Archive for the 'Marxism' Category

Can you be a Marxist and an environmentalist?

Here’s an idle thought. A Marxist is committed to the overcoming of capitalism. This isn’t going to happen any time soon. The world’s rainforests have a high chance of being destroyed by 2060. So if you want to save the rainforests you have to advocate for the modification of capitalism rather than its overthrow; namely, that rainforests be given a higher monetary value as they exist than as the raw materials and products that deforestation produces. (Possible objection: that this modification would spell the end of capitalism. Possible but unlikely). I know this uses market mechanisms to overcome political problems but maybe that’s the best chance we have at the moment.

Is Althusser an anarchist?

Owing to my extreme ignorance about anarchism and Althusser, can anyone tell me if Althusser is an anarchist? When he says the State and all its apparatuses should be destroyed (p.15 of the Verso 2008 edition of On Ideology) does he think a Marxist or socialist society wouldn’t need a state? And does he think in that society that there would be no need for the violence and repression involved in States now?

thanks.


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