NEW DIRECTIONS IN MARXIST THEORY 
Historical Materialism Annual Conference 2006, 8-10 December 
In association with Socialist Register and the Isaac and Tamara Deutscher 
Memorial Prize Committee 
Clore Management Centre, Birkbeck, and School of Oriental and African 
Studies (SOAS), London, WC1 
The annual Historical Materialism conference is organised by the editorial board of Historical 
Materialism in conjunction with the Deutscher Prize committee and the Socialist Register. The 
conference has become an important event on the Left, providing an annual forum to discuss 
recent developments in Marxist theory. 
The conference is organised around three plenary sessions (the Deutscher lecture, the launch of 
the Socialist Register 2007, and Historical Materialism’s plenaries) as well as workshops dedicated 
to specific themes. Some of the themes for the panels include: Islam and capitalism, China and 
global political economy, rethinking commodity chains, globalisation, uneven and combined 
development, Marxism and law, psychopathologies and capitalism, art and Marxism, value 
theory, and many more. 
It has been one of the main objectives of this conference over the past three years to build 
bridges among various Marxist communities, breaking down some of the linguistic and 
intellectual barriers that continue to hamper the circulation and expansion of critical Marxist 
thought. We see this conference as an opportunity for us to speak with many of the figures 
whose work we are trying to promote, and to discuss translations, collaborations, or other 
projects of collective interest. 
Attendance is free. However, the conference is entirely self-financed and we will depend on 
voluntary donations by attendants and participants to support the event. The suggested 
donation is £30 for waged and £15 for unwaged. 
For logistical support, Historical Materialism would like to thank the School of Oriental and 
African Studies. For sponsorship thanks to Cafe Deco, the Deutscher Prize committee, the Marx 
and Philosophy Society, Merlin Press, Polity, Socialist Register, Pluto Press, and Zed Books. 
Sincerely, 
The Editorial Board of Historical Materialism 


Accumulation by 
Dispossession and 
Capitalism Today 
(Chair: Sebastian Budgen) 
David Harvey 
‘Accumulation by 
Dispossession and 
Capitalism Today’ 
Massimo De Angelis 
‘On the Permanence of 
Enclosures as a 
Strategy for Capital: 
Theoretical and Political 
Implications’ 
Sam Ashman ‘The 
Nature and Limits of 
Accumulation by 
Dispossession’ 
Contemporary 
Capitalism and Its 
Disorders 
(Chair: Demet Dinler) 
Sharad Chari ‘Wastes 
of Capital: Value, 
Struggle and Racial 
Disorder after 
Apartheid’ 
Manali Desai ‘Urban 
Violence and Global 
Capital: Elective 
Affinities and 
Suppressed Historical 
Possibilities’ 
Rakesh Bhandari 
‘Wage Labour As/And 
Slavery’ 
Marxism, Ethics, 
Law 
(Chair: Peter Thomas) 
Himmani Bannerji 
‘Ideology, History and 
the State of Exception: 
Towards A Marxist 
Reading of Giorgio 
Agamben’ 
Milton Fisk ‘Social 
Viability As the Reason 
For Ethics’ 
Yorgos Avgoustis 
‘Morality and History: 
Sartre's Dialectical 
Ethics’ 
Imperialism 
Reconsidered 
(Chair: Liam Campling) 
John Milios 
‘Imperialism or (and) 
Capitalist 
Expansionism. Some 
Thoughts on Capitalist 
Power, the Nation-State 
and the Left’ 
Jean Batou (Title 
TBC) 
Spyros 
Sakellaropoulos ‘On 
the New State- 
Protectorates’ 
Hard Labour in 
Ukraine and the 
US 
(Chair: Colin Leys) 
Alex Law & Gerry 
Mooney ‘Neo- 
Liberalism and the 
Changing Welfare 
Labour Process in the 
UK’ 
John Kelly ‘The Return 
of the Political General 
Strike in Western 
Europe?’ 
Kim Moody ‘Harvest 
of Empire: Immigrant 
Workers and Labour 
Organization in the 
U.S.’ 
Theory and 
Criticism 
(Chair: Esther Leslie) 
Maria Elisa Cevasco 
‘Cultural Criticism At 
the Centre and in the 
Periphery’ 
Drew Milne ‘The 
Manifesto: Hegemony 
and Marxist Criticism’ 
Nicolas Vieillescazes 
‘The Fate of Theory’ 

5 
Friday 8 December 
SESSION TWO—13.30-15.15 Venues – Clore Management Centre (CMC) and Birkbeck College (Malet St) 
COFFEE BREAK—15.15-15.45 
Room G01 at CMC Room G02 at CMC Room 102 at CMC Room B02/3 Malet Street Room 630 Malet Street Room 631 Malet Street 
Political Economy of 
Turkey 
(Chair: Sam Knafo) 
Fuat Ercan ‘Actuality of 
Marx’s “Capital” and 
Marxian Political 
Insight: the Turkish 
Case’ 
Galip Yalman ‘State 
and Capital in the 
Context of 
Globalisation-Cum- 
Europeanisation: 
Reflections on the 
Turkish Case’ 
Pinar Bedirhanoglu 
‘An Historical Analysis 
of the Neoliberal 
Interest in Corruption’ 
Maoism, China and 
the Cultural 
Revolution 
(Chair: Alberto Toscano) 
Michael Dutton ‘China 
and Cultural Revolution’ 
David Seddon 
‘Maoism and 
Revolutionary 
Transformation’ 
Alessandro Russo 
‘The Cultural Revolution 
and Historical 
Materialism’ 
Reading 
Poulantzas I: 
Theorising the 
Capitalist State 
(Chair: Peter Thomas) 
Alexander Gallas and 
John Kannankulam 
‘Reading Poulantzas: on 
the Up-To-Dateness of 
Marxist State Theory’ 
Clyde W. Barrow 
‘(Re)-Reading 
Poulantzas: State 
Theory and the 
Epistemologies of 
Structuralism’ 
Bob Jessop ‘Poulantzas 
as a Classical Theorist 
of the State’ 
Uneven and 
Combined 
Development: the 
Current 
Conjuncture 
(Chair: Sam Ashman) 
Simon Bromley and 
Justin Rosenberg 
‘Uneven and Combined 
Development: the 
Current Conjuncture’ 
Alex Callinicos 
(Discussant) 
Value Theory and 
Non-Equilibrium 
Economics 
(Chair: Guido Starosta) 
Andrew Kliman 
‘Reclaiming Marx's 
“Capital”: A Refutation 
of the Myth of 
inconsistency’ 
Alan Freeman ‘Money, 
Capital and Labour: A 
Critique of Value-Form 
Analysis’ 
Guglielmo Carchedi 
‘On the Sociological 
Foundations of Non- 
Equilibrium Economics’ 
Marxism and 
Social Movements 
(Chair: Liam Campling) 
Colin Barker ‘Marxism 
and Social Movements: 
Do they Need Each 
Other?’ 
Abigail Bakan ‘Marx, 
Gramsci and Anti- 
Oppression Politics’ 

6 
Friday 8 December 
SESSION THREE—15.45-17.30 Venues – Clore Management Centre (CMC) and Birkbeck College (Malet St) 
Room G01 at CMC Room G02 at CMC Room 102 at CMC Room B02/3 Malet Street Room 630 Malet Street Room 631 Malet Street 
Globalisation 
Panel 
(Chair: Alberto 
Toscano) 
Tony Smith ‘Towards 
A Systematic Dialectic 
of Globalisation’ 
Radhika Desai 
‘When Was 
Globalisation?’ 
David McNally 
‘Global 
Commodification, 
Global Commons: 
Forms of Class 
Struggle in the Age of 
Globalisation’ 
The Life and 
Work of Ernest 
Mandel 
(Chair: Sam 
Ashman) 
Jan Willem Stutje 
‘On Mandel’s 
Legendary Optimism’ 
Gilbert Achcar ‘The 
Actuality of Mandel’ 
Alex Callinicos 
‘Mandel and Marxist 
Theory’ 
Marxism, Critical 
Realism and Social 
Theory 
(Chair: Guido Starosta) 
Jonathan Joseph 
‘Marxism and Critical 
Realism’’ 
Alan Norrie 'Dialectic, 
Materialism, Ethics: on 
Dialectical Critical 
Realism' 
Murray Smith ‘Dualism 
in Social Theory: A 
Marxist Critique’ 
Discussion of Chris 
Wickham’s book 
Framing the Early 
Middle Ages 
(Chair: Paul Blackledge) 
Chris Wickham ‘Framing 
the Early Middle Ages’ 
Carlos Astarita ‘Peasant- 
Based Societies in Chris 
Wickham's Thought’ 
Neil Davidson ‘Centuries 
of Transition, Or: Was There 
a Feudal Revolution?’ 
Halil Berktay ‘Between 
“Framing the Early Middle 
Ages” and “Disinventing 
Feudalism”: Implications for 
a non-Eurocentric historical 
typology and periodisation’ 
Marxist 
Feminism 
(Chair: Demet 
Dinler) 
Carolyn Brown 
(Title TBC) 
Rohini Hensmann 
‘Revisiting the 
Domestic Labour 
Debate: A Third 
World Perspective’ 
Jörg Nowak ‘Gender 
Relations and 
Feminist State Theory’ 
Cultural Criticism 
(Chair: Esther Leslie) 
Richard Greeman 
‘Victor Serge’s 
Approach To Literature’ 
Benita Parry 'A Third 
World Aesthetic?' 
Sean Homer 
‘Retrieving Kusturica's 
“Underground” as a 
Critique of Ethnic 
Nationalism’ 
COFFEE BREAK—17.30-18.00 
Welcome from Conference Organisers—18.00-18.30 [Room B101 at Clore Management Centre] 
ISSAC AND TAMARA DEUTSCHER MEMORIAL PRIZE LECTURE—18.30-20.30 [Room B101 at Clore Management Centre] 
Kevin Murphy ‘Can We Write a History of the Russian Revolution? A Belated Response to Eric Hobsbawm’ 

7 
Saturday 9 December 
SESSION FOUR—9.00-10.45 Venue – School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) 
Room G50 Room G51 Room G52 Room L67 
Economic Dialogues 
(Chair: Sam Ashman) 
Michael Krätke ‘Marx as an Economic 
Journalist’ 
Riccardo Bellofiore ‘Sraffa as a Reader 
of Marx’ 
Gareth Dale ‘Karl Polanyi and Marxism’ 
Value, Migrants, Labour 
(Chair: Guido Starosta) 
Massimiliano Tomba ‘Differentials of 
Surplus Value: Re-reading Marx’ 
Devi Sachetto ‘Capital Mobility and 
Labour Migration: the East-West 
European Case’ 
Fabio Raimondi ‘Migrant Labour’ 
Manuela Bojadzijev ‘Racism and 
Struggles of Migration. A Theoretical 
Encounter’ 
Bourgeois Revolutions 
(Chair: Sebastian Budgen) 
Bertel Nygaard ‘Bourgeois Revolution: the 
Genesis of a Network of Concepts’ 
Neil Davidson ‘The Bourgeois Revolution 
in Scotland: Exception or Model?’ 
Henry Heller ‘The French Revolution and 
the Birth of the Proletariat’ 
Marxism, Foucault, Deleuze 
(Chair: Matteo Mandarini) 
Ines Langemeyer ‘Is Foucault’s 
Governmentality Approach Really Useful 
for Analysing the Contemporary Policies of 
Privatisation, New Working Conditions and 
Power Relations?’ 
Urs Lindner 'Althusser and Foucault: Une 
Liaison Dangereuse?' 
Ian Buchanan ‘Deleuze and Materialism’ 
Room 116 Room B102 Room B104 Room B111 
Marxism and Evolutionary 
Psychology 
(Chair: Martin McIvor) 
Phil Gasper ‘Historical Materialism and 
Evolutionary Psychology’ 
Viren Swami ‘What Future for 
Evolutionary Psychology?’ 
Marxism, Islam and Middle East 
(Chair: Alex Colas) 
Isam Al-Khafaji ‘Reactionary Left, 
Revolutionary Right’ 
Haldun Gulalp ‘Historical Materialism 
and Political Islam: Class Struggle vs. 
Unilinear “Progress”‘ 
Chris Harman ‘Marxist Analyses of Islam 
and Islamism’ 
Gilbert Achcar ‘Rebuilding a Marxist Left 
in the Middle East’ 
Republicanism, Marx and Politics 
(Chair: Peter Thomas) 
Geoff Kennedy ‘Republicanism, Pre- 
Capitalism and the Rise of Capitalist 
Imperialism’ 
Fabio Frosini ‘Marx and Politics: from the 
“Class Struggles in France” to “The 18th 
Brumaire”’ 
Giacomo Marramao ‘The Rediscovery of 
Carl Schmitt by Italian Marxism’ 
Representations of Capital 
(Chair: Esther Leslie) 
Ingar Solty ‘Marxism and the Political 
Theatre of Tony Kushner’ 
Marcos Soares ‘Reification, Utopia and 
the Political Film’ 
Gulseren Adakli ‘New Media 
Architecture and Management in the 
Turkish Media’ 
Oscar Piñera & Robert Austin ‘Changing 
Clothes: Imperialism and Culture in the 
Historiography of Latin America’ 
COFFEE BREAK—10.45-11.15

8 
Saturday 9 December 
SESSION FIVE—11.15-12.45 Venue – School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) 
Room G50 Room G51 Room G52 Room L67 
Economic Theory and 
Economics Imperialism 
(Chair: Sam Ashman) 
Ben Fine ‘Economics Imperialism and 
the Prospects for Political Economy’ 
Daniel Ankarloo ‘New institutional 
Economics and Economic History: a 
Case of Economics Imperialism’ 
Dimitris Milonakis ‘Douglass North 
and the Limits of New Institutional 
Economics’ 
Discussion of Lars Lih’s book 
Lenin Rediscovered 
(Chair: Paul Blackledge) 
Lars T. Lih ‘Lenin Rediscovered’ 
Paul LeBlanc ‘Lenin Rediscovered: 
Reflections of A Friendly Critic’ 
Daniel Bensaid (Discussant) 
Stathis Kouvelakis (Discussant) 
Althusser, Marxism and 
Philosophy 
(Chair: Matteo Mandarini) 
Panagiotis Sotiris ‘Contradictions of 
Aleatory Materialism: on Louis 
Althusser’s Later Writings’ 
Jason Read ‘Double Inscription: 
Philosophy After Marx’ 
William Lewis ‘Breaks and Continuities 
in the Thought of Louis Althusser: Should 
We Care about Them?’ 
Discussion of China Miéville’s 
book Between Equal Rights: A 
Marxist Theory of International 
Law 
(Chair: James Furner) 
China Miéville ‘The Commodity-Form 
Theory of International Law' 
Bill Bowring ‘The Antinomies of 
Yevgenii Pashukanis’ 
Howard Engelskirchen ‘When Force 
Decides: Capital and Legal Form’ 
Susan Marks (Discussant) 
Room 116 Room B102 Room B104 Room B111 
Gender Relations 
(Chair: Peter Thomas) 
Anna G. Jónasdóttir ‘Feminist Questions, 
Marx’s Method and the theorisation of “Love 
Power”. A Different Way of Dealing with 
Marx and A Comment on Frigga Haug’s 
Article, “Gender Relations” 
Ann Ferguson ‘Why Understanding Gender 
Relations Needs A Socialist-Feminist Analysis: 
A Critique of Frigga Haug’ 
The 33-Day War and its 
Aftermath: Whither 
Lebanon 
(Chair: Alberto Toscano) 
Gilbert Achcar 
Anne Alexander 
Moshe Machover 
Neoliberalism and Imperialism 
(Chair: Alfredo Saad-Filho) 
Mike Hill ‘Our Leviathan, Ourselves: 
Hurricane Katrina and the Warfare 
State’ 
Peter Hallward 'Haiti 2004: the 
Perfection of Neo-Imperialism?' 
Ursula Huws '’The Globalisation of 
Labour Markets and the Problem of 
Class' 
Class and Morality 
(Chair: Demet Dinler) 
Necmi Erdogan ‘Injuries of Difference’: 
Class, Poverty and (Self-) Respect in 
Turkey’ 
Andrew Sayer ‘The Moral Significance 
of Class’ 
Bev Skeggs ‘Class and Respectability’ 
LUNCH—12.45-13.15 

9 
Saturday 9 December 
SESSION SIX—13.15-15.00 Venue – School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) 
Room G50 Room G51 Room G52 Room L67 
Commodity Studies, Labour and 
Development 
(Chair: Liam Campling) 
Jennifer Bair ‘Commodity Chains and 
Uneven Development’ 
Ben Selwyn ’Bringing Labour into Global 
Commodity Chain Analysis’ 
Henry Bernstein 'Political Economy and 
Economic Sociology: Complementary or 
Divergent? The Case of Commodity 
Chains' 
Guido Starosta 'Revisiting the New 
International Division of Labour Debate' 
Passive Revolution 
(Chair: Sam Knafo) 
Mikko Lahtinen ‘Finnish 19th 
Century Nationalism As A Case of 
Passive Revolution / Revolution- 
Restoration’ 
Vivek Chibber ‘The “Passive 
Revolution” Revisited’ 
Gáspár Miklós Tamás 
‘Democracy Without a People, Two 
Versions of Oligarchy: Transition in 
Eastern Europe from Somewhere 
to Nowhere’ 
The Rise of Stalinism 
(Chair: Paul Blackledge) 
John Marot ‘The Peasant Question 
and the Origins of Stalinism: 
Rethinking the Destruction of the 
October Revolution’ 
Alexei Gusev ‘The End of NEP: 
Did Stalin Fulfil Trotsky’s 
programme?’ 
Marcel Van Der Linden ‘Western 
Marxism and the Soviet Union’ 
Reading Capital 
(Chair: Guido Starosta) 
Roberto Fineschi ‘The Dialectical Structure of Marx’s 
Theory of “Capital”: Universality, Particularity and 
Singularity’ 
Patrick Murray ‘A Framework For Marxian Social 
Theory: Subsumption Under Value Forms and their 
Shadow Forms’ 
Michael Heinrich ‘Deconstructing "Capital": New 
Insights from Marx's Economic Manuscripts in the 
“MEGA”’ 
Ben Fine ‘Debating Lebowitz: Is Class Conflict the Moral 
and Historical Element in the Value of Labour Power?’ 
Room 116 Room B102 Room B104 Room B111 
Workers’ Power 
(Chair: Martin McIvor) 
Sheila Cohen ‘“A Transcendental 
Disdain”? Strikes, Combinations and 
Socialists Today’ 
Bob Archer ‘Budapest Central Workers' 
Council’ 
Al Campbell ‘Venezuelan Enterprises of 
Social Production’ 
Utopia & Science Fiction 
(Chair: TBC) 
Matthew Beaumont ‘The Marxian 
Uncanny: Rethinking the Relation of Present 
and Future’ 
Andrew Milner ‘Archaeologies of Science 
Fiction: Jameson’s Utopia or Orwell’s 
Dystopia’ 
Carl Freedman ‘Between Equal Rights and 
Bas-Lag: the Marxism of China Miéville’ 
Assessing the Work of 
Maxime Rodinson 
(Chair: Demet Dinler) 
Alberto Toscano ‘Zionism, 
Nationalism and Colonialism: 
Lessons from Rodinson’ 
Sami Zubaida ‘Maxime Rodinson 
and Middle East Conflicts’ 
Alex Colas 'Maxime Rodinson and 
Materialist Orientalism' 
Reading Poulantzas II: Power, 
Democracy, Socialism 
(Chair: Alfredo Saad-Filho) 
Urs Lindner ‘Domination and Politics: on the 
Relationship Between Poulantzas and Foucault’ 
Alex Demirovic ‘Rule by the People? Democracy 
and the Capitalist State in Poulantzas’ 
Peter Thomas ‘Conjunture of the Integral State: 
Poulantzas’s Reading of Gramsci’ 
Leo Panitch (Discussant) 
COFFEE BREAK—15.00-15.30 

10 
Saturday 9 December 
Venue – School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) 
HISTORICAL MATERIALISM PLENARY—15.30-17.00 at the Khalili Lecture Theatre 
China and Future of Global Economy 
(Chair: Sebastian Budgen) 
David Harvey 
Andrew Glyn 
Simon Clarke 
SOCIALIST REGISTER PLENARY I—17.00-18.30 at the Khalili Lecture Theatre 
The Ecological Crisis: Can Capitalism Prevail? 
(Chair: Colin Leys) 
Elmar Altvater 
Daniel Buck 
Henry Bernstein and Phil Woodhouse 
COFFEE BREAK—18.30-18.45 
SOCIALIST REGISTER PLENARY II—18.45-20.15 at the Khalili Lecture Theatre 
Eco-Socialism, Democratic Planning and Political Strategy 
(Chair: Leo Panitch) 
Greg Albo 
Frieder Otto Wolf 
Hilary Wainwright 
CONFERENCE DINNER—21.00 at Taz Restaurant, 22 Bloomsbury Street, WC1B 

11 
Sunday 10 December 
SESSION SEVEN—9.00-10.45 Venue – School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) 
Room G3 Room B102 Room B104 
Capitalism Today 
(Chair: Liam Campling) 
Riccardo Bellofiore Contemporary Capitalism 
Joost Ploeger ‘Killing Two Birds with one Euro: A 
Marxist Analysis of the Attack on Labour and the 
Dollar’ 
Alan Freeman ‘In Our Lifetime: Long-Run Trends in 
the World Economy 1960-2006’ 
Marxism and Popular Culture 
(Chair: Esther Leslie) 
Marco Maurizi ‘”Just in Case Society Crumbles”: 
George A. Romero and Marxism’ 
Mike Wayne ‘Marxism and the Unconscious’ 
Roger Behrens (Title TBC) 
Marxism, Theology, Religion 
(Chair: Peter Thomas) 
Roland Boer ‘Criticism of Heaven’ 
John Roberts ‘The “Returns to Religion”: Messianism, 
Christianity and the Revolutionary Tradition’ 
COFFEE BREAK—10.45-11.15 
Room G50 Room G51 Room G52 Room L67 
What Distinguishes a 
Marxist from a Keynesian 
Critique of Neoliberalism? 
Roundtable sponsored by 
Socialist Register 
(Chair: Leo Panitch) 
Alfredo Saad-Filho 
Greg Albo 
Elmar Altvater 
Engels, Kautsky and the 
Second international 
(Chair: Paul Blackledge) 
Jefford Vahlbusch ‘Toward a Re- 
Reading of Engels's Late Letters on 
Historical Materialism’ 
Lars T. Lih ‘Kautsky and Class 
Struggles in France’ 
Jean Ducange ‘Kautsky, Jaurès, 
Guesdism and the French Republican 
Tradition’ 
Idealism, Materialism, Production: 
Philosophical Foundations of Marxist 
Critique 
Sponsored by the Marx and Philosophy 
Society 
(Chair: Chris Arthur) 
Andrew Chitty 'Mutual Recognition and 
Species Being' 
Martin McIvor ‘Marx as a post-Kantian' 
Sean Sayers 'Labour in "Post-Industrial" 
Society' 
Frieder Otto Wolf ‘Materialist Dialectics’ 
Transitions 
(Chair: Demet Dinler) 
Angela Joya ‘Transition To Capitalism 
in Syria: 1970-2005’ 
Attila Aytekin ‘The Transition to 
Capitalism in the Ottoman Empire: A 
Reappraisal of a “Non-Existent” 
Debate’ 
Derek Hall ‘Southeast Asian Land 
Relations and Theories of Capitalist 
World Order’ 

12 
Sunday 10 December 
SESSION EIGHT—11.15-13.00 Venue – School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) 
Room G3 Room B102 Room B104 Room B111 
Reading Poulantzas III 
(Chair: Guido Starosta) 
Alexander Gallas ‘Reading “Capital” 
with Poulantzas. “Form” and “Struggle” 
in the Critique of Political Economy’ 
Lars Bretthauer ‘Materiality and 
Condensation in the State Theory of 
Nicos Poulantzas’ 
John Kannankulam ‘Poulantzas and 
State Derivation. on the Relationship of 
Two Approaches to Marxist State Theory’ 
Aesthetics and Politics: Criticism 
and Production 
(Chair: Esther Leslie) 
Richard Barrett ‘Songs without Words: 
Radical Politics and Instrumental Music’ 
Ben Watson (Title TBC) 
Kerstin Staekemeier (Title TBC) 
The British New Left 
(Chair: Martin McIvor) 
Andrew Milner ‘‘Our Best Man: 
Raymond Williams and the British New 
Left’ 
Paul Blackledge ‘1956: Socialist 
Humanism and the Renewal of Marxism’ 
Kelvin Knight ‘Alasdair MacIntyre and 
Marxism’ 
Investigations in Political 
Economy 
(Chair TBC) 
Jane Hardy 'Transforming Poland: 
Neoliberal Fantasies, Institutional Fixes 
and Marxist Alternatives’ 
Chris Harman ‘Marxist Analyses and 
the Trajectory of Capitalism Today’ 
Ufuk Tutan (Title TBC) 
LUNCH—13.00-13.30 
Room G50 Room G51 Room G52 Room L67 
Cultural Political Economy 
(Chair: Alberto Toscano) 
Bob Jessop ‘Culture and Political 
Economy’ 
Alex Demirovic ‘Material Conditions of 
Critical intellectuals and Knowledge 
Production’ 
David Camfield ‘The Multitude and the 
Kangaroo: A Critique of Hardt and 
Negri’s Theory of Immaterial Labour’ 
Debating the Early Years of 
the Bolshevik Revolution 
(Chair: Sebastian Budgen) 
Simon Pirani 
Steve Smith 
Jean-Jacques Marie 
John Riddell 
Kevin Murphy 
Daniel Bensaid 
Debating Value Theory and Capital 
Theory 
(Chair: Sam Knafo) 
Jørgen Sandemose ‘More Than Enough: A 
Hundred Years with the Transformation Problem’ 
Geert Reuten ‘On the Quantitative Homology 
Between Circulating Capital and Capital Value; 
the Problem of Marx's and the Marxian Notion 
of “Variable Capital”’ 
Scott Meikle ‘The Labour Theory of Value’ 
Spinoza and Marxism 
(Chair: Peter Thomas) 
Vittorio Morfino ‘Marx and Spinoza’ 
Margherita Pascucci ‘Causa Sui: Capital 
and the Virtual’ 
Caroline Williams (Title TBC) 

13 
Sunday 10 December 
SESSION NINE—13.30-15.15 Venue – School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) 
COFFEE BREAK—15.15-15.45 
Room G50 Room G51 Room G52 Room L67 
Finance and Capital 
(Chair: Guido Starosta) 
Jim Kincaid ‘Finance in Marxist Political 
Economy: Some Current Debates’ 
Sam Knafo ‘Finance and the Law of 
Value’ 
Thomas Sablowski ‘Rethinking the 
Relation of Financial and Industrial 
Capital’ 
Debating the Early Years of the 
Bolshevik Revolution (contd.) 
(Chair: Sebastian Budgen) 
Simon Pirani 
Steve Smith 
Jean-Jacques Marie 
John Riddell 
Kevin Murphy 
Daniel Bensaid 
Language and Literature 
(Chair: Esther Leslie) 
Jean-Jacques Lecercle ‘A Marxist 
Philosophy of Language’ 
Craig Brandist ‘Marxist Theories of 
Agitation and Propaganda in 
Postrevolutionary Russia’ 
Thierry Labica ‘Some of the Reasons 
Why Marxists Should Read the Novels 
of Patrick Hamilton Today’ 
Classics of Marxist Economic 
Theory 
(Chair: Sam Ashman) 
Michael Kràtke ‘Otto Bauer’s Analysis 
of the World Crisis of the 1930s’ 
Rick Kuhn ‘Henryk Grossman: from 
Jewish Workers’ Leader to Crisis 
Theorist’ 
Costas Lapavitsas ‘The Relevance of 
Hilferding’s “Finance Capital” Today’ 
Room G3 Room B102 Room B104 
Ralph Miliband 
(Chair: Leo Panitch) 
Clyde Barrow ‘Ralph Miliband and the Instrumentalist 
Theory of the State: the Misconstruction of an Analytic 
Concept’ 
Paul Wetherly ‘The Idea of Structural Constraint in 
Miliband’s Theory of the State in Capitalist Society’ 
Paul Blackledge ‘Miliband, Marxism and Politics’ 
Peter Burnham ‘Miliband: Parliamentary Socialism and 
beyond’ 
Georg Lukács 
(Chair: Matteo Mandarini) 
Ates Uslu ‘Gyorgy Lukács and the Hungarian 
Republic of Councils’ 
Gáspár Miklós Tamás 'Once Again: What Is 
Orthodox Marxism?' 
Vincent Charbonnier “On “The Destruction 
of Reason”’ 
The Future of Democracy 
(Chair: Demet Dinler) 
Suzi Weissman ‘Disintegrating Democracy -- From 
the Promise of the Soviet Since 1905 To the 
Contemporary Crisis of Corrupt Democratic Forms’ 
Kathryn Dean ‘Imagining the Post-Capitalist Global 
Community: An Impossible Project?’ 
Werner Bonefeld ‘Democracy and Dictatorship: 
Notes on Ordo-Liberalism 

14 
Sunday 10 December 
SESSION TEN—15.45-18.00 Venue – School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) 
Khalili Lecture Theatre Room B102 
Workerism and the Political 
(Chair: Alberto Toscano) 
Mario Tronti 
Massimiliano Tomba 
Riccardo Bellofiore 
Peter Thomas 
Alex Callinicos 
Capitalism and the Inter-State System 
(Chair: Liam Campling) 
Kees Van Der Pijl ‘Modes of Foreign Relations: From the Tribal to Global 
Governance and Back’ 
Peter Gowan ‘One Logic or Two in Capitalist International Relations and the 
Possibilities of Transcending the Inter-State System’ 
Paul Cammack ‘Governance of Global Capitalism’ 



1