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Marx’s thoughts on world history (WH) is an essential element of historical materialism, which focuses on the time’s characteristics, unifies theory and practice, and grasps correctly of the situation of human existence and historical development. The deepening of globalization has made the world development environment more complex and led to the intensification of social contradictions. In order to deeply grasp the law of world-historical development and better cope with the problems and challenges brought by globalization, this paper effectively studied the methodology of Marx’s world history thoughts (WHT). After conducting an in-depth analysis of the fundamental content, main issues and ideological features of WHT, this paper explored the methodological principles and significance. It gave full consideration to the practical revelation of the methodology of Marx’s WHT from the perspectives of foreign development and cooperation, scientific and technological level, and the choice of one’s development path. In the natural development process of responding to globalization, firmly following its development path has an important role and value in strengthening foreign development and cooperation, advancing technological capabilities and adopting a dialectical approach towards the development of globalization.

Sustainability within food systems (FS) transcends approaches that only consider FS transformation via changing agricultural practices or consumption patterns. The essence lies in addressing the root causes of current unsustainable FS and their associated social and environmental ramifications. This paper aims to outline the solutions needed to revamp these challenges, by paying special attention to the state-capital nexus in the context of the FS’global core-periphery dialectics. Thereby, we embrace radical political agroecology as being essential in promoting sustainability within the FS, especially in the Global South. Agroecology is proposed as the strategy to address the food system’s complexity in terms of the social, environmental, and economic embeddedness. We conclude with potential solutions that contribute to the pathway for FS sustainability.

This paper discusses the tourism in places in connection with “class struggle” during the era of state socialism in Czechoslovakia. During the time of economic crisis in the 1930s, there were some incidents between gendarmerie and striking workers in the areas of high unemployment. These events were misused in the propaganda as legitimization of the Communist Party’s leading role after the 1948 revolution. These places of “class struggle” were privileged in hierarchy of heritage preservation during the communist era (1948–1989). The author focuses on sources connected with tourism (guidebooks, maps) and raises the question if historical agents and society adopted these places. The methodological remarks are an important part of the paper.

Honoring the role of literature as a mirror of society, this paper unravels the harsh conditions of class struggle in the Philippines through the selected short stories of F. Sionil Jose, a Filipino national artist using Marxism as a literary vista. After a thorough close reading of his short stories compiled in the book, Puppy Love and Other Stories (1998), five of his short stories were chosen and were subjected to content analysis in order to discuss the Marxist themes of class struggle evident in his stories. The themes of class struggle such as armed struggle, class repression and exploitation, and land grabbing were illuminated in the selections. Finally, the paper related the identified themes of class struggle in the short stories to the current Philippine situation in order to underscore and reflect on the timelessness and the relevance of the stories of F. Sionil Jose in the present time.

By critically engaging with Marxist notion of class struggle in contemporary films utilizing the bow and arrow as their signifier, this paper textually analyzes two films in order to find distinctive characteristics of Western movies and non-Western movies. Since the textual analysis becomes very important to understanding how media texts might be used in order to make sense of the world we live in—meaning it is significant to contextualize it within our life and/or society, this paper investigates the ways in which the major themes have developed and what their representations are. It therefore compares and contrasts these movies in terms of their major themes, in particular the ways in which these two films portray capitalism, either internally or externally. It especially examines how the bow and arrow symbolize class struggle either within a country or between countries in order to map out the major differences that the arrows represent.

This paper represents a double endeavor: on the one hand, it aims at refuting Easton’s critique, in his paper “The political system besieged by the State”, of Poulantzas’s Theory of State, and, on the other hand, it aims at presenting a brief contribution to the development of this last Theory.

During Communist times in Albania (1944-1991) everyone was defined, evaluated and classified through his or her « biography » [biografi], which was a judgement, in political terms, on one’s personality, acts and familial background. The « biography » was largely responsible for the authorities’ attitude towards the individual. In this paper, I try to understand what the word « biography » (and the phrase « good/bad biography ») meant for the people themselves. It appears that « biography » is often synonymous with « family or lineage background ». Such an observation leads to explain, in a second step, « biography » as the conjunction of a political concept, the « class struggle » as it was understood by both the authorities and the people, and the family or lineage [fis] as an institution of Albanian society. Finally, the paper suggests an interpretation of « biography » in terms of « purity », « stain » and naturalisation of differences.

This paper aims to understand why similar efforts of state intervention can generate different economic outcomes. It argues that the different economic outcomes of state intervention can be traced back to the different processes of class struggle. Mobilizing Marxist view, it suggests that the state role in the economy should be understood as inseparable from capitalist development. That is, economic development is the terrain for class struggle between capital and labor. Although the contradictory relation between capital and labor is universal and global in capitalism, the form of contradiction will always be different across societies. That is the case because the form of class struggle depends on the specific development of the configuration of class power that has developed historically in each country alongside with its international process due to the expansive nature of capitalism itself.

Law is crucial to the maintenance and reproduction of capitalism. While Marx never produced a comprehensive theory of law, state and rights, there is much in his work, and in the broader Marxist tradition, that can help us understand the nature and role of law in contemporary capitalism. This paper sketches out some of the key resources from within the Marxist tradition that can assist us in developing Marxist understandings of law, state and rights today. Specifically, the focus is on the question of method, drawing out three key strands from Marx's own work: (i) the importance of dialectical materialist analysis; (ii) the historically specific and transitory nature of capitalism and (iii) the centrality of class antagonism and class struggle. The argument advanced here, in sum, is that Marxist explanations of law, state and rights should foreground these analytical reference points, in order to make the role of law intelligible, and to begin to sketch how movements for fundamental social change might understand and engage with the law.

Female workers represent a fundamental component of the workforce to the extent that it is true that the Industrial Revolution owes them a huge debt. However, despite the unfair exploitation of many women in factories in which conditions resembled manslaughter, they have been often neglected and reduced to liminal characters by Victorian novelists. An interesting exception in the early Victorian period is represented by the writer Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna, whose fiction works as a medium of social criticism. Her semi-fictional The Wrongs of Woman is a reform novel which sheds a controversial light on female working conditions. On the one hand she indeed deplores the inhuman treatment of female labourers, but on the other hand she also argues that female employment provokes a consequent increase in male unemployment! My paper aims to investigate the role of Tonna’s text and her attempt to alleviate working-class suffering.

The struggles for the land of the '70s saw the alliance between the Mapuche communities and the Chilean left in a "class struggle" in which the indigenous society was included within the general category of campesinos. This process was brutally interrupted by the coup of Pinochet, whose violent repression has contributed to reshape the contraposition according to the previous axis Mapuche-winka (non-Mapuche). Also as a consequence of these tensions, the current Mapuche movement is based on the ideas of self-determination and recovery of the ancestral territory, constituting as a particular "cosmopolitics" that seems to distance itself both from the Western political conception, and from the previous alliance with the Chilean left. The present paper compares the two moments through the analysis of the indigenous leader’s narrative, aiming at understanding the transformations of the Mapuche political practice and its dialectical relationship with the Chilean Other.

This paper proposes a scientific discussion from a Marxian-feminist point of view as a critical response to the European “austerity policies”. Nowadays global inequalities are very relevant, particularly a proletarization process based on an increase in class struggle, growing inequalities, unsustainability and the transnational concentration of power and wealth. The neoliberal approach ignores Marx’s theory and suggests that the Marxian view fails to explain the current economic system. However, I believe this to be a (dishonest) simplification of Marx’s theory (because data is very clear). This misrepresentation has a negative effect on the overall validity and sustainability of several European policies, mainly distribution and migration policies. Consequently, some policy recommendations need to be readdressed, including from a feminist point of view. First published online 30 January 2017

The following paper discusses the problem of the alleged prejudices of the Athenian masses against homosexuality in the second half of the fifth century BC. It has been suggested that the unsympathetic perception of pederasty might have been as a result of the generally unfriendly attitudes of the so-called common people towards behaviours associated with the social elite. In what follows, I argue that there is no reason to think that homosexual desires and behaviours were limited to the upper classes; prejudices against homosexuality can hardly be taken, therefore, as a result of populist sentiments. Moreover, it seems that few or no phenomena recorded in our sources relevant to classical Athens can really be associated with homophobia as such.

The paper considers a scientific program and paradigm of K. Marx’s economic theory; the basic difference between his scientific program and those presented by the leading economists of the first half of the XIX century; and diverse attitudes of the soviet scientific school of economics towards the concept of scientific revolutions. We show that the paradigm of Marxist economic theory significantly differs from the ‘hard core’ of classical economics and Marxism has its own and original paradigm which includes certain elements of classical economics and historical school and the part of hypotheses of both moves from the ‘hard core’ to ‘auxiliary hypotheses’ and vice versa at that. We also analyze how the 'research program' and certain basic elements of Marx’s economic theory impacts on the concepts of scientists who worked within the framework of alternative schools. We can conclude that Marxism greatly influenced the choice of the subject and statement of problems made by researchers of neoclassical economics, Austrian school, and institutionalism.

This paper is based on a little known text by Eugène Sue, Les Mystères du peuple, which was written shortly after the 1848 revolution and which, in line with the thousand-year old conflict between a proletarian and an aristocratic family, embodies a class struggle which Sue also recognizes as having lasted a millennium. It is a novel whose interest also lies in what Sue refers to, in making his point, a representational system ratified by the French Revolution, making the Gauls the representatives of the people who bear the values of democracy and law. This trend became more and more pronounced throughout the 19th century up until their victory in the form of the Third Republic. The irony of it is that, unless it implies a principle of history which draws on the conflict itself, it took place before the Gauls, who were the bearers of freedom and civilization, were used for less noble causes in the colonization process.

The struggles for the land of the '70s saw the alliance between the Mapuche communities and the Chilean left in a "class struggle" in which the indigenous society was included within the general category of campesinos. This process was brutally interrupted by the coup of Pinochet, whose violent repression has contributed to reshape the contraposition according to the previous axis Mapuche-winka (non-Mapuche). Also as a consequence of these tensions, the current Mapuche movement is based on the ideas of self-determination and recovery of the ancestral territory, constituting as a particular "cosmopolitics" that seems to distance itself both from the Western political conception, and from the previous alliance with the Chilean left. The present paper compares the two moments through the analysis of the indigenous leader’s narrative, aiming at understanding the transformations of the Mapuche political practice and its dialectical relationship with the Chilean Other.

The struggles for the land of the '70s saw the alliance between the Mapuche communities and the Chilean left in a "class struggle" in which the indigenous society was included within the general category of campesinos. This process was brutally interrupted by the coup of Pinochet, whose violent repression has contributed to reshape the contraposition according to the previous axis Mapuche-winka (non-Mapuche). Also as a consequence of these tensions, the current Mapuche movement is based on the ideas of self-determination and recovery of the ancestral territory, constituting as a particular "cosmopolitics" that seems to distance itself both from the Western political conception, and from the previous alliance with the Chilean left. The present paper compares the two moments through the analysis of the indigenous leader’s narrative, aiming at understanding the transformations of the Mapuche political practice and its dialectical relationship with the Chilean Other.

The struggles for the land of the '70s saw the alliance between the Mapuche communities and the Chilean left in a "class struggle" in which the indigenous society was included within the general category of campesinos. This process was brutally interrupted by the coup of Pinochet, whose violent repression has contributed to reshape the contraposition according to the previous axis Mapuche-winka (non-Mapuche). Also as a consequence of these tensions, the current Mapuche movement is based on the ideas of self-determination and recovery of the ancestral territory, constituting as a particular "cosmopolitics" that seems to distance itself both from the Western political conception, and from the previous alliance with the Chilean left. The present paper compares the two moments through the analysis of the indigenous leader’s narrative, aiming at understanding the transformations of the Mapuche political practice and its dialectical relationship with the Chilean Other.

In recent years, the world of labor has been affected by a vast array of changes in the context of the global economy in which we live and under the effects of different transnational forces and institutions. Resorting to examples from recent empirical studies carried out by the author, the present paper analyzes and discusses the ongoing processes of change, starting from problems related to the world of labor and connecting them to the broader issue of inequalities and social classes. The main aim is to make a diagnosis and a critical interpretation of some of those changes in Portuguese society, showing their relevance, significance and implications for trade unionism. Thus, after a critical reflection on the new lines of segmentation of the labor market and social inequalities, the text points to a set of questions concerning trade unionism, offering points for further critical reflection and analysis of the experiences and problems which it currently confronts.

Dancing between review and argument this paper lays out a foundation for a class-struggle anthropology -that is, an anthropological practice that can be linked to the ultimate goal of achieving a classless society. To this end we will review those anthropologists who have gone before us, pulling out those works of theirs that we see as critical in (re)building a class-struggle anthropology. As part of this process we discuss the relationship between what has stood as Marxist anthropology in North America, the idea of socialism, the political development of the world working class during nine decades since the October Revolution, and the challenges of intellectual continuity in the face of differing generational experiences of Marxist anthropologists. Ultimately we argue that a progressive anthropology necessarily involves political activism in our work, communities, and schools.