Is Historical Materialism a Deterministic Approach? The Democratic Firm and the Transition to Socialism

Abstract

Determinism is considered to be the doctrine teaching that a particular aspect or part of the social whole has a predominating influence on all the others. Several authors hold that economic determinism reflects the idea of a linear causality, i.e. of direct relations between a paramount economic cause and the effects that passively flow from it. Due to this linear notion of causality—they argue—the economic base is the necessary and, in itself, sufficient cause, whereas the super-structure is stripped of its autonomous role and production relations are the direct offshoot of the prevailing state of technology. In fact, this conception is typical of mechanistic, rather than Marxian, materialism, and as it tends to obliterate the role of super-structural factors, it is unable to account for the rise of existing forms of society and their different characteristics. The author’s arguments against the characterization of historical materialism as a deterministic approach are linked to his claim that socialism can be implemented by creating a system of democratically managed firms. JEL classification: P2, P5, D4, B14

Causation, historiographic approaches and the investigation of serious adverse incidents in mental health settings

“…It appeared to Engels that the concept of cause and effect is so bound to the individual case that in the process of generalising from that case it loses its wider explanatory utility (Engels, 2001) because, even if events appear to occur twice, they do so under different sets of conditions which must be treated from different points of view (Groopman, 1982). Historical materialism, on the other hand, looks for the ‘ ultimate cause and great moving power of all important historic events in the economic development of society ’, through examining the modes of production, group division into classes and the consequent struggles motivated by competing interests (Engels, 2001; Jossa, 2018). Because the ideas of the approach have wider explanatory utility, historical materialism offers an effective framework for understanding complex events (Groopman, 1982; Hobsbawm, 1968).…”

Digitalisierung und Demokratisierung. Betriebliche Mitbestimmung im Spannungsfeld zwischen Individuierung, Kontrolle und Emanzipation

“…Jossa befasst sich aus unterschiedlichen Blickwinkeln mit dem demokratischen Unternehmen. Einerseits sieht er es als die moderne Form des Sozialismus an und argumentiert so gegen Determinismusvorwürfe bei Marx' historischem Materialismus (Jossa 2016). Jossa schlägt vor, demokratische Unternehmen zur Ergänzung marxistischer Theoriestücke heranzuziehen.…”

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“…For science and the university generally, any hint of Marxism courts wild accusations of bias or ideology, as the late Stephen J. Gould learned, for example (Lau, 2017). Within leftist academia, dialectics is overly simplified or misconstrued (see Jossa, 2018;Paolucci, 2007) or ossified into rigid laws (as in self-avowed socialist institutions, see Sheehan, 1985). Detractors of Marxism stereotype dialectical materialism as formulaic (thesis, antithesis, synthesis) or deterministic (e.g., Ettlinger, 2011), or dismiss it through tendentious or baseless arguments (e.g., Bunge, 1981: 41-63;Popper, 2002).…”