Category Archives: Marxism

Hegemony à la Raymond Williams

Posted on April 30, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Williams, Raymond. 1977. Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Ch. 6] Williams claims hegemony goes beyond both conceptions of “culture” and “ideology”: for culture, because of “its insistence on relating the ‘whole social process’ to specific distributions of power … Continue reading →

Posted in Antonio Gramsci, Hegemony, Marxism, Power | Comments Off

The Poverty of Theory Debate

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Thompson, E.P. 1978. “Poverty of Theory or An Orrery of Errors” Anderson, Perry. 1980. Arguments Within English Marxism. London: Verso. Is there any polemic more biting in its wit, rigor and distaste than E.P. Thompson’s (EP) “Poverty of Theory”? Today, … Continue reading →

Posted in Critique, Historical Materialism, Marxism, Political Economy, Power, The State | 2 Comments

Soja’s Postmodern Geographies

Posted on April 24, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Soja, Edward W. 1989. Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory. London: Verso. [Ch 1-3] I learned a lot from this book. Reading about Marxism and geography feels a bit like peering into a family album. Ed … Continue reading →

Posted in David Harvey, Dialectics, Henri Lefebvre, Historical Materialism, Marxism, Michel Foucault, Spatiality | Comments Off

Spaces of Capital

Posted on April 23, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Harvey, David. 2001. Spaces of Capital: Towards a Critical Geography. New York: Routledge. [Chapters from Part II]. Geography of Capitalist Accumulation (1975) In this first chapter, we can see Harvey beginning to develop much of what later becomes central aspects … Continue reading →

Posted in David Harvey, GWF Hegel, Historical Materialism, Karl Marx, Marxism, Political Economy, Primitive Accumulation, Spatiality, The State | 3 Comments

The Spatial Fix Revisited

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Harvey defines his notion of the “spatial fix” in terms of the junky that needs a “fix,” but that fix is entirely fleeting and never satiates the junky’s need for smack, or in this case capitalist expansion. The resolution is … Continue reading →

Posted in David Harvey, Historical Materialism, Marxism, Political Economy, Spatiality | 2 Comments

Uneven Development

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Smith, Neil. 1990. Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. The basic argument and premise of the book is that “the uneven development of capitalism can be best conceived as resulting from … Continue reading →

Posted in Marxism, Political Economy, Spatiality | 2 Comments

Spaces of Global Capitalism

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Harvey, David. 2006. Spaces of Global Capitalism. London: Verso. Harvey’s book is a collection of two lectures and an essay. The first lecture is mainly about how neoliberalism was constituted as a class project, and how it played out in … Continue reading →

Posted in David Harvey, Karl Marx, Marxism, Political Economy, Primitive Accumulation, Spatiality | Comments Off

The Production of Space

Posted on February 19, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

After having just finished Capital (Vol. I), Henri Lefebvre’s The Production of Space makes so much more sense than the first time a read it. (Though hugely insightful, it’s still a total slog to read.) The reasons behind my understanding … Continue reading →

Posted in Dialectics, Hegemony, Henri Lefebvre, Karl Marx, Marxism, Political Economy, Power, Spatiality, The State | 5 Comments

Hegemony and the Philosophy of Praxis

Posted on February 16, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

After reading Antonio Santucci’s short political biography on Gramsci and after re-reading some of the Prison Notebooks (edited and translated by J. Buttigieg), I want to offer a reading of the relation and significance of “hegemony” within what Gramsci conceives … Continue reading →

Posted in Antonio Gramsci, Dialectics, Hegemony, Historical Materialism, Marxism, The State | 2 Comments

Violence of Abstraction

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Sayer, Derek. 1987. The Violence of Abstraction. Oxford: Blackwell. Sayer is clearly having a big argument with Althusserians and others who side with conceptual approaches that speak of levels and/or superstructures and base. His first goal is to convince us … Continue reading →

Posted in Marxism, Political Economy, The State | 2 Comments