Marxism

First published in 1995 in France: Section One, “The Historical Balance Sheet” includes chapters on: communist movements throughout history; Marx and Engels and communism; “Real” vs. “Formal” domination of capital and the importance of this distinction for understanding the failure of the old workers movements (capitalism was not “obsolete” prior to 1945). Section Two, “Perspectives”, contains an extensive discussion of: the economic roots of capitalism’s current crisis (the “final stage of its cycle”); the communist revolution; and socialism.

A brief biography of Andrzej Stawar, the Polish literary critic who broke with Stalinism in the 1930s but remained an independent Marxist. The biography is an excerpt from the introduction to Stawar’s collected works, Pisma ostatnie (published posthumously in 1961), and was translated for the journal New Politics.

An English translation of a lecture given at a meeting of the General Economics Section of the Institute for Economics, Moscow, by I.I. Rubin in May and June 1927. First published in 'Pod Znamenem Marksizma', 1927; source: 'Capital and Class' #5, Summer 1978; translated: by Kathleen Gilbert; transcribed: by Andrew Chitty.

In order to read Marx afresh, previous interpretations of Marx need to be corrected. In particular, that which sees money and credit as surface phenomena, based on Marx's naturalistic understanding of value as being inherent in a commodity. This strand of Marxism overlooks the contemporary role played by credit in the reproduction of capital. Published 21 December 2009.