Michael A Lebowitz
Biographic Data
| ID | 255056 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael A Lebowitz |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael A |
| FAMILY NAME | Lebowitz |
| SIGNATURE | LEBOWITZ M A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Simon Fraser University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 65 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 74 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 65 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1969 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
What Every Child Should Know about Marx's Theory of Value
Michael Lebowitz expounds on the simple truths found in Marx's theory of value—truths that, nonetheless, have been obscured by decades of incomplete theorizing that has failed to make key distinctions in the relationship between labor, value, and money
Primitive Socialist Accumulation’
Polityczność założenia, założenie polityczności
The aim of this article is to present Marx’s assumptions consequences both for the politics and the theory. The relevance of the assumption of a constant standard of workers’ necessities. To fill in the gaps of Marx’s theory and to argue the assumptions’ non-neutrality, the author proposes his own factor – factor x which represents the degree of separation among workers. This factor constitutes a basis for a new reading of Capital. This article i…
Protagonism and Productivity
President Chávez, in line with Marx, identified revolutionary praxis as the key link between human development and practice: "We have to practice socialism...and this practice will create us, ourselves, it will change us; if not we won't make it." From this standpoint, the material product of activity is always accompanied by a second product—the human product. Since the human product has historically been neglected in socialist theories of trans…
What Is Socialism for the Twenty-First Century
Often the best way to begin to understand something is to consider what it is not. Socialism for the twenty-first century is not a society in which people sell their ability to work and are directed from above by others whose goal is profits rather than the satisfaction of human needs. It is not a society where the owners of the means of production benefit by dividing workers and communities in order to drive down wages and intensify work.... Nor…
If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich
"Marx was before all else a revolutionary. His real mission in life," noted Frederick Engels at Marx's graveside, "was to contribute in one way or another to the overthrow of capitalist society and of the forms of government which it had brought into being, to contribute to the liberation of the present-day proletariat." Could the same be said about Marxist economists? That they are revolutionaries whose real mission is to contribute to the overt…
The socialist imperative
In a little more than a decade, economist Michael A. Lebowitz has written several major works about the transition from capitalism to socialism: Beyond Capital (winner of the Deutscher Prize), Build It Now, The Socialist Alternative, and The Contradictions of "Real Socialism." Here, he develops and deepens the analysis contained in those pathbreaking works by tracing major issues in socialist thought from the nineteenth century through the twenty…
Proposing a Path to Socialism
Everyone understands that it is impossible to achieve the vision of socialism for the twenty-first century in one giant leap forward. It is not simply a matter of changing property ownership. This is the easiest part of building the new world. Far more difficult is changing productive relations, social relations in general, and attitudes and ideas.... To transform existing relations into the new productive relations, we need first of all to under…
The Concept Of “Fairness”
A new version of a socialist alternative can only come from the struggles of resistance of working people themselves against capital’s assault. This paper considers the importance of beginning with what people view as just and fair and how they struggle against violations of that. And it stresses the necessity to go beyond that moral economy of the working class to struggles informed by the political economy of the working class
The Contradictions of "Real Socialism"
What was real socialism--the term which originated in twentieth-century socialist societies for the purpose of distinguishing them from abstract, theoretical socialism? In this volume, Michael A. Lebowitz considers the nature, tendencies, and contradictions of those societies. Beginning with the constant presence of shortages within real socialism, Lebowitz searches for the inner relations which generate these patterns. He finds these, in particu…
What Makes the Working Class a Revolutionary Subject
Those who conclude that the working class is not a revolutionary subject because capitalism has changed the working class reveal that they do not understand the ABCs of Marxism. The working class makes itself a revolutionary subject through its struggles—it transforms itself. That was always the position of Marx—his concept of "revolutionary practice," which is the simultaneous changing of circumstances and self-change. The working class changes …
Socialism for the twenty-first century and the need for socialist globalization
For a sustained challenge to capital, working people need a clear vision of a socialist alternative based upon the centrality of human development. The concept of socialism for the twenty-first century, with its focus upon socialism as an organic system, a socialist triangle of (a) social ownership of the means of production, (b) social production organized by workers for (c) social needs and purposes, offers such a vision and points to the need …
The Bolivarian Process in Venezuela
The ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ in Venezuela under Hugo Chávez has reignited debate in Latin America and internationally on the questions of socialism and revolution. This forum brings together six leading intellectuals from different revolutionary traditions and introduces their reflections on class-struggle, the state, imperialism, counter-power, revolutionary parties, community and communes, workplaces, economy, politics, society, culture, race, g…
The Unifying Element in All Struggles Against Capital Is the Right of Everyone to Full Human Development
[In my] examination of struggle...from the side of workers.... I constantly came back to the Marxist concept of revolutionary practice, that simultaneous changing of circumstance and human activity or self-change—how people transform themselves through their struggles. But not only through struggles; they produce themselves through their daily activity. People are formed by what they do. So, for example, a person who is a wage laborer under capit…
Change the System, Not Its Barriers
“System-change, not climate-change!” More and more, this demand has emerged in response to the overwhelming signs of environmental destruction around us. It reflects a growing understanding of the
Exploring the Dialectic of the Bolivarian Revolution
Iain Bruce, The Real Venezuela: Making Socialism in the 21st Century (London: Pluto Press, 2008), 240 pages, $27.90, paperback."When Chávez speaks, we listen. But we don't listen to those around him." This comment by a community activist interviewed by Iain Bruce, and integrated into his wonderful exploration of the Bolivarian Revolution from below, points to an essential characteristic — the unique link at present ("por ahora") between Hugo Cháv…
Following Marx
Introduction: To Follow Marx Part I: Critiques of Political Economy 1. The Fallacy of Everyday Notions 2. Another Crisis of Economic Theory: the Neo-Ricardian Critique 3. The Neo-Ricardian Reduction 4. Is 'Analytical Marxism' Marxism? Appendix: Roemer's Self-criticism Part II: The Logic of Capital 5. Following Hegel: the Science of Marx 6. Explorations in the Logic of Capital Part III: Essays in the Theory of Crisis 7. Marx's Falling Rate of Prof…
Chapter Seven. Marx’s falling rate of profit
Marx's falling rate of profit: a dialectical view. Drawing upon Marx's recently translated Grundrisse, this paper argues the necessity of considering Marx's view of the dialectical nature of capital in order to understand Capital and, in par- ticular, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. Examination of the dialectical relation between production and circulation of capital leads to a rejection of standard interpretations of Marx's falling r…
Chapter Four. Is ‘analytical marxism’ marxism?
This chapter examines what really is left of Marxism in analytical Marxism. It discusses some of this work (especially that of Elster and Roemer) in order to explore the extent to which it can be considered 'Marxist'. The conclusion is that analytical Marxism is not Marxism and that, indeed, it is, in essence, anti-Marxist. There are several alternative labels which have been attached to analytical Marxism and its practitioners; they include neoc…
Following Marx
The Path to Human Development
"If we believe in people, if we believe that the goal of a human society must be that of “ensuring overall human development,” our choice is clear: socialism or barbarism." These concluding lines from "The Path to Human Development" appear on the back cover of one Venezuelan edition—a pocket-sized edition much like the widely circulated "Socialism Does Not Drop from the Sky" (chapter 5 of Build It Now). The other edition, together with an extende…
Following Marx
An Alternative Worth Struggling For
"We are sinking in the Devil's excrement," wrote a close observer of Venezuela's adventures in oil. Was Venezuela's deep culture of corruption, crime, and clientalism imaginable in the absence of the oil rents which became the supreme object of desire? Was the truncation of industry and agriculture and the vast chasm between a privileged oligarchy and an impoverished mass inevitable-given the effects of oil wealth upon a poor, developing country?…
The Only Road Is Practice
I am certain that, like many people these days, the first thing on your mind is the question of the referendum on reform of the Bolivarian Constitution — what the defeat means and where do we go from here. What I want to talk about today is not on that topic specifically, but it is related.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this art…
Building upon Defects
Beyond Capital
Marxism has long been accused of economic determinism, reductionism and a silence on human experience. Beyond Capital argues that these problems can be traced back to Marx's failure to write his plann
The Bolivarian Process in Venezuela
The ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ in Venezuela under Hugo Chávez has reignited debate in Latin America and internationally on the questions of socialism and revolution. This forum brings together six leading intellectuals from different revolutionary traditions and introduces their reflections on class-struggle, the state, imperialism, counter-power, revolutionary parties, community and communes, workplaces, economy, politics, society, culture, race, g…
The New Reality
Too Many Blindspots on the Media
Ina recent discussion in Studies in Political Economy, Robert A. Hackett began with the question, What is a socialist position on the control and functioning of the mass media in Canada? The answer, we soon learned, was not to be found in radical instrumentalist approaches (such as that of Wallace Clement, Canadian Dimension, etc.) which focus on (quaint) matters like capitalist ownership of the media. Nor should one have romantic illusions about…
Capitalism
1992). Capitalism: How many contradictions? Capitalism Nature Socialism: Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 92-94
The General and the Specific in Marx’s Theory of Crisis
Can we indeed speak of a crisis of capitalism as such at this point? Or, is it simply a crisis of capitalism in Canada, or in North America, or in developed capitalist countries, or in specific capitalist sectors? Or, is it a crisis which is independent of capital as such ie., a natural or ecological crisis, an approach to an entropy state which affects all forms of production? The question is - how will we know a crisis of capital as such when w…
Trade and Class Labour Strategies in a World of Strong Capital
Trade and Class Labour Strategies in a World of Strong Capital." Studies in Political Economy, 27(1), pp. 137–148
Building upon Defects
Holloway's Scream
The silences of Capital
Not too long ago, Michael Burawoy commented that ‘two anomalies confront Marxism as its refutation: the durability of capitalism and the passivity of its working class'. So, has the time come, more than 125 years after the publication of Capital, to admit that the ‘facts’ (which meant something to Marx) simply do not support Marx's theory
The Political Economy of Wage Labor
The Unifying Element in All Struggles Against Capital Is the Right of Everyone to Full Human Development
[In my] examination of struggle...from the side of workers.... I constantly came back to the Marxist concept of revolutionary practice, that simultaneous changing of circumstance and human activity or self-change—how people transform themselves through their struggles. But not only through struggles; they produce themselves through their daily activity. People are formed by what they do. So, for example, a person who is a wage laborer under capit…
Change the System, Not Its Barriers
“System-change, not climate-change!” More and more, this demand has emerged in response to the overwhelming signs of environmental destruction around us. It reflects a growing understanding of the
The Path to Human Development
"If we believe in people, if we believe that the goal of a human society must be that of “ensuring overall human development,” our choice is clear: socialism or barbarism." These concluding lines from "The Path to Human Development" appear on the back cover of one Venezuelan edition—a pocket-sized edition much like the widely circulated "Socialism Does Not Drop from the Sky" (chapter 5 of Build It Now). The other edition, together with an extende…
Venezuela
Fair wages, a fair day's work! Through their struggles within capitalism, it has often been possible for workers and citizens to secure themselves some share of the benefits of social labor. Capitalist globalization and the offensive of neoliberal state policies, however, have encroached upon all those gains from past struggles; and the answer to those who were surprised to find those victories ephemeral was the mantra of TINA—there is no alterna…
New Wings for Socialism
Seventeen years ago, in 1990, I began an essay with a poem of Bertolt Brecht. It was a poem about a man in Europe in the Middle Ages who put on "things that looked like wings," climbed to the roof of a church, and tried to fly. He crashed, and the bishop who passed by said, "No one will ever fly."This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of t…
Ideology and Economic Development
Economic theory is not neutral, and the results when it is applied owe much to the implicit and explicit assumptions embedded in a particular theory. That such assumptions reflect specific ideologies is most obvious in the case of the neoclassical economics that underlies neoliberal economic policies.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version …
The Significance of Marx's Missing Book on Wage-Labor
Is “Analytical Marxism” Marxism
Capital Reinterpreted
Review of The Limits to Capital by David Harvey.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website
Kornai and Socialist Laws of Motion
Once, when asked why he had not completed volumes one and two of Capital, Marx replied that it was too soon - new, unique phenomena were emerging in the industrial crisis of the time; Marx wrote: [It is] necessary to watch the present course of things until their maturity before you can 'consume' them 'productively,' I mean 'theoretically'. Perhaps, for the same reason, it is still too soon to analyze existing socialism; perhaps it is necessary t…
Heller on Marx's Concept of Needs
The Increasing Cost of Circulation and the Marxian Competitive Model
Biddle's Bank
The Increasing Cost of Circulation and the Marxian Competitive Model
The Current Crisis of Economic Theory
Marx's Falling Rate of Profit
Capital and the Production of Needs
Heller on Marx's Concept of Needs
The General and the Specific in Marx’s Theory of Crisis
Can we indeed speak of a crisis of capitalism as such at this point? Or, is it simply a crisis of capitalism in Canada, or in North America, or in developed capitalist countries, or in specific capitalist sectors? Or, is it a crisis which is independent of capital as such ie., a natural or ecological crisis, an approach to an entropy state which affects all forms of production? The question is - how will we know a crisis of capital as such when w…
Kornai and Socialist Laws of Motion
Once, when asked why he had not completed volumes one and two of Capital, Marx replied that it was too soon - new, unique phenomena were emerging in the industrial crisis of the time; Marx wrote: [It is] necessary to watch the present course of things until their maturity before you can 'consume' them 'productively,' I mean 'theoretically'. Perhaps, for the same reason, it is still too soon to analyze existing socialism; perhaps it is necessary t…
Too Many Blindspots on the Media
Ina recent discussion in Studies in Political Economy, Robert A. Hackett began with the question, What is a socialist position on the control and functioning of the mass media in Canada? The answer, we soon learned, was not to be found in radical instrumentalist approaches (such as that of Wallace Clement, Canadian Dimension, etc.) which focus on (quaint) matters like capitalist ownership of the media. Nor should one have romantic illusions about…
Fiftieth Birthday Greetings
Only Capitalist Laws of Motion?; The Editors Reply
Is it possible to talk about laws of motion within existing socialist societies comparable to those of capitalist society? Both Harry Magdoff and Paul M. Sweezy have recently argued that in doing so one loses sight of the characteristics which are unique and specific to capitalism. Magdoff, for example, has proposed that the assertion of the existence of objective economic laws within the USSR reflects not the result of scientific analysis but, r…
Capital Reinterpreted
Review of The Limits to Capital by David Harvey.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website
The New Reality
The Limits to Capital. David Harvey
The Political Economy of Wage Labor
More on the Limits to Capital; Rejoinder; The "Workers'" Theory
Michael Lebowitz raises two major objections to my arguments in his review of The Limits to Capital (MR, June 1986). These objections are sufficiently important to warrant further comment.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website
Trade and Class Labour Strategies in a World of Strong Capital
Trade and Class Labour Strategies in a World of Strong Capital." Studies in Political Economy, 27(1), pp. 137–148
Is “Analytical Marxism” Marxism
Social Justice Against Capitalism
Following is the text of a talk given by the author in a course entitled "Capitalists for Social Justice" at Regent College, a transdenominational, evangelical Christian college in Vancouver (affiliated with the University of British Columbia).—The EditorsThis article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website
Trade and Class Revisited
In Trade and Class: Labour Strategies in a World of Strong Capital, I set out a strategic model which yielded as logical inferences a program including nationalization, tax penalties for inadequate investment, the growth of a state sector and full employment, boycott campaigns and protective trade legislation - in addition to a concerted campaign against concessions. Further, the argument not only stressed the importance of supporting the struggl…
The Significance of Marx's Missing Book on Wage-Labor
Beyond Capital
Marxism has long been accused of economic determinism, reductionism and a silence on human experience. Beyond Capital argues that these problems can be traced back to Marx's failure to write his plann
Capitalism
1992). Capitalism: How many contradictions? Capitalism Nature Socialism: Vol. 3, No. 3, pp. 92-94
The “Book on Wage-Labor” and Marxist Scholarship
The silences of Capital
Not too long ago, Michael Burawoy commented that ‘two anomalies confront Marxism as its refutation: the durability of capitalism and the passivity of its working class'. So, has the time come, more than 125 years after the publication of Capital, to admit that the ‘facts’ (which meant something to Marx) simply do not support Marx's theory
Political science (47 works) · Economics (44 works) · Sociology (44 works) · Law (41 works) · Political Economy and Marxism (39 works) · Politics (29 works) · Philosophy (28 works) · History (25 works) · Neoclassical economics (25 works) · Epistemology (22 works)