‘global Marxists’
Instructions: Submit a 1-2 page summary/outline of your 5-7pg final paper. This should include a list of the papers you intend to reference (at least 2), a thesis (the claim you intend to argue for), and a brief outline or summary of what you intend to bring to bear in favor of your thesis.
The purpose of this is to get you started thinking about your final paper well ahead of time. You will not be held too strictly to what is put in the topic, as I expect that your minds might change as you work through the relevant papers and arguments again more thoroughly. You will have to submit a revised topic if you drastically change direction, however.
You have two options. First, you can pick one of the topics from the previous short papers, including one you have already used in a short paper. If you do this, indicate which topic you have selected, and how you intend to argue for the thesis you will defend/expand your prior argument from the short paper. Second, pick one of the topics listed below from the last parts of class and do the same (state thesis, and outline your argument for it).
New Paper Topics:
1. 1) Pick one of the ‘global Marxists’ we read in class (MN Roy, Mao Tse-tung, Frantz Fanon, Che Guevara). Examine the ways in which they adopted and the ways in which they revised the orthodox Marxist theory we discussed in the first part of the class. What did they add and what did they keep from this picture when discussing on-the-ground tactics for organizing? (E.G. Did they stick to the two-class analysis or discuss the need to understand multiple classes? Do they adhere to the economic determinism some attribute to Marx? How do they understand the relationship between colonialism and capitalism and how does that affect their understanding of exploitation and social change?)
2. 2) Both Lise Vogel and Elizabeth Anderson express concerns with the Marxist analysis of labor, thinking that it over-emphasizes labor in the public/economic sphere to the exclusion of forms of labor in the private family sphere that has historically largely been the domain of women. How do these arguments and reimaginings of the concept of labor impact the broader Marxists critique of capitalism? Do they hold up today?
3. 3) Both Carol Gould and Elizabeth Anderson address ways in which our current (United States) society can be adapted in ways that make it more in line with the demands of justice pointed out by socialist critiques of capitalism. Their methods and emphasis, however, differ. How do the democratization efforts of Gould relate to the modernization of the critique of capitalism found in Elisabeth Anderson? Are these two positions compatible, in all ways? In some ways? Which approach do you find more interesting/persuasive as a means of making progress now, before or instead of revolutionary change?
