Activity

[...] Production is carried on within specific forms of life, and is thus suffused with social meaning. Because labour always signifies, humans being significant (literally, sign-making) animals, it can never be simply a technical or material affair. You may see it as away of praising God, glorifyi…

If Marx also retained a good deal of hope for the future, however, it was because he recognized that this dismal record was not for the most part our fault. If history has been so bloody, it is not because most human beings are wicked. It is because of the material pressures to which they have been…

[...] changes of institution do indeed have profound effects on human attitudes [...] Such reforms have been become built into our psyches. What really alters our view of the world is not so much ideas, as ideas which are embedded in routine social practice. If we change that practice, which may be…

[...] the need for capitalism in order to have socialism. Driven by self-interest, ruthless competition and the need for ceaseless expansion, only capitalism is capable of developing the productive forces to the point where, under a different political dispensation, the surplus they generate can be…

The class struggle is essentially a struggle over the surplus, and as such it is likely to continue as long as there is not a sufficiency for all. Class comes about whenever material production is so organised as to compel some individuals to transfer their surplus labour to others in order to surv…