Neue Marx-Lektüre

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Neue Marx-Lektüre or "NML" (German: "New Reading of Marx") is a revival and interpretation of the economic theory of Karl Marx, which started in the mid-1960s in Western and partly Eastern Europe, and opposed to the interpretation of Marx of both Marxism-Leninism and social democracy. Neue Marx-Lektüre covers a loose group of authors mainly from the German-speaking countries, who reject certain historizing and empiricist interpretations of Marx's analysis of economic forms, many of which are argued to spring from Friedrich Engels and his role in the early Marxist workers' movement.

Overview[]

The school of thought is influenced especially the work of the early Soviet thinkers Evgeny Bronislavovich Pashukanis and Isaak Illich Rubin and the critical theory of Theodor Adorno. The works of Helmut Reichelt and Hans-Georg Backhaus in the seventies and eighties, and the writings of in the nineties, produced at the turn of the millennium a partly academic, partly off-academic debate concerning the question of value. These authors depart in a number of respects from the traditional Marx reading related with the workers movement, the bourgeois state and state socialism.

The Neue Marx-Lektüre rejects

• premonetary theories of value, according to which already the single concrete work creates value, and the essence of value is a direct outcome of the invested time of labour. On the contrary the social character of work creating value is emphasized.
• conceptions of the state as a manipulative instrument of a ruling class. On the contrary, the Staatsableitungsdebatte (state derivation debate) has an understanding of the state as a structurally necessary, but relatively separated part of capitalism.
• theories of history which lead to the anticipation of a revolution to be accomplished by the proletariat. Opposed to this, capital is considered as an "automatic subject", which exists in a sham as well in a real form.

On the other hand, the authors of the Neue Marx-Lektüre in contrast to the academically dominant neo-classic economy maintain the relevance of the approach of Marx. Especially they insist that the micro-economic approaches of the neoclassic theory of economy can't explain the constitution, maintenance and dynamics of the economic value-relations, and only can exhibit insufficient theoretical means when it comes to macro-economic constructs such as e.g. the gross national income. On the contrary, they point out that Marx, although unable to answer these questions, nevertheless provides a higher degree of reflection and awareness of the problems, which has to be recovered in a critical manner for the contemporary discussion.

Main works[]

• Helmut Reichelt, Zur logischen Struktur des Kapitalbegriffs bei Karl Marx [On the logical structure of the concept of capital according to Marx]. Dissertation of 10 July 1968, Faculty of Economics and Social Science, Universität Frankfurt am Main, 1968, p. 265; fourth revised edition, with a preface by Iring Fetscher, Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt, 1973 (Politische Ökonomie); Freiburg im Breisgau: Ça Ira, 2001, ISBN 3-924627-76-2.
• Michael Heinrich, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie – Eine Einführung [Critique of political economy – an introduction], Schmetterling Verlag, 3rd edition 2005; Die Wissenschaft vom Wert [The economics of value] (dissertation) VSA-Verlag, 1991; second, revised edition: Westfälisches Dampfboot, 2003
• Hans-Georg Backhaus: Dialektik der Wertform. Untersuchungen zur Marxschen Ökonomiekritik [Dialectic of value: investigations of Marxist economic criticism], Freiburg im Breisgau 1997, ISBN 3-924627-52-5.
• Helmut Reichelt, Neue Marx-Lektüre. Zur Kritik sozialwissenschaftlicher Logik [New reading of Marx: On critique of social-scientific logic], Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-89965-287-1.

See also[]

• Neo-Marxism
• Western Marxism

Literature[]

English[]

• Jacques Bidet: New Interpretations of Capital, in : Jacques Bides, Stathis Kouvelakis: Critical Companion to Contemporary Marxism, BRILL 2008, ISBN 90-04-14598-2, ISBN 978-90-04-14598-6 (Historical materialism book series 16), pp. 369–384
  • : Between Marx, Marxism and Marxisms. Ways of Reading Marx's Theory
  • Sotiropoulos, Dimitris P., Milios J. Political economy of contemporary capitalism and its crisis: demystifying finance. Routledge, 2015. ISBN 9781138901117
  • Heinrich, Michael, and Alexander Locascio. An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx's Capital. Monthly Review P, 2012. ISBN 9781583672884

German[]

• Ingo Elbe: Marx im Westen. Die neue Marx-Lektüre in der Bundesrepublik seit 1965, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-05-004470-5
  • sample, table of contents and introduction (33 pages pdf)
  • Hendrik Wallat: Theoriegeschichte der neuen Marx-Lektüre, review of Marx im Westen (10 pages pdf)
• Michael Heinrich: Wie das Marxsche Kapital lesen?, Schmetterling Verlag, 1st edition 2008
• Hanno Pahl: Das Geld in der modernen Wirtschaft. Marx und Luhmann im Vergleich, Frankfurt 2008, ISBN 978-3-593-38607-2
• , Alexis Petrioli, Ingo Stützle, (Hrsg.): Das Kapital neu lesen. Beiträge zur radikalen Philosophie, Westfälisches Dampfboot, Münster 2006, ISBN 3-89691-605-X, ISBN 978-3-89691-605-1
  • sample with table of contents, introduction and epilog (34 pages pdf)
  • Wolfgang Fritz Haug: Die »Neue Kapital-Lektüre« der monetären Werttheorie, review of Das Kapital neu Lesen (15 pages pdf)
• Lars Meyer: Absoluter Wert und allgemeiner Wille. Zur Selbstbegründung dialektischer Gesellschaftstheorie, Bielefeld 2005, ISBN 978-3-89942-224-5.
• Michael Heinrich:Kritik der politischen Ökonomie - Eine Einführung, Schmetterling Verlag, 3rd edition 2005
• Joachim Hirsch:Der Staat der Bürgerlichen Gesellschaft: Zum Staatsverständnis von Karl Marx, Frankfurt 2008, ISBN 978-3-832-93226-8
• Christine Kirchhoff, Hanno Pahl, Christoph Engemann, Judith Heckel, Lars Meyer (Hg.): Gesellschaft als Verkehrung. Perspektiven einer neuen Marx-Lektüre. Festschrift für Helmut Reichelt, Freiburg 2004, ISBN 3-924627-26-6.
• Jan Hoff: Kritik der klassischen politischen Ökonomie. Zur Rezeption der werttheoretischen Ansätze ökonomischer Klassiker durch Karl Marx, Cologne 2004, ISBN 3-89438-314-3.
• : Kritische Theorie und Kritik der politischen Ökonomie. Eine kritische Auseinandersetzung mit Schriften von Hans-Georg Backhaus und Helmut Reichelt. In: Dieter Wolf, Heinz Paragenings: Zur Konfusion des Wertbegriffs. Beiträge zur „Kapital“-Diskussion, Argument Verlag, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 978-3-88619-651-7 (Berliner Verein zur Förderung der MEGA-Edition e.V., Wissenschaftliche Mitteilungen Heft 3)
• : Zur Methode in Marx’ „Kapital“ unter besonderer Berücksichtigung ihres logisch-systematischen Charakters. Zum Methodenstreit zwischen Wolfgang Fritz Haug und Michael Heinrich. In: Ingo Elbe, Tobias Reichardt, Dieter Wolf: Gesellschaftliche Praxis und ihre wissenschaftliche Darstellung. Beiträge zur Kapital-Diskussion. Wissenschaftliche Mitteilungen. Heft 6. Argument Verlag, Hamburg, 2008. ISBN 978-3-88619-655-5 Hrsg.: Carl-Erich Vollgraf, Richard Sperl & Rolf Hecker.

External links[]

• Ingo Elbe: Zwischen Marx, Marxismus und Marxismen – Lesarten der Marxschen Theorie (pdf)
• : Wie man „Das Kapital“ nicht schon wieder neu lesen sollte. Zur „Einführung in die Kritik der politischen Ökonomie“ von Michael Heinrich (pdf), GegenStandpunkt – Politische Vierteljahreszeitschrift 2/2008.
• :Die Wertform und die dialektische Methode. Zur Deutung der Dialektik der Wertform durch Hans-Georg Backhaus In: Der dialektische Widerspruch im Kapital" Ein Beitrag zur Marxschen Werttheorie. Hamburg, 2002, ISBN 3-87975-889-1, S. 151ff.