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The Research On The Class Theory Of The Analytical Marxism

Posted on:2011-06-12Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:Q B NieFull Text:PDF
GTID:1116360305973738Subject:Basic principles of Marxism
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The Class theory is the essential part of Marxism. In the end of 1970's, Analytical Marxism came into being in the western capitalist countries, especially in the US and UK, which stands for a tendency of combining Marxism and analytical method. Since the death of Marx, especially after 1950's, the class conditions of the capitalist countries have changed greatly, which arouses the attention of the analytical Marxism. Some of the scholars made detailed research on Marxist class, class consciousness and class struggle as well as the class conditions of the modern developed capitalist countries through the methods of logical analysis and economical analysis, as well as the theory of rational choice and the game theory. They also made lots of empirical researches and provided us with new thoughts for our understanding of Marxist class theory as well as rich material for our understanding of the class conditions in the modern developed capitalist countries. However, there exist some problems of misunderstanding or deforming Marxism in their research process. At present, many scholars have studied the class theory of the analytical Marxism, but we still need to work harder in entire research and interdisciplinary studies.On the base of the systematic research of Marxist especially Marx's and Engels'class theory from class, class consciousness and class struggle dimensions, the author studies the Analytical Marxist research of class, class consciousness and class struggle. On defining class, G. A. Cohen put forward the structural definition of class. John Roemer raised a exploitation-centered class concept by the game theory and denied the labour theory of value through the modern Economics. Eric Olin Wright revised Roemer's research, and raised the contradictory location within class relations to describe the middle-class, and put forward a general analytic frame of class through three dimensiones——asserts in the means of production, organization asserts and skill asserts, Jon Elster proposed a general definition, in terms of endowments and behavior. On class structure, Wright did a lot of empirical studies on the class structure of the developed capitalist countries. Philippe Van Parijs researched the unemployment. On class consciousness, Elster provided the micro-foundations to the formulation of class consciousness through the rational choice theory and the game theory, Wright researched the situation of the class consciousness of the developed capitalist countries. On class struggle, Elster differed the class struggle and the social conflict, Daniel E. Little attempted to provide the micro-foundations to the collective action,Adam Prezeworski and Wright studied the class compromise. Adam Prezeworski thought that the wage-earners'pursuit of their material interests wouldn't necessarily lead them to opt for socialism and the class compromise may reduce the economic militancy. Wright believed that the growth of the associational power of the working class can benefit the material interests of capitalists. The positive class compromise is beneficial to both the working class and the capitalist-class at the present time.In the end of this dissertation, the author makes a comparison between Marxism and Analytical Marxism and finds that there are some misunderstandings and deformations of Marxist methodology in Analytical Marxism. So materialist dialectics is the basic Marxist method. When we analyse and deal with the class question in China at present, we should insist the Marxist class theory and absorb the reasonable elements in Analytical Marxism as well.
Keywords/Search Tags:Analytical Marxism, Class Struggle, Class Compromise
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