Capital & Class

This piece overviews Stuart Hall’s contribution to Marxism and to the left, and argues that whilst there were significant problems with the manifestation of Marxism Today, his work on hegemonic renewal holds great relevance in a left that is today in crisis. Paradoxically, it suggests that the spirit of the Bennite democratic socialism project of the early 1980s, which was critiqued at the time by Hall and Marxism Today, is currently closer to the kind of coherence required for the left to establish a hegemonic alternative to contemporary neoliberalism.

This piece presents an overview of Stuart Hall’s contribution from both a personal and an intellectual standpoint. It surveys the development of his work and influence in the areas of cultural studies and social studies, providing a critical overview of his political arguments.

In Policing the Crisis, Stuart Hall et al. (1978) explored the calculus of work and the trope around portraying certain categories of people as taking advantage of the majority, without evidence. The concept of work became abstracted so that it was longer about employment, but about conformity with certain norms. The moralising discourse of work as a moral duty, also as connected to citizenship, underpins debates on immigration. Politicians and reporters, or ‘moral entrepreneurs’, vacillate between labelling immigrants as the lumpenproletariat, paupers and servants, and delegitimise the chance for immigrant groups to achieve class identity. The attempted removal of class identity is a dangerous defence of unfreedoms.

Social media-led mass movements have dominated news headlines in recent times. The success stories of the Occupy movements, anti-globalisation demonstrations in the West, mass protests at Tahrir Square in Cairo and Taksim Square in Istanbul, demonstrations against sexual harassment in Delhi and the Shahbag Square uprising in Dhaka all underpin the fact that in both developed and developing societies, social media can potentially play an important role in organising large scale socio-political events. This ‘Behind the News’ article reflects on and analyses the recent ‘social-media-led’ political eruptions in two developing countries, Egypt and Bangladesh.

The power and influence of trade unionism in telecommunications, state government employment and municipal bus services are examined in Gujarat, an Indian state ruled by the Hindu nationalist, pro-big business Bharatiya Janata Party. We identify significant examples of resilience in unions critical of the BJP, alongside conflicts of interest and challenges for pro-BJP unions. These are somewhat surprising findings in a context expected to be hostile to class-based trade unionism, suggesting an important pole of ongoing, organised labour opposition to Gujarat’s perceived political hegemony, and posing some wider issues. In the interim between the writing and publishing of this article, the BJP won India’s 2014 general election.

This article draws on Gallagher and Robinson (1953) and combines their concepts with insights offered by, amongst others, Callinicos, Eagleton and Harvey, in order to demonstrate continuities between British and US imperialism. They include the willingness of states to engage in imperial action (despite public statements of anti-imperial sentiment); the use of formal and informal control to secure the frontiers of a state’s expanding economy; and the operation of imperialism through collaboration. In order to avoid the problems of earlier Marxist-Leninist interpretations of British imperialism, and in order to extend the analysis, the concepts of ideology, elites and neoliberalism are applied.

This article aims to bring to the surface the philosophical background of Georg Lukács’s democratic theory by investigating his philosophy of dialectics in depth. It presents an innovative interpretation of his understanding of the role of the general committee of the Communist Party in the transition to socialism, and his support of Stalinism. Its aim is to investigate, in a far more rigorous way than has been done before, the relation of his theory of dialectics to the Frankfurt School’s theory of dialectics. Thus, for the first time in the literature, Lukács’s understanding of the role of the party is analysed by relating it to Max Horkheimer’s understanding of the role of the traditional intellectual.

Alcohol use in the UK has been a key concern to both the Labour and Coalition governments, and commands considerable attention in the media and academic discussions. This article analyses how recent government policy discussions have defined particular forms of drinking as problematic, and how these definitions and associated policy initiatives can be seen as part of a wider symbolic economy through which people come to be valued differently, incorporating ideas of economic, cultural and social capital. Therefore, I argue that government policies and discussions of drinking are a key way in which class is constituted in contemporary Britain.