The odd couple: neo-marxism and rationality
Abstract
We analyse the relation between Western neo-Marxism and the contemporary debate on rationality, how the latter has conditioned the former’s understanding of capitalism and how it has modified its relationship with other currents of economic thought. Starting from a puzzling event, the defence of ‘rational choice theory’ by analytical Marxism, we analyse how this contemporary phenomenon is historically related to an assimilation by Western neo-Marxism of the categories established by the liberal tradition in the debate on rationality to functionally stabilize capitalism. We conclude that, if the contemporary currents of neo-Marxism are to cease to represent a progressive strand of liberal thought as reformulated by Rawls, they need to relate the substantive irrationality of capitalism not to a system of values but to the social form of economic production.
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