The Totalisation of Human Social Practice: Open Marxists and Capitalist Social Relations, Foucauldians and Power Relations

Bruff, Ian

doi:10.1111/j.1467-856x.2009.00366.x

Cited by 29 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 69 publications

(144 reference statements)

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“…The position has been criticised for a tendency to ‘project a “totalising” theory, rooted in central organising principles, capable of accounting for the myriad of contradictory forms of relations between capital, the state and labour’ (Bieler and Morton 2003, 473). Ian Bruff (2009, 337) likewise argues that ‘Open Marxism's ontology totalises human social practice by way of its focus on capitalist social relations’, and notes that the assumption that capitalist social relations are constituted of essential properties means that ‘the epistemological modesty proclaimed by Open Marxists ... is in fact an assertion of epistemological austerity ’ (Bruff 2009, 337, emphasis in original).…”

Section: The State and The Politics Of Depoliticisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Social Contract to ‘Social Contrick’: The Depoliticisation of Economic Policy-Making under Harold Wilson, 1974–75

Rogers

2009

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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The 1974-79 Labour Governments were elected on the basis of an agreement with the TUC promising a redistribution of income and wealth known as the Social Contract. However, the Government immediately began to marginalise these commitments in favour of preferences for incomes policy and public expenditure cuts, which has led the Social Contract to be described as the "Social Contrick". These changes were legitimised through a process of depoliticisation, and using an Open Marxist framework and evidence from the National Archives, the paper will show that the Treasury"s exchange rate strategy and the need to secure external finance placed issues of confidence at the centre of political debate, allowing the Government to argue there was no alternative to the introduction of incomes policy and the reduction of public expenditure. IntroductionIt is a common conception that a depreciating currency reflects a lack of market confidence in the sustainability of a nation"s economic policy, and disciplines Governments by forcing them to adopt policies to restore faith.However, a depreciating currency can also offer political opportunities for Governments when it is desired for reasons of industrial competitiveness and attributed to market forces, by placing issues of confidence and credibility at the centre of political debate. The need to stabilise exchange rates, and for countries in deficit as Britain was in the 1970s, the need to secure external finance, can therefore help to justify deflationary counter-inflationary and fiscal policies, because market logic acts as a buttress between the Government and the consequences of unpopular policy changes.The idea that the 1974-79 Labour Government was engaged in the politics of depoliticisation has often been asserted with reference to the 1976 IMF crisis (see Clarke, 1988, 314-5; Holloway, 1995, 128; Bonefeld and Burnham 1998, 41), however the intention of this paper is to demonstrate that this was not an isolated example of depoliticisation that occurred during a moment of acute crisis. Rather, it is possible to demonstrate that the events in the autumn and winter of 1976 were the logical extension of the Labour Government"s statecraft that had been pursued since as early as December 1974. By using an Open Marxist framework of analysis and evidence from the National Archives, this paper will demonstrate how the Government used issues of credibility and confidence in order to shape domestic political preferences by encouraging perceptions of crisis, firstly in the foreign exchange markets, and secondly in external financing.Firstly, a return to incomes policy was justified by citing pressure on the sterling rate, which was attributed to a lack of confidence in the Government"s counter 3 inflationary credibility, despite the fact that it was favoured by the Treasury to help improve industrial competitiveness, and was allowed to occur, if not actually engineered, by a passive intervention strategy in the foreign exchanges when sterling came under pressure. Secondly,...

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Section: The State and The Politics Of Depoliticisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Social Contract to ‘Social Contrick’: The Depoliticisation of Economic Policy-Making under Harold Wilson, 1974–75

Rogers

2009

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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“…On this basis a further criticism is derived (Bruff 2009a(Bruff , 2009bBieler at al. 2010) that OM rejects transhistorical qualities of human existence.…”

Section: The Structural-functionalist Account Of the State And Determmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting the debate on open Marxist perspectives

Dönmez¹,

Sutton

2016

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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“…could be protected and consolidated. What follows is both a more concrete and pragmatic approach, one that overcomes the fact that, so problematic to Holloway's theory, once the state is reduced in theoretical terms to a mere form of capital its historical specificity is lost and thus so too are the insights of how one should engage with it (McNaughton 2009, p.7;Bruff 2009;Foran 2012).…”

Section: Institutionalisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Occupy: ‘Struggles for the common’ or an ‘anti-politics of dignity’? Reflections on Hardt and Negri and John Holloway

Harrison

2016

Capital & Class

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This article provides a critical examination of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri's and John Holloway's theory of revolutionary subjectivity, and does so by applying their theories to the Occupy movement of 2011. Its central argument is that one should avoid collapsing 'autonomist' and 'open' Marxism, for whilst both approaches share Tronti's (1979) insistence on the constituent role of class struggle, and also share an emphasis on a prefigurative politics which engages a non-hierarchical and highly participatory politics, there nevertheless remain some significant differences between their approaches. Ultimately, when applied to Occupy Movement whilst their theory isn't entirely unproblematic, I will argue that Hardt and Negri's 'autonomist' approach offers the stronger interpretation, due mainly to their revised historical materialism.

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The Totalisation of Human Social Practice: Open Marxists and Capitalist Social Relations, Foucauldians and Power Relations

Cited by 29 publications

References 69 publications

From Social Contract to ‘Social Contrick’: The Depoliticisation of Economic Policy-Making under Harold Wilson, 1974–75

From Social Contract to ‘Social Contrick’: The Depoliticisation of Economic Policy-Making under Harold Wilson, 1974–75

Revisiting the debate on open Marxist perspectives

Occupy: ‘Struggles for the common’ or an ‘anti-politics of dignity’? Reflections on Hardt and Negri and John Holloway

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