LABOUR-POWER-POINTS

This is a paper I presented at the recent Historical Materialism London Conference, SOAS, 2024.

Abstract:

Following a brief outline of labour-power through Marx, Ciccarelli (2021) and my own work, it is argued that the fragmentation of Marxist work on labour-power undermines what is critical for its understanding in contemporary society: the notion that labour-power is a ‘unity of the diverse’ (Marx). In Marxist theory and empirical work today, labour-power as ‘unity’, as a unified social force within humans, is sacrificed to its ‘diversity’. The result is theorisations and empirical research that split the study of labour-power into seemingly competing projects; either as arguments regarding whether the key focus should be on the social production of labour-power through education and training, or the social reproduction of labour-power through the family and domestic labour. This paper argues that labour–power is better viewed through its various diversities that constitute its unity. Each of these diversities is a spectral (but real) point in analysis of labour-power, but its unity blends the pinpointing analysis of its diversities. These labour-power diversities are social forms of its social re/production that are manifested in and through various institutions in capitalist society. In this light, the following diversities of labour-power and their institutional forms can be viewed directly through the work of Marx: the social production of labour-power (e.g. in education and training); its social reproduction 1 (e.g. through the family and domestic labour); social reproduction 2 (e.g. through state pensions, unemployment benefits); maintenance of labourers 1 (e.g. through consumption, food); maintenance of labourers 2 (e.g. through health, and mental health services). These labour-power diversities constitute a web of social forms shaping labour-power in contemporary capitalism. The paper ends by exploring some recent empirical examples illustrating how moving between the spectral points of labour–power and its diversities solidifies their unity in analysis.         

The paper is now available at:

Academia: https://www.academia.edu/124791066/Labour_Power_Points

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/384971765_LABOUR-POWER-POINTS

Glenn Rikowski

Some Thoughts on Science, Dialectics and Capital - After Luis Arboledas-Lerida

Some Thoughts on Science, Dialectics and Capital - After Luis Arboledas-Lérida

This is a critique of Luis Arboledas-Lérida's article, The Gap Between Science and Society and the Intrinsically Capitalistic Character of Science Communication—https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2022.2111670—for the Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective.

It is now online at:

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/367077773_Some_Thoughts_on_Science_Dialectics_and_Capital_-_After_Luis_Arboledas-Lerida

Academia: https://www.academia.edu/94894824/Some_Thoughts_on_Science_Dialectics_and_Capital_After_Luis_Arboledas_L%C3%A9rida

Arboledas-Lérida's article was published in 'Social Epistemology' online on 21 September. This critical review was published in Social Epistemology Review & Reply Collective on 11 January 2023.

See: https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-7uV Cite as: Rikowski, Glenn. 2023. Some Thoughts on Science, Dialectics and Capital—After Luis Arboledas-Lérida. Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 12 (1): 13-21. https://wp.me/p1Bfg0-7uV.

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski:

@ Academia: https://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

@ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn-Rikowski  

Interview with Glenn Rikowski - Marxism & Sciences

 

Interview with Glenn Rikowski – Marxism & Sciences

 

This interview is now available at:

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368654826_Interview_with_Glenn_Rikowski_-_Marxism_Sciences

Academia: https://www.academia.edu/97210925/Interview_with_Glenn_Rikowski_Marxism_and_Sciences   

 

Glenn Rikowski is interviewed by Siyaveş Azeri and Ali C. Gedik

Marxism & Sciences: A Journal of Nature, Culture, Human and Society, Volume 2 Issue 1 (2023), pp.178-184.

 

For a PDF of all of the interviews, see: https://marxismandsciences.org/interviews-rethinking-the-foundations-of-marxism-and-ilyenkovian-contributions/ and https://marxismandsciences.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/interviews_ms_230102107.pdf  

 

Volume 2 Issue 1 (2023), The Foundations of Marxism II: Ilyenkovian Contributions – see: https://marxismandsciences.org/volume-2-issue-1/  

 

Marxism & Sciences: A Journal of Nature, Culture, Human and Society – see: https://marxismandsciences.org/

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

@ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn-Rikowski

@ Academia: https://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski  

BRANDENBURG CHORAL FESTIVAL OF LONDON

                                                             London Phoenix Choir

                                       (Ruth Rikowski sings with the London Phoenix Choir)

BRANDENBURG CHOIR FESTIVAL OF LONDON

St. Stephen’s Church

Gloucester Road

London

SW7 4RL

Saturday, March 18^th 2023, 18.00 – 20.00  

 

For more details and to book tickets, see: https://www.brandenburg.org.uk/bcf-concerts/2023/1/27/brandenburg-presents-the-rodolfus-choir-m8yz2-bck6y

 

Celebration of Opera

Programme:

 

Conductor: Jeremy Haneman

Soprano: Anita Wilson

Tenor: Luis Gomes

Repetiteurs: Ashley Beauchamp and Will Gardner

 

 

Thames Opera Company

Ballad of Sweeney Todd (Sweeney Todd) – Sondheim

Salve Regina (Mefistofele) – Boito

Anvil Chorus (Il Travtore) – Verdi

 

London Phoenix Choir

Brightly Dawns Our Wedding Day (The Mikado) – Sullivan

Sailor’s Chorus (Dido and Aeneas) – Purcell

Not While I’m Around (Sweeney Todd) – Sondheim

 

(Interval)

 

Thames Opera Company

Sunday (Sunday in the Park with George) – Sondheim

Gli arredi festivi (Nabucco) – Verdi

 

Solos

Questa o quella (Rigoletto) – Verdi

The trees on the Mountains (Susannah) – Floyd

 

Thames Opera Company, London Phoenix Choir and Soloists

Chorus of the Wedding Guests (Lucia di Lammermoor) – Donizetti

Placido è il mar (Idomeneo) – Mozart

Brindisi (La traviata) – Verdi

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

@ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn-Rikowski

@ Academia: https://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

 

Mass Intellectuality of the Neoliberal State: Mass Higher Education, Public Professionalism, and State Effects in Chile

 

Mass Intellectuality of the Neoliberal State: Mass Higher education, Public Professionalism, and State Effects in Chile

A new book by Nicolas Fleet

Palgrave Macmillan, 2021

Palgrave Studies on Global Policy and Critical Futures in Education

ISBN 978-3-030-77192-8

ISBN 978-3-030-77193-5 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-77193-5

 

From the Publisher:

 

This book engages with post-Marxist views on the productive and social transformations of post-industrial societies into cognitive capitalism. It provides extensive original analysis on the political roles that intellectual labour assumes in the post-bureaucratic organisation of the neoliberal state. It invigorates debates on state theory, cognitive capitalism, and student movements in Chile and Latin America.

 

In his book, Nicolas Fleet addresses the political effects of the massification of higher education and intellectual labor in the neoliberal state. Using the case of Chile, the author argues that public professionalism emerges in the mass university system, producing excesses of knowledge which infuse the state with political purpose at many levels. The emergence of the student movement in 2011, then the major social mobilization against the neoliberal state since the restoration of democracy in 1990, provided a clear manifestation of the politicization and ideological divisions of the mass university system. In conditions of mass intellectuality, public professionals mobilize their political affinities and links with society, eventually affecting the direction of state power, even against neoliberal policy. Through several interviews with academics, public professionals, and other documentary and statistical analyses, the book illustrates the different sites of political socialization and the ideological effectiveness of the emergent mass intellectuality of the neoliberal state.

 

Reviews:

“Fleet’s main contribution is to identify the key role played by a totally unexpected actor: a large mass of highly educated public servants, who are the product of the explosive expansion of education and for decades have also contested the neoliberal state from within.”

—Patricio Silva, Professor of Modern Latin American History, Leiden University, The Netherlands

“This highly original and readable study is going to re-invigorate debates on state theory and enliven current discourses on cognitive capitalism and the knowledge economy.  The author's insightful investigation of the Chilean university student and secondary school student movements is eye-opening and vitally relevant to the current struggles in Chile and all of Latin America today.”

—Stefano Harney, Honorary Professor, Institute of Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, University of British Columbia, Canada

“Nicolas Fleet shows how a mass intelligentsia grew out of a segregated education system in the world’s only truly neoliberal state. His masterly account of the bureaucracy, of education and of the clientelistic party system, offers a highly original explanation of the explosions of youth protest that opened the way to an unprecedented national consensus for the refoundation of the state in a Constitutional Assembly."

—David Lehmann, Emeritus Reader in Social Science and former Director of the Centre of Latin American Studies, University of Cambridge, UK

 

The Author:

Nicolas Fleet is Dean of Social, Legal and Economic Sciences at the Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez, Chile. He received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Cambridge, UK. His research focuses on political sociology and higher education.

For more information and Table of Contents, see: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-77193-5

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

@ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn-Rikowski

@ Academia: https://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

Encyclopaedia of Marxism and Education

Encyclopaedia of Marxism and Education

Edited by Alpesh Maisuria

Published by Brill: Leiden

ISBN: 978-90-04-50560-5

Published: 6 January 2022

For those concerned with exploring education through Marx and Marxism this is an important book. Alpesh Maisuria has assembled a tremendous international array of authors to address the significance of Marx and Marxism for education today.

Introduction by the Publisher:

This encyclopaedia showcases the explanatory power of Marxist educational theory and practice. The entries have been written by 51 leading authors from across the globe. The 39 entries cover an impressive range of contemporary issues and historical problematics. The editor has designed the book to appeal to readers within the Marxism and education intellectual tradition, and also those who are curious newcomers, as well as critics of Marxism.

The Encyclopaedia of Marxism and Education is the first of its kind. It is a landmark text with relevance for years to come for the productive dialogue between Marxism and education for transformational thinking and practice.

 

For Table of Contents, see: https://brill.com/view/title/61529?language=en

My chapter in the book is: Marxism and Education: [Closed] and …Open… pp.421-438.

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

Glenn Rikowski at ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn-Rikowski  

Glenn Rikowski at Academia: http://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

 

 

Artificial Intelligence in the Capitalist University

Artificial Intelligence in the Capitalist University: Academic Labour, Commodification, and Value

 

A new book by John Preston

New York: Routledge

https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003081654

eBook ISBN9781003081654

 

ABSTRACT

Using Marxist critique, this book explores manifestations of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Higher Education and demonstrates how it contributes to the functioning and existence of the capitalist university.

Challenging the idea that AI is a break from previous capitalist technologies, the book offers nuanced examination of the impacts of AI on the control and regulation of academic work and labour, on digital learning and remote teaching, and on the value of learning and knowledge. Applying a Marxist perspective, Preston argues that commodity fetishism, surveillance, and increasing productivity ushered in by the growth of AI, further alienates and exploits academic labour and commodifies learning and research. The text puts forward a solid theoretical framework and methodology for thinking about AI to inform critical and revolutionary pedagogies.

Offering an impactful and timely analysis, this book provides a critical engagement and application of key Marxist concepts in the study of AI’s role in Higher Education. It will be of interest to those working or researching in Higher Education.

 

The book is free to read on Creative Commons, @ https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-mono/10.4324/9781003081654/artificial-intelligence-capitalist-university-john-preston

 

Posted here by Glenn Rikowski

@ Academia: https://independent.academia.edu/GlennRikowski

@ ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Glenn-Rikowski