Martin Spence
Biographic Data
| ID | 3673539 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Martin Spence |
| GIVEN NAMES | Martin |
| FAMILY NAME | Spence |
| SIGNATURE | SPENCE M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Cornerstone University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 16 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1982 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
‘Praise these daring men’
During the 1950s the film technicians’ trade union, the Association of Cinematograph Technicians (ACT), was a significant force in the film industry. At the same time the ‘second feature’ or ‘B-film’ sector was producing a constant stream of low-budget titles. This article examines an initiative which combined the two: ACT Films Ltd, a film production company active in the second-feature sector, which was created by the union to provide jobs for …
Suburban Labour
This article examines the efforts of the early Labour Party to establish a foothold in a Conservative-dominated London suburb. It revisits the notion of a divided working class and ‘labour aristocracy’ in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and argues for its relevance in understanding the early Labour Party. Within this framework it provides an account of the labour movement in south London and presents a class analysis of Penge. …
Marx against Marx
Marx’s Fragment on Machines is sometimes held up as a creative departure from orthodoxy, and a prescient harbinger of a knowledge economy. In particular the concept of general intellect, which appears uniquely in the Fragment, is celebrated as a key theoretical innovation. This article presents a close reading and critical interpretation of the text of the Fragment to argue, firstly, that its primary theme is not general intellect, but fixed capi…
Writing the Sabbath
‘It was a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close and stale.’ I This line from Charles Dickens’s Little Dorrit encapsulates the common view that the nineteenth-century Sabbath was a tedious, gloomy and tiresome institution that embodied the full weight of Victorian Britain’s old-fashioned, sombre and somewhat hypocritical evangelical piety. Taking such contemporary portrayals at face value, historian John Wigley, whose thirty-year-old monograph r…
The Renewal of Time and Space
This article is a contribution to the recent debate in this J ournal between Ralph Brown and Boyd Hilton concerning the nature of British nineteenth-century premillennialism. 1 It discusses the premillennialists' view of time and argues that a sense of God's involvement with the historical process led them to affirm temporal development and progress as the media for divine activity. It also discusses their view of the destiny of the earth and sho…
Form, fetish, and film
This article examines the main lines of argument developed within the autonomist or Open Marxist tradition, focusing especially on the work of Holloway and Negri. Referring to the experience of workers in the film industry, its author finds that some themes, including the concept of class composition, have much to offer. But he criticizes Negri's overall schema, including his categories of social labour and immaterial labour. He suggests a differ…
The ‘Restitution of All Things’ in Nineteenth-Century Evangelical Premillennialism
This paper explores the nineteenth-century doctrine of the ‘restitution of all things’, a concept of the afterlife which emphasized material continuity with the present and generated detailed speculation about the activities and events which would take place in the eternal realm. Such beliefs, it will be suggested, resonated with broader developments in nineteenth-century theology which tended to soften the boundary between this life and the life…
Environmental Crisis in Prehistory
Capital Against Nature
James O'Connor's theory of the 'second contradiction of capitalism' is a pioneering attempt to reconcile Marxism with environmentalism, and other social movements. This article analyses O'Connor's theory, and finds both serious flaws and startling innovations. While rejecting the overall frame work of a 'second contradiction' as proposed by O'Connor, it seeks to combine his most valuable insiqhts with a renewed emphasis on class, in order to deve…
Lost in Space
The article traces the evolution of the US, Soviet-Russian and European space programmes, analysing the links with military production and capitalist development. The author argues that the response of western capital both to the current aerospace crisis and to Russia's new role will determine the extent of capitalist exploitation of outer space
The politics of the second contradiction
Chernobyl
The Worst Accident in the World, edited by David Leith, William Heinemann & Pan Books, 1986, 208 pages, pb £2.95
After Chernobyl
After the Chernobyl accident several countries reassessed their commitment to nuclear power, leading to the cancellation or postponement of orders for reactors. Martin Spence examines the impact of these developments upon the world's nuclear industry. Through an assessment of the forces which have promoted nuclear technology, he concludes that the industry is far from being in a state of terminal decline
Imperialism and decline
This article examines the international movement of British capital in an attempt to assess the strengths and weaknesses of Britain as an imperialist power. Based on a Leninist concept of imperialism as the capital export phase of capitalism, it argues that the decline in the UK's industrial base, the flight of British capital to Europe and the United States and the involvement of foreign investment in the restructuring of the UK economy are all …
British Imperialism and the Falklands
When the Falklanda/Malvinas' crisis first broke out, many British socialists were held mesmerized by the sheer absurdity of it all—by the spectacle of a British armada setting sail to do battle with a newly-discovered Latin enemy. But as the crisis slid into genuine war, and the death toll mounted, we were forced to analyze it more seriously; and now that the fighting is over, it is important to draw lessons from the episode. A debate was launche…
Soviet power
Nuclear Capital
Imperialism and decline
This article examines the international movement of British capital in an attempt to assess the strengths and weaknesses of Britain as an imperialist power. Based on a Leninist concept of imperialism as the capital export phase of capitalism, it argues that the decline in the UK's industrial base, the flight of British capital to Europe and the United States and the involvement of foreign investment in the restructuring of the UK economy are all …
Form, fetish, and film
This article examines the main lines of argument developed within the autonomist or Open Marxist tradition, focusing especially on the work of Holloway and Negri. Referring to the experience of workers in the film industry, its author finds that some themes, including the concept of class composition, have much to offer. But he criticizes Negri's overall schema, including his categories of social labour and immaterial labour. He suggests a differ…
Capital Against Nature
James O'Connor's theory of the 'second contradiction of capitalism' is a pioneering attempt to reconcile Marxism with environmentalism, and other social movements. This article analyses O'Connor's theory, and finds both serious flaws and startling innovations. While rejecting the overall frame work of a 'second contradiction' as proposed by O'Connor, it seeks to combine his most valuable insiqhts with a renewed emphasis on class, in order to deve…
The politics of the second contradiction
Nuclear Capital
Suburban Labour
This article examines the efforts of the early Labour Party to establish a foothold in a Conservative-dominated London suburb. It revisits the notion of a divided working class and ‘labour aristocracy’ in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and argues for its relevance in understanding the early Labour Party. Within this framework it provides an account of the labour movement in south London and presents a class analysis of Penge. …
Environmental Crisis in Prehistory
Soviet power
Nuclear Capital
British Imperialism and the Falklands
When the Falklanda/Malvinas' crisis first broke out, many British socialists were held mesmerized by the sheer absurdity of it all—by the spectacle of a British armada setting sail to do battle with a newly-discovered Latin enemy. But as the crisis slid into genuine war, and the death toll mounted, we were forced to analyze it more seriously; and now that the fighting is over, it is important to draw lessons from the episode. A debate was launche…
Soviet power
Imperialism and decline
This article examines the international movement of British capital in an attempt to assess the strengths and weaknesses of Britain as an imperialist power. Based on a Leninist concept of imperialism as the capital export phase of capitalism, it argues that the decline in the UK's industrial base, the flight of British capital to Europe and the United States and the involvement of foreign investment in the restructuring of the UK economy are all …
Chernobyl
The Worst Accident in the World, edited by David Leith, William Heinemann & Pan Books, 1986, 208 pages, pb £2.95
After Chernobyl
After the Chernobyl accident several countries reassessed their commitment to nuclear power, leading to the cancellation or postponement of orders for reactors. Martin Spence examines the impact of these developments upon the world's nuclear industry. Through an assessment of the forces which have promoted nuclear technology, he concludes that the industry is far from being in a state of terminal decline
The politics of the second contradiction
Lost in Space
The article traces the evolution of the US, Soviet-Russian and European space programmes, analysing the links with military production and capitalist development. The author argues that the response of western capital both to the current aerospace crisis and to Russia's new role will determine the extent of capitalist exploitation of outer space
Capital Against Nature
James O'Connor's theory of the 'second contradiction of capitalism' is a pioneering attempt to reconcile Marxism with environmentalism, and other social movements. This article analyses O'Connor's theory, and finds both serious flaws and startling innovations. While rejecting the overall frame work of a 'second contradiction' as proposed by O'Connor, it seeks to combine his most valuable insiqhts with a renewed emphasis on class, in order to deve…
Environmental Crisis in Prehistory
The ‘Restitution of All Things’ in Nineteenth-Century Evangelical Premillennialism
This paper explores the nineteenth-century doctrine of the ‘restitution of all things’, a concept of the afterlife which emphasized material continuity with the present and generated detailed speculation about the activities and events which would take place in the eternal realm. Such beliefs, it will be suggested, resonated with broader developments in nineteenth-century theology which tended to soften the boundary between this life and the life…
Form, fetish, and film
This article examines the main lines of argument developed within the autonomist or Open Marxist tradition, focusing especially on the work of Holloway and Negri. Referring to the experience of workers in the film industry, its author finds that some themes, including the concept of class composition, have much to offer. But he criticizes Negri's overall schema, including his categories of social labour and immaterial labour. He suggests a differ…
The Renewal of Time and Space
This article is a contribution to the recent debate in this J ournal between Ralph Brown and Boyd Hilton concerning the nature of British nineteenth-century premillennialism. 1 It discusses the premillennialists' view of time and argues that a sense of God's involvement with the historical process led them to affirm temporal development and progress as the media for divine activity. It also discusses their view of the destiny of the earth and sho…
Writing the Sabbath
‘It was a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close and stale.’ I This line from Charles Dickens’s Little Dorrit encapsulates the common view that the nineteenth-century Sabbath was a tedious, gloomy and tiresome institution that embodied the full weight of Victorian Britain’s old-fashioned, sombre and somewhat hypocritical evangelical piety. Taking such contemporary portrayals at face value, historian John Wigley, whose thirty-year-old monograph r…
Marx against Marx
Marx’s Fragment on Machines is sometimes held up as a creative departure from orthodoxy, and a prescient harbinger of a knowledge economy. In particular the concept of general intellect, which appears uniquely in the Fragment, is celebrated as a key theoretical innovation. This article presents a close reading and critical interpretation of the text of the Fragment to argue, firstly, that its primary theme is not general intellect, but fixed capi…
Suburban Labour
This article examines the efforts of the early Labour Party to establish a foothold in a Conservative-dominated London suburb. It revisits the notion of a divided working class and ‘labour aristocracy’ in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and argues for its relevance in understanding the early Labour Party. Within this framework it provides an account of the labour movement in south London and presents a class analysis of Penge. …
‘Praise these daring men’
During the 1950s the film technicians’ trade union, the Association of Cinematograph Technicians (ACT), was a significant force in the film industry. At the same time the ‘second feature’ or ‘B-film’ sector was producing a constant stream of low-budget titles. This article examines an initiative which combined the two: ACT Films Ltd, a film production company active in the second-feature sector, which was created by the union to provide jobs for …
Political science (14 works) · History (10 works) · Law (10 works) · Economics (9 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Political economy (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Economic history (5 works)