(German for "New Reading of Marx") or NML is a revival and interpretation of
Karl Marx
Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
's
critique of political economy
Critique of political economy or simply the first critique of economy is a form of social critique that rejects the conventional ways of distributing resources. The critique also rejects what its advocates believe are unrealistic axioms, flawe ...
, which originated during the mid-1960s in both
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
and
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...
social democratic
Social democracy is a Social philosophy, social, Economic ideology, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports Democracy, political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achi ...
interpretations of Marx. covers a loose group of authors primarily from German-speaking countries who reject certain historicizing and empiricist interpretations of Marx's analysis of economic forms, many of which are argued to spring from
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels" ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ;"Engels" ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. The term has been used since around 1997 and comes from work by Hans-Georg Backhaus. Other names for this inner-Marxist trend include (
Neo-Marxism
Neo-Marxism is a collection of Marxist schools of thought originating from 20th-century approaches to amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory, typically by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions such as critical theory, psy ...
), (Critical Marxism), (Capital Logic), (Hegel Marxism) or (Marxism as a Social Science).
The school of thought is influenced especially the work of the early Soviet thinkers
Evgeny Pashukanis
Evgeny Bronislavovich Pashukanis (Russian: Евгений Брониславович Пашуканис; Lithuanian: ''Eugenijus Pašukanis''; 23 February 1891 – 4 September 1937) was a Soviet and Lithuanian legal scholar, best known for his ...
and
Isaak Illich Rubin
Isaak Illich Rubin (Russian language, Russian: Исаак Ильич Рубин; 12 June 1886 – 27 November 1937) was a Soviet Union, Soviet lawyer, Marxian economics , economist and scholar of Marx's work. His most important published work ...
, as well as the critical theory of
Theodor Adorno
Theodor is a masculine given name. It is a German form of Theodore. It is also a variant of Teodor.
List of people with the given name Theodor
* Theodor Adorno, (1903–1969), German philosopher
* Theodor Aman, Romanian painter
* Theodor Blue ...
. traces the origins of the school of thought to the 1960s, with the works of Helmut Reichelt and Hans-Georg Backhaus in the 1970s and 1980s, and the writings of
Michael Heinrich
Michael Heinrich (born 1957) is a German historian of philosophy and political scientist, specialising in the critical study of the development of Karl Marx's thought. Heinrich's work, influenced by Elmar Altvater and the Neue Marx-Lektüre of ...
in the 1990s being of high importance, and consequently produced at the turn of the millennium a partly academic, partly off-academic debate concerning the question of value. These authors depart in a number of respects from the traditional reading of Marx related to the
workers' movement
The labour movement is the collective organisation of Working class, working people to further their shared political and economic interests. It consists of the trade union or labour union movement, as well as political parties of labour. It ca ...
state socialism
State socialism is a political and economic ideology within the socialist movement that advocates state ownership of the means of production. This is intended either as a temporary measure, or as a characteristic of socialism in the transition ...
.
The rejects
* Pre-monetary theories of value, which "share the idea of an initial stage of generalized exchange without money, and have in common a historical reading of the form of value." NML claims instead that "Marx wanted to show that it was not possible to construct a non-contradictory concept of a pre-monetary market economy organized on the basis of the division of labour. The concept of a pre-monetary commodity cannot be thought."
* Conceptions of the state as a manipulative instrument of a ruling class. Instead, the ( state derivation debate) has an understanding of the state as a structurally necessary, but relatively separated part of capitalism.
* Determinist theories of history which lead to the anticipation of a revolution to be accomplished by the proletariat. In opposition to this idea, capital is considered as an "automatic subject", which exists in a sham as well in a real form.
Thus, the authors of the contrast themselves from the dominant
neoclassical school of economics
Neoclassical economics is an approach to economics in which the production, consumption, and valuation (pricing) of goods and services are observed as driven by the supply and demand model. According to this line of thought, the value of a goo ...
and maintain the relevance of Marx's approach. In particular, they insist that the microeconomic approaches of the neoclassic theory of economy can't explain the constitution, maintenance and dynamics of the economic value-relations, and can only exhibit insufficient theoretical means when it comes to macro-economic constructs such as e.g. the
gross national income
The gross national income (GNI), previously known as gross national product (GNP), is the total amount of factor incomes earned by the residents of a country. It is equal to gross domestic product (GDP), plus factor incomes received from ...
. They claim that Marx, although unable to answer these questions, nevertheless provides a higher degree of reflection and awareness of the problems, which has to be recovered in a critical manner for the contemporary discussion.
See also
*
Critique of political economy
Critique of political economy or simply the first critique of economy is a form of social critique that rejects the conventional ways of distributing resources. The critique also rejects what its advocates believe are unrealistic axioms, flawe ...
Neo-Marxism
Neo-Marxism is a collection of Marxist schools of thought originating from 20th-century approaches to amend or extend Marxism and Marxist theory, typically by incorporating elements from other intellectual traditions such as critical theory, psy ...
Value-form
The value-form or form of value (''"Wertform"'' in German) is an important concept in Karl Marx's critique of political economy, discussed in the first chapter of ''Capital, Volume 1''. It refers to the ''social form'' of tradeable things as un ...
*
Western Marxism
Western Marxism is a current of Marxist theory that arose from Western and Central Europe in the aftermath of the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the ascent of Leninism. The term denotes a loose collection of theorists who advanced an i ...
* ,
* Sotiropoulos, Dimitris P., Milios J. ''Political economy of contemporary capitalism and its crisis: demystifying finance''.
Routledge
Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...
, 2015.
* Heinrich, Michael, and Alexander Locascio. ''An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx's Capital''. Monthly Review P, 2012.
German
* Ingo Elbe: ''Marx im Westen. Die neue Marx-Lektüre in der Bundesrepublik seit 1965'', Berlin 2008,
* sample table of contents and introduction (33 pages pdf)
* Hendrik Wallat: ''Theoriegeschichte der neuen Marx-Lektüre'', review of ''Marx im Westen'' (10 pages pdf)
* Michael Heinrich: ''Wie das Marxsche Kapital lesen?'', Schmetterling Verlag, 1st edition 2008
* Michael Heinrich: "Die Wissenschaft vom Wert: Die Marxsche Kritik der politischen Ökonomie zwischen wissenschaftlicher Revolution und klassischer Tradition"
* Michael Heinrich:''Kritik der politischen Ökonomie – Eine Einführung'', Schmetterling Verlag, 3rd edition 2005
* Hanno Pahl: Das Geld in der modernen Wirtschaft. Marx und Luhmann im Vergleich, Frankfurt 2008,
* Jan Hoff, Alexis Petrioli, Ingo Stützle, Frieder Otto Wolf (Hrsg.): ''Das Kapital neu lesen. Beiträge zur radikalen Philosophie'', Westfälisches Dampfboot, Münster 2006, ,
* sample with table of contents, introduction and epilog (34 pages pdf)
* Wolfgang Fritz Haug: ''Die »Neue Kapital-Lektüre« der monetären Werttheorie'', review of ''Das Kapital neu Lesen'' (15 pages pdf)
* Lars Meyer: ''Absoluter Wert und allgemeiner Wille. Zur Selbstbegründung dialektischer Gesellschaftstheorie'', Bielefeld 2005, .
* Joachim Hirsch:''Der Staat der Bürgerlichen Gesellschaft: Zum Staatsverständnis von Karl Marx'', Frankfurt 2008,
* Christine Kirchhoff, Hanno Pahl, Christoph Engemann, Judith Heckel, Lars Meyer (Hg.): ''Gesellschaft als Verkehrung. Perspektiven einer neuen Marx-Lektüre. Festschrift für Helmut Reichelt'', Freiburg 2004, .
* Jan Hoff: ''Kritik der klassischen politischen Ökonomie. Zur Rezeption der werttheoretischen Ansätze ökonomischer Klassiker durch Karl Marx'', Cologne 2004, .
* Dieter Wolf: Kritische Theorie und Kritik der politischen Ökonomie. Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit Schriften von Hans-Georg Backhaus und Helmut Reichelt. In: Dieter Wolf, Heinz Paragenings: ''Zur Konfusion des Wertbegriffs. Beiträge zur „Kapital“-Diskussion'', Argument Verlag, Hamburg 2004, (Berliner Verein zur Förderung der MEGA-Edition e.V., Wissenschaftliche Mitteilungen Heft 3)
* Dieter Wolf: Zur Methode in Marx’ „Kapital“ unter besonderer Berücksichtigung ihres logisch-systematischen Charakters. Zum Methodenstreit zwischen Wolfgang Fritz Haug und Michael Heinrich. In: Ingo Elbe, Tobias Reichardt, Dieter Wolf: Gesellschaftliche Praxis und ihre wissenschaftliche Darstellung. Beiträge zur Kapital-Diskussion. Wissenschaftliche Mitteilungen. Heft 6. Argument Verlag, Hamburg, 2008. Hrsg.: Carl-Erich Vollgraf, Richard Sperl & Rolf Hecker.