The philosophy of dialectic has always been among the most controversial and least well understood aspects of Hegelian and Marxist thought. It is rejected by many writers who are otherwise sympathetic to Marxism. One such is Marquit. In a recent article (Marquit, 1990), he criticizes the dialectical concept of contradiction. Many of his arguments will be familiar to anyone acquainted with the r...

Many criticisms have been raised against historical materialism, both from outside of the Marxist tradition and from within. Some of these I engage in the sections from my book Reconstructing Marxism assigned for this session. What I will do here is briefly list five criticisms. Some of these can be countered fairly effectively, others are more serious. I will not discuss all of these in detail...

This essay aims to how Marx’s ideas and subsequent Marxist-inspired scholarship have contributed to the analysis of the various forms of work organization. It summarizes Marx’s basic philosophy, theory of history, and critique of political economy; it distinguishes more critical and more optimistic variants of Marxist theory; and it then shows how these ideas have been used in the analysis of k...