‘Critical’ Political Economy, Historical Materialism and Adam Morton
| Date | 01 June 2007 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9256.2007.00290.x |
| Author | Randall D. Germain |
| Published date | 01 June 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Debate |
Debate
‘Critical’ Political Economy, Historical
Materialism and Adam Morton
Randall D. Germain
Carleton University
In response to Adam Morton’s survey of ‘critical’ IPE in the January 2006 issue of this journal, I
argue that we should resist the call to privilege the question of class struggle when considering the
political economy of world order. This question, although not unimportant, draws upon an overly
narrow and austere conception of historical materialism. Instead, I consider a more fulsome – but
decidedly non-Marxist – tradition of historical materialism in order to move beyond the mono-
logical tendency that continues to mar much Marxist historiography, especially when the question
of class struggle is elevated as the principal lens through which our understanding of capitalism is
organised. I do this by considering the importance of historical idealism in the work of Robert W.
Cox, a key interlocutor of much so-called ‘critical’ IPE. Although I agree with Morton that class
struggle should not be effaced, I make the counter-claim that understanding the political economy
of world order demands an attention to the formation of collective human subjectivities if we are
adequately to grasp its contemporary dynamics.
‘Critical’ political economy and historical materialism
Adam Morton has written a lively and provocative account of the current state of
‘critical’ political economy within the UK. He worries that what passes for ‘critical’
political economy should more properly be understood as ‘liberal pluralist idealism’,
and that it systematically refuses to recognise and explore the class structure
and dynamics that collectively constitute capitalist ‘unfreedom and exploitation’
(Morton, 2006, p. 63). To correct this deficiency he directs us to consider the
question ‘where is class struggle?’, for this question exposes most starkly the
dynamics of capitalist social formations. Morton thus advances a variant of mono-
logical Marxism, and in this short response I cast doubt on the attractiveness of this
directive, even considered on its own terms. At one level, the question of class
struggle is self-referential: it assumes the form (although not the precise content) of
its answer without being able to account for why this question itself should be
asked. But more importantly, it may not even be the most pointed question to ask
today, in part because it assumes that the social structure of global order is pre-
dominantly organised around and through capitalism, understood primarily in
terms of class struggle. To do this, I draw on a richer tradition of historical materi-
alism than Morton allows to indicate how we might better frame our inquiry
around questions concerning the formation of subjectivities rather than classes.
Morton organises much of his discussion around the work of himself and Robert W.
Cox. I focus here on Cox’s work, because it illustrates a cardinal weakness of
POLITICS: 2007 VOL 27(2), 127–131
© 2007 The Author.Journal compilation © 2007 Political Studies Association
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