La crítica de Simon Clarke al marxismo estructuralista

Alberto Bonnet

doi:10.32399/ICSYH.bvbuap.2954-4300.2025.6.12.833

Authors

Alberto Bonnet Universidad Nacional de Quilmes / Universidad de Buenos Aires https://orcid.org/0009-0005-5056-2321

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.32399/ICSYH.bvbuap.2954-4300.2025.6.12.833

Keywords:

Simon Clarke, structuralism, State, relations of production, class struggle

Abstract

This article presents and discusses the critique of structuralist Marxism that Simon Clarke developed between the mid-1970s and early 1990s. The first section is devoted to his critique of Lévi-Strauss’s structuralist anthropology, which was a precursor to the development of structuralism as a whole. The second section is devoted to his critique of the founding writings of structuralist Marxism, by Althusser and Balibar, and the third section is devoted to his critique of Poulantzas’s structuralist conceptions of the State and classes. The fourth section deals with Clarke’s critique of the traces that structuralist Marxism left in the so-called Regulation School and in some other contemporary Marxists, such as Jessop and Hirsch. The mainstays of Clarke’s critique of structuralist Marxism are his objections to the empirical relevance of the concept of structure, to the conception of production relations in technical terms, in particular, and, more broadly, to the external character of relations. between practices/instances endowed with relative autonomy within the structure, and to structural-functionalist determinism, especially with regard to the role of class struggle. Towards the end of the article, we discuss the scope and limits of this critique.

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