Youth School 2005

Marxism: the dialectical materialist conception of history

Jean — 21 August 2005

Introduction:

- Marxism between past and future

- The materialist dialectic as quintessence of Marxism: empiricism and political theory

- Limits of the report

I. The dialectic: from Hegel to living Marxism

- Hegel: the dialectic and history

- Engels and Marx: materialist critics of the Hegelian dialectic of history

The meaning of ‘turning Hegel on his head’

- The Marxist tradition:

. ‘Diamat’

. The living dialectic of history

II. On some problems of ‘historical materialism’

- On the Preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy

- The material base: nature and economy

- Social classes and the complexity of contemporary human societies

. Class struggle

. Gender

. ‘Races’ or ‘nationalities’

- The state and power:

. State power

. Micro-powers

- Ideology:

. ‘Consciousness as reflection’ and ‘utopian consciousness’

. Ideology and the capitalist culture industry

III. By way of non-conclusion: