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IN STANLEY MOORE'S ARTICLE ("MARX AND LENIN AS HISTORICAL MATERIALISTS," PHILOSOPHY & PUBLIC AFFAIRS, 1975, 4, 2,) AN ACCOUNT OF 2 MAJOR INCONSISTENCIES IN HISTORICAL MATERIALS REVOLVED AROUND CONTRADICTIONS IN THE THEORY OF SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, CLASS STRUGGLE, & TRANSFORMATION OF FEUDALISM INTO CAPITALISM. MOORE'S CLAIMS OF INCONSISTENCY ARE BASED ON MISINTERPRETATION OF MARX, BUT IN A MANNER WIDELY CURRENT WITH OTHER INTREPRETIVE ATTEMPTS TODAY. CERTAIN GENERAL PRINCIPLES MUST BE RESPECTED IN INTERPRETING MARX. MARXIST TEXTS SHOULD BE VIEWED LESS LITERALLY & WITH THE LIBERAL INTERPRETATIONS OFFERED MANY OTHER PHILOSOPHERS. SEEN MORE EXPANSIVELY, MARX'S IDEAS ARE NOT INCONSISTENT OR OBVIOUSLY WRONG; THE CITED INCONSISTENCIES ARE REFUTED FROM THIS PERSPECTIVE. POLITICAL THEORISTS NEED TO VIEW MARXISM FOR ITS PHILOSOPHICAL RELEVANCE TO MODERN SOCIETY. T. BABITSKY.

The relationship between struggles against capitalism & patriarchy is reassessed in an examination of their common materialist framework. Friedrich Engels's model of the links between private property & sexual oppression is reviewed, noting that while he concluded that socialism would end the latter, his own anthropological sources demonstrate that patriarchy antedated capitalism; the primacy of class struggle to feminism is further questioned in a review of the sexual DofL within the job market & family. Capitalism is viewed as both strengthening & weakening patriarchal structures, & careful distinctions are drawn between direct economic causes & structural factors in women's oppression. Prospects for the convergence of the two struggles are then considered, emphasizing the legitimacy of an autonomous women's movement & the need for socialist groups to recognize feminist analysis without subordinating it to class struggle. L. Whittemore.

I. Historical Materialism and the Specificity of Capitalism. 1. The separation of the 'economic' and the 'political' in capitalism ; 2. Rethinking base and superstructure ; 3. Class as process and relationship ; 4. History or technological determinism? ; 5. History or teleology? Marx versus Weber -- II. Democracy Against Capitalism. 6. Labour and democracy, ancient and modern ; 7. The demos versus 'we, the people' : from ancient to modern conceptions of citizenship ; 8. Civil society and the politics of identity ; 9. Capitalism and human emancipation: race, gender and democracy.

Ellen Meiksins Wood argues that with the collapse of Communism the theoretical project of Marxism and its critique of capitalism is more timely and important than ever. Current intellectual fashions of the left which emphasise 'post-modern' fragmentation, 'difference', contingency and the 'politics of identity' can barely accommodate the idea of capitalism, let alone subject the capitalist system to critique. In this book she sets out to renew the critical programme of historical materialism by redefining its basic concepts and its theory of history in original and imaginative ways, using them to identify the specificity of capitalism as a system of social relations and political power. She goes on to explore the concept of democracy in both the ancient and modern world, examining the concept's relation to capitalism, and raising questions about how democracy might go beyond the limits imposed on it by capitalism

Considers the responses of G. A. Cohen (1988) to critics of his effort to construct a Marxist theory that provides historical explanations & predictions with reference to general laws & empirical statements. According to Cohen's theory, societies develop primarily through the evolution of means of production, which determine relations of production in a given society to the extent that individuals are guided to rationally maximize their material advantage. This theory has been criticized for its ignorance of many other values that humans might privilege, ie, those satisfied only by something other than material wealth, & so skew the predictive power of Cohen's theory. It is suggested that Cohen's response to these criticisms is inadequate. In particular, Cohen fails to adequately treat the collective action problem identified by his critics. It is concluded that historical materialism on Cohen's model is untenable; socialists generally would do well to shift their energies away from defending this thesis. 43 References. D. Ryfe