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Different But Not Exceptional: The Feminism of Permeable Fordism
“This article does not take the usual form of a political or academic intervention. It is an essay in intellectual autobiography. Such an effort is, of course, different from the history of ideas—the recounting of ‘debates’ and descriptions of other theorists’ trajectories—which constitutes one of the staples of . . .” read more
The Revenge of the Past: Socialism and Ethnic Conflict in Transcaucasia
“At the beginning of the twentieth century, when Social Democrats agonized over the emerging ‘national question’, Russian Marxists sought at one and the same time to win allies among the non-Russian nationalities and to combat the project of the nationalists to splinter the unitary state. Secure in their . . .” read more
Trade Unionism in the USA
“These are difficult days for the labour movement in the United States, and the situation is even worse for the radical labour movement. Trade-union membership in the non-farm labour force has declined from over 30 per cent in the early 1950s to about 17 per cent today. The . . .” read more
International Competition in Historical Materialism
“Classical expositions of historical materialism have presented the process of transition from one social form to another as endogenously generated. But Marxists have not been unaware of the facts of the diffusion of both technical and scientific knowledge, on the one hand, and political institutions and social structures . . .” read more
Third World Industrialization: 'Global Fordism' or a New Model?
“From the 1960s to the 1970s, industrial output in almost all Third World countries grew rapidly. Growth was especially fast in a subset of developing countries that can be called ‘late industrializers’, countries which industrialized without the competitive asset of being able to monopolize an original technology. Late . . .” read more
Western Economic Diplomacy and the New Eastern Europe
“Hobbes once remarked that if you are forced at gunpoint to go through a door, you are still free to go through it: you can be forced and be free. For most of us today this is a perversity that smacks of Stalinism. But what if someone throws . . .” read more
The Ends of Cold War
“While I sympathize with Fred Halliday’s intentions in his article on ‘The Ends of Cold War’, I must disagree sharply both with its method and execution. No doubt he has been trapped by the pressure to make instant commentary (his lecture on the events of October to December . . .” read more
The Decline of Social-Democratic State Capitalism in Norway
“Norway has, together with Sweden, often been idealized as the most successful case of postwar social democracy. Indeed, in economic terms the achievements are even more striking than those of its larger neighbour. Beginning the century on the agrarian fringe of European capitalism, Norway has been transformed into . . .” read more
Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America
“Two years ago, a sports announcer in the United States lost his job because he enlarged indiscreetly—that is, before a television audience—upon his views about ‘racial’ differences. Asked why there are so few black coaches in basketball, Jimmy ‘the Greek’ Snyder remarked that black athletes already hold an . . .” read more
Murder and Progress in Modern Siam
“In 1983, one of the biggest box-office hits in Siam was a remarkable film entitled Mue Puen. English-language advertisements translated this title as ‘The Gunman’, but an alternative, probably better, translation would be ‘The Gunmen’. For the director invited his audiences to contemplate the contrast between two hired . . .” read more
Perestroika from Below: The Soviet Miners' Strike and Its Aftermath
“In the wave of social activism that has washed over the Soviet Union in recent years, the strike by some 400,000 coal miners in the summer of 1989 may be the most poorly understood of events. Inter-ethnic conflict in the Caucasus, the movements toward independence in the Baltic, . . .” read more
Representations of Difference: The Varieties of French Feminism
“As so many other theories originating in Paris in the postwar years, ‘French feminism’ enjoys a high profile in the international marketplace of ideas. Psychoanalytic and linguistic theories, celebrations of ‘difference’, the conjunction of the sexual and the symbolic, essentialism presented in the terms of poststructuralism, all appear . . .” read more
'Cambodia Will Never Disappear'
“In addition to pride in a unique greatness, most expressions of nationalism contain a fear of extinction. The idea that the national essence might be lost or the national culture swamped is a common one, whether this is perceived as a danger posed by the threat of conquest, . . .” read more
America: Post-Modernity?
“Fredric Jameson understands the presence of [the] sedimented historical tradition when he argues that all works of popular culture have utopian dimensions that enable them to critique contemporary power relations. But even Jameson relegates the historical work of popular culture to a ‘political unconscious’, an uncomprehending desire to . . .” read more
Narrative, Geography and Interpretation
“Whenever a great intellectual and moral presence like Raymond Williams suddenly disappears from his habitual place among us it is natural at first to restore him by various ceremonies and activites of commemoration. The sense of loss and bereavement that was felt immediately after Williams’s death in 1988 . . .” read more
Unjust Taxation and Popular Resistance
“Historical materialism as a concept for understanding society, past, present and future, is under constant examination, by its adherents as much as by its opponents. Some of these discussions are stimulating, intellectually exciting and perhaps even useful for the definition of political strategies. Much space has been occupied . . .” read more
Farewell to Thatcherism? Neo-Liberalism and 'New Times'
“There can be no doubt that the Thatcher government over the last year or so has encountered a crisis of public confidence: some even believe the end of Thatcherism is nigh. Signs of impending doom were already discerned in June 1989 when the Conservative party suffered its first . . .” read more
Gorbachev’s Socialism in Historical Perspective
“Perhaps one, or several, of the present or future leaders of Soviet communism may develop the will, the courage and the political ability eventually to break through the tangle of obstacles, to revitalize the forces of liberty without stimulating them to the point where they would exhaust themselves . . .” read more
Soviet Power Today
“I would like to begin by asking you about Gorbachev’s political development. Whatever happens in the future, he has become someone considerably more important in the history of the Soviet Union, and the history of the world, than Khrushchev. When did this qualitative change in his role take . . .” read more
The Polish Laboratory
“Warsaw. Wednesday December 7th. The eighth anniversary of martial law approaches. Foul-smelling fog blankets the city. The battered Russian-made taxi which fetches me from the airport clatters down potholed roads. Rows of grey apartment blocks stand guard, frozen, expressionless. Trams whirr and clang through street crowds. Fur-capped shoppers . . .” read more
America in the 1960s
“Last year’s anniversary of 1968, the high-water mark of the 1960s student radicalization, can only partly explain the outpouring of books by participants in the events. I suspect that most of these had been thinking about writing a book on the 1960s for some time, and that the . . .” read more
The Debt Problem, European Integration and the New Phase of World Crisis
“The market crash of October 1987 and the tremor of 1989 both prompted speculation that some replay of the 1929 crisis was in prospect. When the markets recovered, a cry of relief went up: ‘The Crisis Is Over’. But in reality the crisis has persisted now for more . . .” read more
The Importance of Being Marxist
“I hope that the almost Wildean title of my lecture is not misleading. I intend to be totally serious. If there is a place for irony in today’s talk, then it is as one of those ‘ironies of history’ about which Isaac Deutscher wrote so prophetically. I have . . .” read more
Reflections on the Crisis of Communist Regimes
“The massacre in Tiananmen Square last June is unlikely to be the last violent expression of the deep and multiple crises—economic, social, political, ethnic, ideological, moral—which grip many Communist regimes, and which will in due course most probably grip them all. A vast ‘mutation’ is going on throughout . . .” read more
Hillsborough, 15 April 1989: Some Personal Contemplations
“When news of the Hillsborough disaster began to reach me, I was still living in Ottawa, Canada—only two weeks before returning to take up an academic position in England. A phone call from a Canadian relative giving the bare outline of the events was followed by ever more . . .” read more
Hungary’s Socialist Project in Crisis
“By the early summer of 1989 Hungary had become a de facto multi-party system, albeit still within a one-party structure. Numerous political forces operated openly, experiencing minimal official harassment, with meaningful if unequal access to the media. Virtually all significant actors, including the reform wing of the Hungarian . . .” read more
Gramsci and Marxism in Britain
“Outside Italy, nowhere more than in Britain have Gramsci’s writings exercised so prolonged, deep or diversified an influence. Some of this has been channelled through the academic disciplines of history, political science and cultural studies, but much of it has worked directly upon the theory and practice of . . .” read more
The Nazi State: An Exceptional State?
“Any discussion of the character of an ‘exceptional’ state must presumably begin with a notion of what categorizes a state as ‘normal’. My own starting assumption is to accept Max Weber’s concept of the state: ‘an administrative and legal order subject to change by legislation . . . . . .” read more
Revolutionary Unevenness in Central America
“James Dunkerley’s Power in the Isthmus ranks together with recent books by Weeks and Bulmer-Thomas as one of the best English-language works on Central America. He presents a broad, successful and systematic analysis of a huge bibliography, especially of materials published in the region, and aptly combines the . . .” read more
Beyond 1992: The Left and Europe
“The wave of publicity in preparation for the broad internal market of 1992 has struck a powerful chord throughout Western Europe, including in a traditionally introverted country such as Britain where opinion polls suggest that large sections of the population are considerably more enthusiastic than their government about . . .” read more
Between Bad Times and Better
“A familiar question in the Age of Reagan—when would the us Left revive once more?—had become by the last years of his regime the source of deep defeatism or, at least, nagging doubt. So much time had passed since the rise of the Women’s Liberation Movement, itself . . .” read more
The Politics of Post-Fordism: Or, The Trouble with 'New Times'
“The ‘post-Fordist’ hypothesis concerning the development of a new ‘mode of regulation’ of modern capitalism is a fertile and important one. It was developed, following Gramsci’s key early understanding of the significance of mass production and consumption, by Michel Aglietta and other members of the ‘regulation school’ in . . .” read more
Yugoslavia: The Spectre of Balkanization
“No amount of anti-communist propaganda can obscure the fact that, since 1945, Yugoslavia has by and large been governed with the consent of its peoples. Equally, no amount of official piety can hide the fact that the League of Communists (lcy) has held power only by virtue . . .” read more
The Cost of Neo-Liberal Europe
“Throughout the present decade, neo-liberal economic strategies—interacting with intense competitive pressures on world markets—have sought to remodel the capitalisms of Western Europe. In the context of mass unemployment the drive towards a renewed subordination of workforces has found unity and direction in the demand for labour flexibility, while . . .” read more
Corporate Reconstruction and Business Unionism: The Lessons of Caterpillar and Ford
“Technological determinism has recently emerged as the favoured theme of those who seek to challenge the centrality of class politics within the British labour movement. This somewhat uncharacteristic perspective is used to argue that new production technologies are directly creating a new political environment. Production processes, it is . . .” read more
Taking Monarchism Seriously
“The institution of monarchy presents one of the most glaring paradoxes of British society and British history. It is a monarchy unique in the developed capitalist world in remaining unmodernized, undemocratized and utterly mystified. Elsewhere, in Scandinavia and the Netherlands, the institution survives as a kind of hereditary . . .” read more
Frankenstein Monsters
“The poetry and prose of the Romantics (Richard Holmes writes in Shelley: The Pursuit) was born of a ‘disturbed and excited political period . . . which flashes up through the years towards our own’. Certainly, we have come a long way since 1789. And yet there are . . .” read more
Farewell to the Classic Labour Movement?
“A hundred and twenty-five years after Lassalle, and a hundred years after the founding of the Second International, the socialist and labour parties are at a loss as to where they are going. Wherever socialists meet they ask one another gloomily about the future of our movements. I . . .” read more
The Abortive Abertura: South Korea in the Light of Latin American Experience
“I wish in this essay to peer through the Latin American looking glass, or abertura, to see what light may be shed on the ongoing struggle to democratize the South Korean political system. In Latin America the richest literature on the problems and prospects of democratization emerged along . . .” read more
Poetry and Politics: A Conversation with Stuart Hood
“Erich Fried was not only a distinguished and prolific poet—he said once in a characteristic phrase that he wrote poems the way rabbits have babies—but a novelist, essayist and translator of Shakespeare, Dylan Thomas and Eliot. These achievements have been recognized throughout Europe but are only now . . .” read more
Roberto Unger and the Politics of Empowerment
“The largest industrial power of the Southern hemisphere has recently completed one of the most protracted and divisive processes of constitution-making in modern history. The fruits of nineteen months of labour by the Constituent Assembly of Brazil have already aroused violent reactions. ‘Clauses on employment worthy of Cuba, . . .” read more
Cuba and Southern Africa
“After eight months of talks in Geneva between Angola, Cuba, South Africa and the United States, 1988 is drawing to a close with the distinct possibility that Pretoria may have been forced to end ten years of procrastination and redraw its regional strategy in such a way as . . .” read more
The Jackson Moment
“Jesse Jackson woke up on November ninth to find himself the leader of the largest and most powerful political party in the Western capitalist world, and the front-runner for its Presidential nomination in 1992. It is an unwonted and unexpected role. The black Baptist preacher and Chicago community . . .” read more
The New Class Basis of Chilean Politics
“In the plebiscite held in Chile in October 1988, the attention of the international press focused overwhelmingly on the exposed position of the ageing head of the dictatorship, Augusto Pinochet. For the new power bloc, however, comprising the armed forces, the capitalist class, bankers and technocrats, the primary . . .” read more
Commercial Capital and British Development: A Reply to Michael Barratt Brown
“Despite their overtly historical nature, Anderson and Nairn’s essays on British development were profoundly theoretical. The identification of British ‘peculiarity’ or ‘exceptionalism’ involved a challenge not only to Marx and Engels’s commentaries on the times in which they lived, but also to the general Marxist theory of capitalist . . .” read more
Mothers in the Fatherland
“In spring 1987, a political document caused a stir in the Federal Republic of Germany: the Mothers’ Manifesto produced by a section of women in the Green Party. Some passed on to the business of the day with a feeling of kindly satisfaction—there was no longer much to . . .” read more