Political Marxism is a strand of Marxist theory that places history at the centre of its analysis. It was developed as a reaction against ahistorical models of Marxist analysis in the debate on the origins of capitalism. The PM critique brought social agency and class conflict

Class conflict

Class conflict is the tension or antagonism which exists in society due to competing socioeconomic interests between people of different classes....

 to the center of Marxism. In this context, Robert Brenner

Robert Brenner

Robert P. Brenner is a professor of history and director of the Center for Social Theory and Comparative History at UCLA, editor of the socialist journal Against the Current, and editorial committee member of New Left Review...

 and Ellen Wood

Ellen Meiksins Wood

-Biography:Wood was born Ellen Meiksins one year after her parents, Latvian Jews active in the Bund, arrived in New York from Europe as political refugees. She was raised in the United States and Europe.Wood received a B.A...

 founded PM as a distinct approach to rehistoricise and repoliticise the Marxist project. It was a movement away from structuralist and timeless accounts towards historical specificity as contested process and lived praxis.

This research programme has expanded across the social sciences to include the fields of history

History

History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

, political theory, political economy

Political economy

Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...

, sociology

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

, international relations

International relations theory

International relations theory is the study of international relations from a theoretical perspective; it attempts to provide a conceptual framework upon which international relations can be analyzed. Ole Holsti describes international relations theories act as a pair of coloured sunglasses,...

 and international political economy

International political economy

International political economy , also known as global political economy, is an academic discipline within the social sciences that analyzes international relations in combination with political economy. As an interdisciplinary field it draws on many distinct academic schools, most notably ...

. Researchers linked with PM today include Benno Teschke

Benno Teschke

Benno Teschke is a Senior Lecturer of International Relations at the University of Sussex. Teschke's scholarship is a contribution to Marxist international relations theory, specifically in the Political Marxism tendency....

 and George Comninel.

Core Resources

• Robert Brenner (1977). ‘The Origins of Capitalist Development: A Critique of Neo-Smithian Marxism’, New Left Review, I/104. pp. 25-92.
• Robert Brenner (1995 [1976]). ‘Agrarian Class Structures and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe’, in Aston, T.H. and C.H.E. Philpin (eds.) The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 10-63. Originally published (1976). ‘Agrarian Class Structures and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe’, Past & Present, 70, February, pp. 30-75.
• Robert Brenner (1995 [1982]). ‘The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism’ in Aston, T.H. and C.H.E. Philpin (eds.) The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 213-327. Originally published (1982). ’The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism’, Past & Present, 97, November, pp. 16-113.
• George Comninel (2000). ‘English Feudalism and the Origins of Capitalism’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 27 (4), pp. 1- 53.
• George Comninel (1990 [1987]). Rethinking the French Revolution. London and New York: Verso.
• Hannes Lacher (2006). Beyond Globalization: Capitalism, Territoriality and the International Relations of Modernity. London and New York: Routledge.
• Benno Teschke (2003). The Myth of 1648: Class, Geopolitics and the Making of Modern International Relations. London and New York: Verso.
• Ellen Meiksins Wood (1991). The Pristine Culture of Capitalism: An Historical Essay on Old Regimes and Modern States. London and New York: Verso.
• Ellen Meiksins Wood (1995). Democracy Against Capitalism: Renewing Historical Materialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Ellen Meiksins Wood (2002 [1999]). The Origins of Capitalism: A Longer View. London and New York: Verso.
• Ellen Meiksins Wood (2008). Citizens to Lords. A Social History of Western Political Thought From Antiquity to the Middle Ages. London and New York: Verso.

External links

• http://www.politicalmarxism.wordpress.comPolitical Marxism and the Social Sciences a platform for research on political marxism at the University of Sussex
  University of Sussex
  The University of Sussex is an English public research university situated next to the East Sussex village of Falmer, within the city of Brighton and Hove. The University received its Royal Charter in August 1961....
  
  ]
• The Limits of 'Political Marxism by Alex Callinicos