Телеграм канал «Политическая теория и философия (Political theory and philosophy)»

Ashley Dawson - Capitalism’s ‘Metabolic Rift’

Kohei Saito’s new book offers a compelling account of Marx’s development as an ecosocialist thinker.

As its title suggests, Capital from Zero is intended for readers with little to no experience with key concepts from Marx’s work. It is therefore written in a manner likely to engage young people, making it a perfect tool for teaching in schools, universities, and popular assemblies. Saito’s discussion of Marx’s distinction between use value and exchange value exemplifies this sly accessibility. As Marx famously argued, commodities have two faces: a use value for people who have material needs for clothing, shelter, and so on, and an exchange value for the capitalists who strive to sell commodities to consumers. Under capitalism, Saito writes, the key issue is how much money can be made from things, rather than whether they are useful. He illustrates his point by explaining that bubble tea shops are popping up everywhere not because everyone needs bubble tea but because selling the stuff can make money. But this drive to commodify human needs leads to fundamental contradictions. We should all want comfortable and durable clothes made from sustainable fabric, for the good of our wallets as well as the planet. Saito observes that “fast fashion,” however, does not fulfill these needs but instead “fills our closets with clothes made as cheaply as possible with no regard for environmental costs.” In this example, use value is severed from exchange value, and the latter comes to predominate to the point that people end up with hundreds of pairs of expensive sneakers, hoodies, jeans, and other clothes, all of which are produced from fabric grown using toxic chemicals on parched land in the nations of the Global South and then sewn together under horrendous sweatshop conditions, only to be tossed aside after being worn for the brief season they are in vogue.

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/kohei-saito-capital-from-zero/

John Abromeit - Jürgen Habermas’s Image Of The United States As A Model Of “Modernity”: From Attachment To Melancholy

To return now to Habermas’s idealized image of the U.S. as the beacon of liberal democracy, it is perhaps not surprising that Donald Trump’s election in 2016 and re-election in 2024 seemed to put Habermas in a pessimistic mood. Habermas was certainly not alone in that sentiment, but his consternation must have been compounded by the fact that Donald Trump’s authoritarian political movement is so egregiously at odds with his own “normative” image of U.S. liberal democracy. Here, the contrast with the early Critical Theorists, who lived in the United States for over a decade, and carried out extensive empirical studies of authoritarianism here, was quite clear. The empirical studies conducted by the Institute in the 1940s led them to the conclusion that the U.S. was by no means immune to the powerful subjective and objective tendencies towards authoritarianism and fascism, which existed in all modern capitalist societies. In fact, Adorno came to view the U.S. as a “radical bourgeois society,”which provide perhaps the best possible laboratory for the study of such tendencies. Adorno and – to an even greater degree – Horkheimer developed a greater appreciation of U.S. democracy thanks to their “American experience,”but it did not lead them to forget the dangerous tendencies towards authoritarianism that continued to exist in modern capitalist societies, even after the military defeat of fascism.

https://logosjournal.com/article/jurgen-habermass-image-of-the-united-states-as-a-model-of-modernity-from-attachment-to-melancholy/

Marx W. Wartofsky - Feuerbach

Feuerbach is now recognized as a central figure in the history of nineteenth-century thought. He was one of Hegel's most influential pupils: he dominated German radical philosophy in the 1840s and was the leader of the Young Hegelians; his 'anthropological' critique of Hegel's idealism decisively influences the materialism and humanism of Marx and Engels; his critique of religion pointed the way for the philosophers of religion; and his psychological analyses found a place in Freudian thought and the existential and phenomenological traditions. In this 1977 text, Professor Wartofsky wishes to go beyond this conventional view to establish Feuerbach as much more than a transitional figure between Hegel and Marx or an influence on important later developments. He seriously considers Feuerbach's philosophy on its own terms and seeks to demonstrate its continuing importance. He therefore traces Feuerbach's development in detail, emphasizing its dialectical character, and finds fundamental originality in his epistemology.

Bernard Harcourt - Michel Foucault, prison and abolitionism

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ2ShNTRUOU&pp=iggCQAE%3D&ra=m

Д.Б. Тев - Региональный депутатский корпус КПРФ: динамика каналов рекрутирования

Статья посвящена изучению динамики каналов рекрутирования регионального депутатского корпуса КПРФ. Эмпирической основой исследования послужили две биографические базы данных, включающие сведения о депутатах фракций коммунистов в законодательных органах субъектов РФ по состоянию на январь 2011 и май 2025 г.

Проведенный анализ позволил автору сделать ряд выводов. Во-первых, укорененность депутатов КПРФ в политической номенклатуре советского общества существенно ослабла, что во многом обусловлено естественным выбыванием старых кадров. Во-вторых, одной из важнейших тенденций стала возросшая распространенность среди депутатов законодательного опыта на региональном и местном уровнях, что, вероятно, связано с партизацией соответствующих выборов и легислатур (напротив, доля депутатов, ранее заседавших в Госдуме, снизилась до минимума). В-третьих, в карьерном плане для регионального законодательного корпуса КПРФ стабильно характерна довольно сильная обособленность от административной власти — роль чиновничества как прямого поставщика депутатов незначительна. В-четвертых, законодательной элите КПРФ устойчиво присуща значительная плутократизация, причем если доля прямых выходцев из бизнеса мало изменилась, то присутствие во фракциях людей с опытом работы на ключевых постах в коммерческой сфере на том или ином этапе карьеры возросло, что, по-видимому, отражает приход в легислатуры людей, сделавших карьеру в условиях рыночной экономики. В целом, хотя персональный состав фракций КПРФ обновился, некоторые важные тенденции рекрутирования демонстрируют устойчивость, свидетельствуя об институционализации законодательной элиты компартии. Вместе с тем заметны и существенные сдвиги в социально-профессиональном происхождении депутатов, обусловленные рядом факторов, включая изменение структуры политических возможностей.

http://politeia.ru/files/articles/rus/Politeia-2026-2(121)-Pages-001-208-152-174.pdf

Robert K. Merton - On the Shoulders of Giants: A Shandean Postscript

With playfulness and a large dose of wit, Robert Merton traces the origin of Newton's aphorism, "If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." Using as a model the discursive and digressive style of Sterne's Tristram Shandy, Merton presents a whimsical yet scholarly work which deals with the questions of creativity, tradition, plagiarism, the transmission of knowledge, and the concept of progress.