Contemporary articles citing Marx K (1973) Grundrisse

studies, drawing, marx's, issues, labor, central, difference, ways, critical, importance

York, Richard & Philip Mancus. 2009. "Critical Human Ecology: Historical Materialism and Natural Laws." Sociological Theory. 27:2 122-149. Link

We lay the foundations for a critical human ecology (CHE) that combines the strengths of the biophysical human ecology tradition in environmental sociology with those of historical materialism. We show the strengths of a critically informed human ecology by addressing four key meta-theoretical issues: materialist versus idealist approaches in the social sciences, dialectical versus reductionist analyses, the respective importance of historical and ahistorical causal explanations, and the difference between structural and functional interpretations of phenomena. CHE breaks with the idealism of Western Marxism, which dominated academic neo-Marxist thought in the latter half of the 20th century, and advocates instead the pursuit of a materialist, scientific methodology in dialectical perspective for the explanation of social and ecological change. In turn, this project also involves a critique of the ahistorical and functionalist tendencies of traditional human ecology, while sharing human ecology's basic starting point: the ecological embeddedness of human societies.

Steinmetz, G. 2004. "Odious Comparisons: Incommensurability, the Case Study, and ``small N's'' in Sociology." Sociological Theory. 22:3 371-400. Link

Case studies and ``small-N comparisons'' have been attacked from two directions, positivist and incommensurabilist. At the same time, some authors have defended small-N comparisons as allowing qualitative researchers to attain a degree of scientificity, yet they also have rejected the case study as merely ``idiographic.'' Practitioners of the case study sometimes agree with these critics, disavowing all claims to scientificity. A related set of disagreements concerns the role and nature of social theory in sociology, which sometimes is described as useless and parasitic and other times as evolving in splendid isolation from empirical research. These three forms of sociological activity-comparative analysis, studies of individual cases, and social theory-are defended here from the standpoint of critical realism. In this article I first reconstruct, in very broad strokes, the dominant epistemological and ontological framework of postwar U.S. sociology. The next two sections discuss several positivist and incommensurabilist criticisms of comparison and case studies. The last two sections propose an understanding of comparison as operating along two dimensions, events and structures, and offer an illustration of the difference and relationship between the two.

Sites, W. 2000. "Primitive Globalization? State and Locale in Neoliberal Global Engagement." Sociological Theory. 18:1 121-144. Link

Drawing widely from sociology, political science, and urban studies, this article introduces the term ``primitive globalization'' in order to address issues of state and governance for localities that globalize within a national context. Suggested by the discusssion of primitive accumulation in Marx's Capital, this conceptual frame highlights the ways in which states neither circumvented by globalization nor resistant to it may facilitate neoliberal globalization by ``separating'' or disembedding social actors from conditions that otherwise impede short-term economic activity. This conception, which is considered primarily in relation to the United States, positions the state as both facilitator and victim of globalization, draws attention to state fragmentation and national politics, and places the role of the national state in the local state at the center of unstable linkages. It is suggested that under these conditions the national/local state may be caught between the roles of government and governance; for this reason, as well as others, contemporary globalization remains transitional.

Moore, JW. 2003. "The Modern World-system as Environmental History? Ecology and the Rise of Capitalism." Theory and Society. 32:3 307-377. Link

This article considers the emergence of world environmental history as a rapidly growing but undertheorized research field. Taking as its central problematic the gap between the fertile theorizations of environmentally-oriented social scientists and the empirically rich studies of world environmental historians, the article argues for a synthesis of theory and history in the study of longue duree socio-ecological change. This argument proceeds in three steps. First, I offer an ecological reading of Immanuel Wallerstein's The Modern World-System. Wallerstein's handling of the ecological dimensions of the transition from feudalism to capitalism is suggestive of a new approach to world environmental history. Second, I contend that Wallerstein's theoretical insights may be effectively complemented by drawing on Marxist notions of value and above all the concept of ``metabolic rift,'' which emphasize the importance of productive processes and regional divisions of labor within the modern world-system. Finally, I develop these theoretical discussions in a short environmental history of the two great ``commodity frontiers'' of early capitalism - the sugar plantation and the silver mining complex.

Moore, JW. 2003. "The Modern World-system as Environmental History? Ecology and the Rise of Capitalism." Theory and Society. 32:3 307-377. Link

This article considers the emergence of world environmental history as a rapidly growing but undertheorized research field. Taking as its central problematic the gap between the fertile theorizations of environmentally-oriented social scientists and the empirically rich studies of world environmental historians, the article argues for a synthesis of theory and history in the study of longue duree socio-ecological change. This argument proceeds in three steps. First, I offer an ecological reading of Immanuel Wallerstein's The Modern World-System. Wallerstein's handling of the ecological dimensions of the transition from feudalism to capitalism is suggestive of a new approach to world environmental history. Second, I contend that Wallerstein's theoretical insights may be effectively complemented by drawing on Marxist notions of value and above all the concept of ``metabolic rift,'' which emphasize the importance of productive processes and regional divisions of labor within the modern world-system. Finally, I develop these theoretical discussions in a short environmental history of the two great ``commodity frontiers'' of early capitalism - the sugar plantation and the silver mining complex.

Steinberg, Marc. 2010. "Marx, Formal Subsumption and the Law." Theory and Society. 39:2 173-202. Link

Recent work rethinking the place of the law in Marxian analysis of capitalist society provides us with a foundation for a renewed look at the labor process. Drawing on this literature, which emphasizes the materiality of institutions through which labor is exploited, and returning to Marx's discussion of formal subsumption in Capital, I argue that the law was central for subordinating labor. I then present three case studies from industries in Victorian England to demonstrate the diverse ways in which law was implicated in formal subsumption. The case studies focus on the ways in which capitalists used master and servant law, the key law governing the workplace, to subordinate labor. I conclude by considering how these cases provoke us to consider the materiality of the law in labor relations more broadly, and such questions might be pursued in developing capitalist economies such as China.