Virtual Issue: Articles during Times of Crisis 2020

Rethinking Marxism: Open Access Articles during the Times of Crisis

A silver lining to the devastating pandemic is the widespread critical thinking it has spurred around the world about the unsustainability of capitalism. For over three decades Rethinking Marxism has been contributing to that critical thinking through its unique class perspective, including during periods when capitalism proved itself defiantly resilient and triumphant. Whether Covid-19 —coupled with the recent insurrection against racial injustice— will deal a deadly blow to the hegemony of capitalism is very much uncertain. While the ongoing global health crisis has amply demonstrated the social, economic, and ecological harms and vulnerabilities of capitalism, it cannot be taken for granted that this exposure will translate to post- / anti-capitalist desires and politics unless the diagnosis is made accurately and the viability of alternatives --historical, current or prospective-- are defended persuasively. Therefore, it is more urgent than ever to disseminate Marxian reflections on how we ended up here and how we can transcend it. It is against the backdrop of this unique conjuncture that Rethinking Marxism is making 40 articles from its archives open access. Articles will be released in four clusters of 10 articles, with each cluster available for free viewing and download for one month in the following order: 1) Pedagogies and Micropolitics of Mutual Aid; 2) Economic and Cultural Politics of Communism; 3) Poverty, Welfare and Class; 4) Ecological Crisis and Postcapitalist Politics.

In the first set of articles from the journal’s archives, we focus on the Pedagogies & Micropolitics of Mutual Aid. We are witnessing a surge of grassroots initiatives organized around the theme of mutual aid. Here is a significant body of scholarship that has accumulated in Rethinking Marxism over the years on this challenging and equally urgent theoretical and practical work of keeping collectives going. (Available through June 2020)

• Fernanda Navarro (1998) A New Way of Thinking in Action: The Zapatistas in Mexico—A Postmodern Guerrilla Movement?, Rethinking Marxism, 10:4, 155-165, DOI:10.1080/08935699808685558
• Ken Byrne (1999) Communist School, Rethinking Marxism, 11:1, 99-113, DOI: 10.1080/08935699908685568
• Maliha Safri (2011) Worker Cooperatives: A Class Analysis, Rethinking Marxism, 23:3, 329-333, DOI: 10.1080/08935696.2011.583001
• David F. Ruccio (2011) Cooperatives, Surplus, and the Social, Rethinking Marxism, 23:3, 334-340, DOI: 10.1080/08935696.2011.583002
• Emily Brissette (2013) Prefiguring the Realm of Freedom at Occupy Oakland, Rethinking Marxism, 25:2, 218-227, DOI: 10.1080/08935696.2013.769357
• Jesal Kapadia & Brian McCarthy (2013) Song Delays, or the A B C of Pedagogy, Rethinking Marxism, 26:1, 15-25, DOI: 10.1080/08935696.2014.857840
• Esra Erdem (2014) Reading Foucault with Gibson-Graham: The Political Economy of “Other Spaces” in Berlin, Rethinking Marxism, 26:1, 61-75, DOI:10.1080/08935696.2014.857845
• Chizu Sato (2014) Toward Transnational Feminist Literacy Practices, Rethinking Marxism, 26:1, 44-60, DOI: 10.1080/08935696.2014.857843
• The Pedagogy Group (2014) Listening, Thinking, and Acting Together, Rethinking Marxism, 26:3, 414-426, DOI: 10.1080/08935696.2014.917847
• Boone W. Shear (2020) From Worker Self-Directed Enterprise Analysis to Solidarity Economy Movement, Rethinking Marxism, 32:1, 125-135, DOI: 10.1080/08935696.2019.1694291

In the second installment of our open access campaign, we turn our attention to Economic & Cultural Politics of Communism. Here we share a number of essays (and a conversation) on how the communist axiom of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need” can provide much needed fresh perspectives on the organization, production and reproduction of life. (Available in July 2020)

• Ernesto Screpanti (2004) Freedom and social goods: rethinking Marx’s Theory of Communism, Rethinking Marxism, 16:2, 185-206, DOI: 10.1080/08935690410001676230
• Serap Ayşe Kayatekin & S. Charusheela (2004) Recovering Feudal Subjectivities, Rethinking Marxism, 16:4, 377-396, DOI: 10.1080/0893569042000270870
• Yahya M. Madra (2006) Questions of Communism: Ethics, Ontology, Subjectivity, Rethinking Marxism, 18:2, 205-224, DOI: 10.1080/08935690600579115
• Richard D. Wolff (2007) Why Communism?, Rethinking Marxism, 19:3, 322-336, DOI: 10.1080/08935690701412745
• Kojin Karatani (2008) Beyond Capital-Nation-State, Rethinking Marxism, 20:4, 569-595, DOI: 10.1080/08935690802299447
• Antonio Callari & David F. Ruccio (2010) Rethinking Socialism: Community, Democracy, and Social Agency, Rethinking Marxism, 22:3, 403-419, DOI:10.1080/08935696.2010.490395
• Anna Curcio & Ceren Özselçuk (2010) On the Common, Universality, and Communism: A Conversation between Étienne Balibar and Antonio Negri, Rethinking Marxism, 22:3, 312-328, DOI: 10.1080/08935696.2010.490356
• Jack Amariglio (2010) Subjectivity, Class, and Marx's “Forms of the Commune”, Rethinking Marxism, 22:3, 329-344, DOI: 10.1080/08935696.2010.490357
• Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (2014) General Strike, Rethinking Marxism, 26:1, 9-14, DOI: 10.1080/08935696.2014.857839
• Stephen Healy (2015) Communism as a Mode of Life, Rethinking Marxism, 27:3, 343-356, DOI: 10.1080/08935696.2015.1044358

The third set of articles we are pleased to share revolve around the theme of Poverty, Welfare & Class. Including a contribution that dates back to the very first volume of the journal in 1988, these articles analyze different faces of capitalism (Clintonism, corporate liberalism, authoritarian neoliberalism, imperialism) and various forms of deprivation they have inflicted on the masses (health care crisis, homelessness, poverty, the AIDS epidemic). (Available in August 2020)

• Jim Stormes (1988) The Poor in the United States: A Class-Analytic Approach, Rethinking Marxism, 1:2, 76-102, DOI: 10.1080/08935698808657802
• David Wojnarowicz & Félix Guattari (1990) In the Shadow of Forward Motion, Rethinking Marxism,3:1, 75-84, DOI: 10.1080/08935699008657902
• Michael Hillard & Richard McIntyre (1991) A Kinder, Gentler Capitalism? Resurgent Corporate Liberalism in the Age of Bush, Rethinking Marxism, 4:1, 104-114, DOI:10.1080/08935699108657956
• Nancy Fraser (1993) Clintonism, Welfare, and the Antisocial Wage: The Emergence of a Neoliberal Political Imaginary, Rethinking Marxism, 6:1, 9-23, DOI: 10.1080/08935699308658040
• Cindy Patton (1996) Queer Space/God's Space: Counting Down to the Apocalypse, Rethinking Marxism, 9:2, 1-23, DOI: 10.1080/08935699608685485
• Anjan Chakrabarti, Stephen Cullenberg & Anup Kumar Dhar (2008) Rethinking Poverty: Class and Ethical Dimensions of Poverty Eradication, Rethinking Marxism, 20:4, 673-687, DOI: 10.1080/08935690802299751
• Antonio Callari (2008) Imperialism and the Rhetoric of Democracy in the Age of Wall Street, Rethinking Marxism, 20:4, 700-709, DOI: 10.1080/08935690802299918
• Stephen Resnick & Richard Wolff (2010) The Economic Crisis: A Marxian Interpretation, Rethinking Marxism, 22:2, 170-186, DOI: 10.1080/08935691003625182
• Vincent Lyon-Callo (2012) Homelessness or the Violence of Poverty and Exploitation: Does It Matter?, Rethinking Marxism, 24:2, 215-220, DOI:10.1080/08935696.2012.657435
• Ian Bruff (2013) The Rise of Authoritarian Neoliberalism, Rethinking Marxism, 26:1, DOI: 10.1080/08935696.2013.843250

The theme cutting across the fourth and final set of articles we are glad to make public access is Ecological Crisis & Postcapitalist Politics. Covid-19 is both a symptom of humanity’s unfettered encroachment on the environment and a prefiguration of a doomsday associated with climate change. It is against this backdrop that we invite you to explore these articles on the relationship between ecological crisis and capitalism as well as the strategies to move beyond this deadlock. (Available in September 2020)

• Blair Sandler (1994) Grow or Die: Marxist Theories of Capitalism and the Environment, Rethinking Marxism, 7:2, 38-57, DOI: 10.1080/08935699408658097
• Andriana Vlachou (2000) The economics of global warming: A critical assessment, Rethinking Marxism, 12:4, 90-116, DOI: 10.1080/08935690009359026
• Norman Geras (2002) The Ideal of Multivious Care (Utopia and Inequality), Rethinking Marxism, 14:1, 1-7, DOI: 10.1080/089356902101242017
• Deborah Cook (2006) Staying Alive: Adorno and Habermas on Self-Preservation under Late Capitalism, Rethinking Marxism, 18:3, 433-447, DOI:10.1080/08935690600748173
• Gerda Roelvink (2013) Rethinking Species-Being in the Anthropocene, Rethinking Marxism, 25:1, 52-69, DOI: 10.1080/08935696.2012.654700
• J. K. Gibson-Graham (2014) Being the Revolution, or, How to Live in a “More-Than-Capitalist” World Threatened with Extinction, Rethinking Marxism, 26:1, 76-94, DOI:10.1080/08935696.2014.857847
• Stephen Healy (2016) Saint Francis in Climate-Changing Times: Form of Life, the Highest Poverty, and Postcapitalist Politics, Rethinking Marxism, 28:3-4, 367-384, DOI:10.1080/08935696.2016.1243422
• Rhyall Gordon (2016) Radical Openings: Hegemony and the Everyday Politics of Community Economies, Rethinking Marxism, 28:1, 73-90, DOI:10.1080/08935696.2015.1123007
• Mathieu Dubeau (2018) Reclaiming Species-Being: Toward an Interspecies Historical Materialism, Rethinking Marxism, 30:2,186-207, DOI: 10.1080/08935696.2018.1502307
• Andreas Malm (2018) Marx on Steam: From the Optimism of Progress to the Pessimism of Power, Rethinking Marxism, 30:2, 166-185, DOI:10.1080/08935696.2017.1417085