Biblioteca / 2000-2009
Paul Blackledge – Graeme Kirkpatrick, editors. Historical Materialism and Social Evolution.
Londres: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
250 páginas.
Contents
1 – Historical Materialism and Social Evolution / Paul Blackledge – Graeme Kirkpatrick
2 – Historical Materialism: from Social Evolution to Revolutionary Politics / Paul Blackledge
Evolution
Marx, Engels and Darwin
Crude evolutionary Marxism
The voluntarist reaction
In defence of evolutionism
Synthesising evolution and revolution
Conclusion
3 – Social Darwinism and Socialist Darwinism in Germany: 1860 to 1900 / Ted Benton
Introduction
The diversity of evolutionary biology
Evolutionism in culture and politics
Conclusion
4 – A Darwinian Historical Materialism / Paul Nolan
Natural selection
A quasi-Darwinian theory of history
A quasi-Darwinian historical materialism
Some other difficulties for the theory
Conclusion
5 – Analytical Marxism and the Debate on Social Evolution / Alan Carling
History and evolution
What sort of evolutionary theory is the Marxian theory of history?
The asocial argument for the tendency
The Natural Primacy of the forces of production
The Competitive Primacy of the forces of production
Is Competitive Primacy plausible in history?
The Feudal Fission thesis
A composite theory of history?
Modes of production and theories of transition
Laibman: between the sundered concept and the floating fact
A case in conclusión
6 – History, Exploitation and Oppression / Alex Callinicos
Social evolution and rational choice
Transitions to capitalism
Generalising or dissolving class theory?
Exploitation and oppression
Divide and rule
Conclusion
7 – Progress and Technology in Habermas’s Theory of Social Evolution / Graeme Kirkpatrick
Introduction
Habermas and the evolution of society
The case of the personal computer
Habermas, informationalism and social evolution
Conclusion
8 – The Possible Wonders of Technology. Beyond Habermas towards Marcuse: a Critical Framework for Technological Progress / Giusseppe Tassone
Introduction
Communicative reason versus instrumental reason: Habermas’s theory of progress
A quasi-Habermasean model for technological progress: Simpson’s longing for a meaningful life
‘No concept is more abstract than the idea of a mere machine’: an interpretation of Marcuse’s critical theory of technology
9 – Lean Production and Economic Evolution in Capitalism / Tony Smith
Evolutionary mechanisms in capitalism
From ‘Fordism’ to lean production
Lean production and the conditions for a transition to socialism