Preface and acknowledgments Introduction 1. Explanation and dialectics Part I. Philosophy and Economics: 2. Philosophical anthropology 3. Economics 4. Exploitation, freedom and justice Part II. Theory of History: 5. Modes of production 6. Classes 7. Politics and the state 8. Ideologies 9. Capitalism, communism and revolution Conclusion references Index of names index of subjects.

Making Sense of Marx

Selection d'extraits des Cahiers de Prison d'Antonio Gramsci, theoricien italien de la pensee marxiste, mort en prison en 1937 et qui proposa une reflexion sur l'education dans les regimes totalitaires, et plus generalement sur les systemes des gouvernements modernes, ou la priorite donnee a l'organisation economique et a l'efficacite de la production industrielle etouffe les valeurs humaines et historiques.

狱中札记 = The prison notebooks

A Theory of Capitalist Regulation: The U.S. Experience

Contents Introduction First Lecture: On the Instability of the (Notion of) Nature A mutation of the relation to the world [yen] Four ways to be driven crazy by ecology [yen] The instability of the nature/culture relation [yen] The invocation of human nature [yen] The recourse to the natural world [yen] On a great service rendered by the pseudo-controversy over the climate [yen] Go tell your masters that the scientists are on the warpath! [yen] In which we seek to pass from nature to the world [yen] How to face up Second Lecture: How Not to (De-)Animate Nature Disturbing truths [yen] Describing in order to warn [yen] In which we concentrate on agency [yen] On the difficulty of distinguishing between humans and nonhumans [yen] And yet it moves! [yen] A new version of natural law [yen] On an unfortunate tendency to confuse cause and creation [yen] Toward a nature that would no longer be a religion? Third Lecture: Gaia, a (Finally Secular) Figure for Nature Galileo, Lovelock: Two symmetrical discoveries [yen] Gaia, an exceedingly treacherous mythical name for a scientific theory [yen] A parallel with Pasteur's microbes [yen] Lovelock too makes micro-actors proliferate [yen] How to avoid the idea of a system? [yen] Organisms make their own environment, they do not adapt to it [yen] On a slight complication of Darwinism [yen] Space, an offspring of history Fourth Lecture: The Anthropocene and the Destruction of (the Image of) the Globe The Anthropocene: an innovation [yen] Mente et Malleo [yen] A debatable term for an uncertain epoch [yen] An ideal opportunity to disaggregate the figures of Man and Nature [yen] Sloterdijk or the theological origin of the image of the Sphere [yen] Confusion between Science and the Globe [yen] Tyrrell against Lovelock [yen] Feedback loops do not draw a Globe [yen] Finally, a different principle of composition [yen] Melancholia, or the end of the Globe Fifth Lecture: How to Convene the Various Peoples (of Nature)? Two Leviathans, two cosmologies [yen] How to avoid war between the gods? [yen] A perilous diplomatic project [yen] The impossible convocation of a people of nature [yen] How to give negotiation a chance? [yen] On the conflict between science and religion [yen] Uncertainty about the meaning of the word end [yen] Comparing collectives in combat [yen] Doing without any natural religion Sixth Lecture: How (Not) to Put an End to the End of Times? The fateful date of 1610 [yen] Stephen Toulmin and the scientific counter-revolution [yen] In search of the religious origin of disinhibition [yen] The strange project of achieving Paradise on Earth [yen] Eric Voegelin and the avatars of Gnosticism [yen] On an apocalyptic origin of climate skepticism [yen] From the religious to the terrestrial by way of the secular [yen] A people of Gaia ? [yen] How to respond when accused of producing apocalyptic discourse Seventh Lecture: The States (of Nature) between War and Peace The Great Enclosure of Caspar David Friedrich [yen] The end of the State of Nature [yen] On the proper dosage of Carl Schmitt [yen] We seek to understand the normative order of the earth [yen] on the difference between war and police work [yen] How to turn around and face Gaia? [yen] Human versus Earthbound [yen] Learning to identify the struggling territories Eighth Lecture: How to Govern Struggling (Natural) Territories? In the Theater of Negotiations, Les Amandiers, May 2015 [yen] Learning to meet without a higher arbiter [yen] Extension of the Conference of the Parties to Nonhumans [yen] Multiplication of the parties involved [yen] Mapping the critical zones [yen] Rediscovering the meaning of the State [yen] Laudato Si' [yen] Finally, facing Gaia [yen] Earth, earth! Works Cited

Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime

"Oriental despotism : A Comparative Study of Total Power", Karl A. Wittfogel, Yale University Press, New-Haven 1957 : [recenzja] / Leszek Dzięgiel.

The critique appears decisive. The profit rate is (y — w)/k. It can fall as a result of a rise in w; this would follow from the maturation of the working class — the expression, perhaps, of the most truly classical contradiction of capitalism. This approach, however, is commonly derided as the ‘profit-squeeze’ theory of crisis. It reduces the fall in the profit rate to an outcome of the conflict between classes, considered by many to be an ephemeral or superficial phenomenon; the source of declining profitability must, in this view, be found in the presumably more fundamental process of the developing forces of production.

Technical Change and the Profit Rate

Controversies in the Theory of Surplus Value: A Comment

Ameliorative socialism is a set of democratic, egalitarian and humane values. Systemic socialism, by contrast, projects the general features of a social structure distinct from capitalism — a qualitatively different and superior way of organizing the core metabolic processes of society's production and reproduction. Diverse models of systemic socialism have been debated. These vary widely in their conceptions of organization — from highly central to completely decentralized; and in the mode of regulation envisioned — from entirely quantitative to reliant on qualitative political relations. It is now high time to search for the connections among the various models, in the interest of convergence toward an inclusive and rigorous scientific foundation for democratic advance and ever-greater fulfillment of human potential. The proposed model, “Multilevel Democratic Iterative Coordination” (MDIC), offers the best prospects for synthesis and progress in the envisioning of systemic socialism.

Systemic Socialism: A Model of the Models

Cyclical Growth and Intersectoral Dynamics

In recent decades various operational models of a socialist economy have been put forward in the English-language literature. One of these -Multilevel Democratic Iterative Coordination (MDIC) - attempts a synthesis of central and decentral forms of organization, and also of quantitative and qualitative/political modes of regulation. The MDIC model proposes an iterative planning system, unique roles for the central level, a sophisticated measure of enterprise performance, a reward function that rewards both ambitious planning and realistic plan fulfillment, and progressive development of democratic and participatory qualities at all levels and in all regulation contexts. With an outline of these features in tow, the model -when compared to other approaches via a ‘model of the models’ - emerges as the one with the greatest capacity to synthesize the important insights of the others. It also captures the potential that was inherent in the Soviet system, but was thwarted due to authoritarian and repressive distortions. The MDIC model, then, is also a call for recuperation of the positive elements in the Soviet experience; for embodying, critically, the achievements of the socialism of the 20th century in the project of developing visions of socialism for the 21st.

David Laibman

Papers

Technical Change and the Profit Rate

Controversies in the Theory of Surplus Value: A Comment

Systemic Socialism: A Model of the Models

Cyclical Growth and Intersectoral Dynamics

Multilevel Democratic Iterative Coordination