BritCrits: Subversion and submission,past, present and future

This article explores some of the intellectual influences which have shaped the development of Critical Legal Studies in Britain and the contexts in which these influences made themselves felt. It then considers which influences might or should steer Critical Legal Studies in the future. In terms of the past, specific attention is given to the influence of Marxism, Freud and Lacan, feminism, Foucault and Derrida, and recent genres of history-writing. As to the future, the question is asked whether Critical Legal Studies will engage constructively with recent developments in the life sciences and the philosophy of science, and, more generally, whether it will be able to surpass its established mooring in the philosophy of history. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

马克思主义意识形态理论的新发展

马克思主义意识形态理论是我国新时期社会主义意识形态建设的根本指针,它统领着中国特色社会主义发展的方向和目标.科学发展观是马克思主义中国化的新成果,是马克思主义意识形态理论在当代中国的崭新创造.科学发展观初步形成了我国社会主义意识形态理论的新体系,呈现出传承性与创新性相统一、系统性与协调性相衔接、层次性与开放性相关照、人民性与统领性相结合等鲜明特点,是马克思主义意识形态理论和我国社会主流意识形态的新发展.     

马克思主义法律思想中国化研究论纲——写在《现代法学》首任主编黎国智教授80寿辰之际

推动马克思主义的中国化,把握社会主义法治理念,弘扬法治精神,应当认真研究马克思主义法律思想的中国化。在国外,马克思主义法律思想研究已经上升到了一个新台阶;在中国,通过多年马克思主义法律思想研究的铺垫,已经具备了更进一步研究的坚实基础。但是,马克思主义法律思想中国化研究必须有独特的思路、完善的内容设计,并应该考虑到新世纪新阶段马克思主义法律思想中国化面临的新机遇和新挑战。     

“三个代表“:马克思主义中国化的新成果

江泽民同志“三个代表”重要思想是对马克思主义唯物史观的继承和发展,又是结合中国当前实际情况,对毛泽东思想、邓小平理论的继承和发展。“三个代表”思想,凸显党的先进性的新理念,科学阐明了面向新世纪党的建设的基本问题,是马克思主义中国化的最新理论成果。     

“马克思主义中国化”命题析论

马克思主义中国化就是用马克思主义来解决中国的问题,同时又使中国丰富的实践经验上升为理论,并且与中国的优秀文化相结合,以形成具有中国特色、中国风格和中国气派的马克思主义理论。     

坚持和巩固马克思主义指导思想的一元化——兼论西方“普世价值”观的本质

近年来,国内外某些人鼓吹和宣扬的以民主、自由、人权等为主要内容的“普世价值”观,实际上是资产阶级在当今世界实行西化、和平演变和“颜色革命”的工具。社会主义社会是高度重视和发展民主、自由、人权的社会;坚持和完善社会主义民主、自由、人权,是中国特色社会主义发展的重要任务。在社会意识形态领域中,必须毫不动摇地坚持马克思主义指导思想的一元化。     

马克思主义的发展是继承与创新的统一

对马克思主义理论的继承不应是教条的简单照搬,科学的继承应是发展创新的继承;理论的创新发展必须要坚持马克思主义的基本原则,并以马克思主义为基础;马克思主义的发展,是继承和创新的统一,不断发展变化着的实践需要用发展着的马克思主义来指导。     

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

This article critiques Open Marxism for an ontology which totalises human social practice—for Open Marxists, capitalist social relations are the singular constitutive source of human activity. Such a stance is superficially attractive yet ultimately inadequate, and I reinforce my case by demonstrating how other critical approaches—in this article, Foucauldian perspectives on power—suffer from similar deficiencies. Thus there is a need to resist the temptation of claiming to know how human social practice can be understood with recourse to a singular aspect (no matter how important) of such practice. I conclude that an excellent example of how to avoid such pitfalls is provided by Antonio Gramsci's writings, for they acknowledge the multifaceted yet nevertheless anchored existence lived by humans in capitalist societies.     

Rents,knowledge and neo-structuralism: transforming the productive matrix in Ecuador

This paper explores the relationship between ground rent, production and knowledge in Ecuador’s neo-structuralist, state-led project to transform the productive matrix. Based upon insights from the Marxian approach to the critique of political economy, we interrogate how neo-structuralism has conceptualised the relationship between ‘natural resource income’ and ‘knowledge-based’ economic development. The paper argues that a rent-theoretical perspective, which takes seriously the regional unfolding of uneven geographical development in Latin America, can highlight the limits of a national development plan conceived according to the logic of Schumpeterian efficiency. In doing so, the paper identifies the contradictory relationship between natural resource exports, state-led ‘knowledge’-based development and capital accumulation. On this basis the paper offers a historically and empirically informed critical analysis of selective import substitution industrialisation and vanguard science and technology strategies designed to transition Ecuador away from primary resource dependence.     

Why economics needs to be distinguished from physics,and why economists need to talk to physicists: a response to Foster and Holleman

Foster and Holleman argue that the systems ecologist H.T. Odum offered a valid theoretical framework for conceptualizing ecologically unequal exchange, and demonstrate its affinity with the Marxian theory of unequal exchange of embodied labour. However, both approaches suffer from the same fundamental confusion of the biophysical and the economic. The affinity between labour and energy theories of the unequal exchange of value was demonstrated by S.C. Lonergan already in 1988, but to thus define asymmetric transfers of biophysical resources in terms of underpaid ‘use values’ is misleading. Foster's recent endorsement of Odum is inconsistent with his earlier rejection of Odum's intellectual ancestor S. Podolinsky. While the ambition to ecologize Marx is laudable, it is in the interests of correct historiography and contemporary environmental justice activism to untangle some of the analytical problems in Foster and Holleman's article. A major problem is their failure to acknowledge the implications of N. Georgescu-Roegen's conceptualization of the relation between economics and thermodynamics.