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Antonio Gramsci is widely celebrated for his conceptualisation of hegemony. This paper elucidates a related concept that appears frequently in Gramsci’s prison notebooks yet has been surprisingly under-emphasised: ‘conceptions of the world’. By conceptions of the world, Gramsci refers to things that inform our understanding of the world and our place in it. Each conception of the world is inherently practical and philosophical, relational and political. Gramsci argues that producing a new, effective conception of the world is the key to successfully building communism. It is therefore important to situate this concept in Gramsci’s thought. That is the aim of this paper, which elaborates on the implications of ‘conception of the world’ through a reading of Gramsci’s prison notes – particularly his commentaries on humanity and worldliness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between mainstream development policy (and perhaps also development studies) and postcolonial theorists has often been characterized as a dialogue of the deaf. Rather like in the old ‘debates’ between adherents of modernization and neo-Marxist theories, the protagonists are often thought to be talking at or past one another, rather than with each other. This paper reassesses some firmly held views on both sides of the schism. On the one hand, many official development agencies appear to promote business as usual (often quite literally, as a recent War on Want report attests in the case of the UK's DFID using its aid budget to promote profitable opportunities for British corporations). On the other hand, some postcolonial purists rely on surprisingly modernist, totalizing discursive techniques while claiming post-structural credentials, or baulk at the prospects of practical engagement. Discrepancies between theory, discourse, policy and practice are not the preserve of one side. However, the middle ground is firmer and better trodden than most believe. Considerable progress has been made and the paper assesses examples of productive engagement and concludes with suggestions for carrying forward the challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What has happened to incomes, inequality and satisfaction with living standards in the first stage of transition from a communist command economy to a market economy in East Germany? This paper tests six hypotheses about the transition to capitalism. Contrary to expectations, real incomes went up not down, net income inequality scarcely increased, and those who were previously advantaged did not become better off at the expense of the previously disadvantaged. A major reason for the last two results was that the Federal Republic's taxes and benefits, which were more progressive than the Communist regime's, had the effect of counteracting the increasing inequality of household gross incomes. It is also reported that, although real net incomes increased, satisfaction with living standards declined, probably because East Germans increasingly compared themselves with western counterparts. Optimism about the future declined in 1991-92 after reaching very high levels in 1990 immediately after the revolution. This paper is based on the first three waves of the East German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) conducted in June 1990 (N=4453 individuals in 2179 households), March-April 1991 and March-April 1992. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that insights from Tocqueville help us to understand post-communism. Tocqueville is initially helpful in helping us appreciate the extraordinary vacuum that has followed the fall of state socialism. Vacuums tend to be filled, however, and the first part of the paper accordingly concerns itself with nationalism. But not every country suffers from nationalism, and the second part of the paper argues -- against currently dominant theory -- that instant democratization is not likely to stymie economic reform. The third part of the paper notes that the absence of a civil society is, in the long run, much more of a problem than a solution: the chances of successfully consolidating democracy depend upon destroying venal and cumbersome states and in creating leaner and more efficient replacements. The conclusion notes that a variety of regimes is likely to characterize the region once the initial period of vacuum has come to an end. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper comments critically on certain assertions about the relationship between racism and nationalism made by recent Marxist contributions to the debate about the nature and origins of nationalism. The ideas of 'race' and 'nation', and the ideologies of racism and nationalism, are shown to have certain common features which create the potential for their articulation rather than opposition. Thereafter, taking the particular example of England, it is argued that the ideology of racism can be used to define and sustain nationalism. 'These racial elements impose their modes of existence on nations circumscribing them within limits from which, like blind slaves, they do not even wish to escape, although they would not even have the strength to do so. They dictate their laws, inspire their wishes, control their sympathies and stir up their hatreds and contempts.'(n2) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The nations of the industrialized capitalist world are characterized by a tendency to reduce the length of time employees normally spend at work. Through capitalism's long history mercantilists, classicalists, Marxists and marginalists have devoted a great deal of effort to attempting to explain why it is that standard times should tend to change. This paper overviews the major contributions to the debate. Various theories are examined and their emergence and fates placed in an historical context. Marginalism's preference argument which presently dominates the debate is challenged by showing that within Marxism there exists an alternative explanation for this phenomenon which is not based on income but on the innate limitations of human beings. Until the 1950s, it is argued, the human limits approach dominated the whole issue of worktime and the essence of this contribution has never been refuted but has been simply deleted from the discussion. Consequently the whole contemporary debate is being conducted on the basis of unjustified assumptions and this is rendering discussion increasingly sterile. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an analysis of the role of language in historical class formation in light of the recent developments in postmodern social theory and historiography. Revisionists from within this perspective have questioned if not abandoned E. P. Thompson's class struggle analysis, arguing that he fails to account for the constitutive character of language in the construction of collective identities. They oppose his account of the making of the English working class with alternative histories emphasizing populist and other non-class identities. Drawing on the Bakhtin Circle of literary studies, and returning to Thompson's own writings, I argue that we can incorporate language into class struggle analysis as a critical mediating force. I maintain that class struggle occurs largely within a hegemonic discursive formation, and that class consciousness and identity thus in part are formed through counter-hegemonic strategies of resistance to ideological domination. To illustrate this theory I analyse the role of language in the class struggles of the silk weavers of the Spitalfields district in London in the 1820s. I analyse how the silk weavers articulated a class consciousness through their counter-hegemonic struggles with the large capitalists and the language of political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]