Crítica da modernidade e marxismo weberiano: aspectos da trajetória indisciplinada de Michael Löwy

Em sua vasta trajetória intelectual – que atravessa os múltiplos campos teóricos das ciências humanas – Michael Löwy destacou-se pela capacidade de estabelecer um diálogo profícuo entre tradições diversas do pensamento social. Partindo desta constatação, o objetivo deste artigo é a apresentação e sistematização de alguns aspectos decisivos da trajetória teórica e intelectual de Michael Löwy, com ênfase especial: 1) na importância da sua formação intelectual, ainda no Brasil (no final da década de 1950), para a constituição de uma leitura não-dogmática do marxismo; e 2) sua incorporação da dialética no diagnóstico weberiano da modernidade. O artigo argumenta que essa interpretação “aberta” do marxismo permitiu-lhe reinterpretar autores do passado — como Marx e Weber — a partir das condições de possibilidade do cenário histórico e intelectual contemporâneo. Esta disposição para enfrentar os desafios do presente sem abandonar as perspectivas do passado comprova a importância da obra de Löwy para as ciências sociais e, mais especificamente, para o marxismo contemporâneo.

Marxism Today [Review]

The briefly resurrected Marxism Today (1998), edited by Martin Jacques, sets out to deal with perceived failures of the 'Blair project' (Jacques, 1998: 2). Jacques opens the issue by reaffirming that Blair, which is to say New Labour, is the successful creation of the 'New Left' projects, the first of which began in the late-fifties and early sixties in both Britain and the US, and which were vigorously revived in the late 1980s. However, the most comprehensive debate is fairly much contained in the first three articles, written by Hobsbawm, Hall, and Mulgan, insofar as the broadest defining parameters of Third Way 'values' are addressed by these writers.

Marxism, Anti-Semitism And the Holocaust.

Manuscript on the above subject.

‘Marxism and Ecology: From Political Economy to Political Ecology’

One of the reasons for the 'fin de seicle' angst within western liberal capitalist societies is the rise in prominance of ecological concerns within these societies. Long before the New Right declared the post-war welfare state to be untenable, early green critics had claimed it to be ecologically unsustainable. The addiction of the welfare state on ever increasing levels of economic growth was pronounced to be simply impossible within the context of a finite planet. Although it was not expressed in this manner, what these early ecological concerns with Limits to Growth were in effect saying was that the accumulation of capital rendered capitalism unsustainable. Yet the ecological critique of capitalism has not found much favour within the Marxist critique untile recently. Early Marxist analyses of the ecology movement dismissed them as ‘petty bourgeios radicals’ while many greens still view Marxism as ‘fair shares in extinction’. The lack of positive engagement and dialogue between Marxism and ecology has in recent years been put right with a discernable overlap between the two critiques of capitalism. This article seeks to present the areas of disagreement and agreement between the two and seeks to provide an ‘environmental audit’ on both the Marxist method and political project.