Critique of political economy

Iñigo Carrera, J. (2014a). The Historical Determination of the Capitalist Mode of Production and of the Working Class as the Revolutionary Subject. Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory, 42(4), 555–572

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ABSTRACT Prominent Marxist theoreticians conceive the working class as a revolutionary subject based on moral or ethical superiority, a natural will for freedom, self-valorization, the need to avoid barbarism, etc. From a materialist viewpoint, human history consists of the transformation of the material conditions of social life through labor. Capitalism is the historically specific development … Read more

Cazón, F., Kennedy, D., & Lastra, F. (2016). Las condiciones de reproducción de fuerza de trabajo como forma de la especificidad de la acumulación de capital en Argentina: evidencias concretas desde mediados de los ’70 [Reproduction conditions of labour power as form of the specificity of capital accumulation in Argentina: concrete evidences since the 1970´s]. Trabajo y sociedad, (27), 305–327.

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ABSTRACT This article is framed in the debate regarding the relationship between the differentiation of labor power’s conditions of reproduction and the characteristics of the productive structure in Latin America. We analyze the evolution of this relationship in Argentina, by recognizing the specificity of this country in the global capital accumulation. Firstly, we describe the form in which the … Read more

Hirsch, D., & Rio, V. (2015). Teorías de la reproducción y teorías de la resistencia: una revisión del debate pedagógico desde la perspectiva materialista [Theories of reproduction and resistance: a review of the educational debate from the materialist perspective]. Foro de Educación, 13(18), 69–91.

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ABSTRACT

The question of whether school is a place for social transformation or not is a central issue to modern educational thought, particularly in the last decades of the twentieth century. «Theories of resistance» of the 80’s and 90’s aimed to show the transformative potential of schooling through the development of a critical pedagogy, in clear response to the so called «theories of reproduction», which in the 70›had denounced the role played by school in capitalism. This article aims to make a review of this discussion and, particularly, the antagonistic form in which it has been developed, from a materialist perspective. To that end, main classics of both group of theories will be analyzed identifying that, although they seem antagonist, they coincide on one central point: the belief that capitalist social relations are imposed externally to the subject, to a supposal free subjectivity. While «theories of reproduction» argue that such domination can only be faced through class struggle, which can only be given outside school, «theories of resistance» argue that struggle may be developedin the ideological sphere within schooling. The premise of this article is that such external imposition is an appearance product of the alienated character of our consciousness, and does not allow to analyze that social relations, far from being imposed to our free will, are developed by us to organize social work. To transcend these appearances, a process of recognition of the general determinations of education in capitalism will be developed, in order to enable us to overcome a binary logic between reproduction and transformation, and think social transformation as part of the process of social organization itself.

Keywords: Schooling; Capitalist society; Social change; Critical pedagogy; Materialism.

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Caligaris, G. (2016a). La historia de la controversia marxista sobre la determinación del trabajo complejo en la producción de valor [The history of Marxist controversy over the determination of complex labour in the production of value]. Critica Marxista, (43), 45–65.

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ABSTRACT The solution provided by Marx to the question of ‘complex work’ in the explanation of the commodities’ value has been the subject of much controversy. However, almost a century and a half of debate, neither Marxists nor critics of Marx have managed to agree on its meaning and, even worse, among Marxists there is … Read more

Caligaris, G., & Starosta, G. (2017). Determinación actual e historia en la génesis del dinero. Una aproximación metodológica a la controversia sobre el carácter mercantil de la forma dineraria. En R. Escorcia Romo & M. L. Robles Báez (Eds.), Dinero y capital. Hacia una reconstrucción de la teoría del dinero de Marx (pp. 123–157). México: ITACA / UAM.

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ABSTRACT En este trabajo se discute la explicación de la naturaleza del dinero ofrecida por Marx desde un punto de vista metodológico. En particular, se examina la cuestión haciendo foco en el vínculo que tienen el desarrollo sistemático y el análisis histórico en la exposición dialéctica. Para ello, se toma como punto de partida el … Read more