movement and Class Struggle”

Answer 34

• Discusses how women workers’ industrial disputes were of fundamental importance to the WLM in late 60s-70s
• Shows how women strikers’ particular experiences of trade unionism, class politics and feminism resulted in gendered BUT still fundamentally class-based identities
• Notes how Black feminists have critiqued the WLM’s essentialism and how it was liberationary only for those within its primary demographic - white middle-class women who dominated it
• Looks at three different strikes and how the women strikers’ political identities were linked to class and gender at Dagenham, Trico, and at Grunwick race intertwined
• Essentially incorporating not just gender as a category of analysis but the need for multi axis frameworks

Question 35

Helen Mills (2016) ‘Using the Personal to Critique the Popular’

Answer 35

• Uses women’s memories of 1960s youth to critique popular idea of the “swinging sixties”
• Demonstrates that impression of period as promiscuous and permissive is based on the experiences of young men not subject to same restrictions as young women
• Highlights that the collective memory is based off of the culture of a very narrow metropolitan middle-class elite
• Female subjects critique the popular memory of the 1960s which did not fit with their experiences
• But popular memory was significant in their framing of their concept and experience of the 1960s
• Suggest popular memory based on a myth propagated at the time by media representations, such as the films: A Taste of Honey, Up the Junction, and Ready, Steady, Go!