ECOP4011 presents the analytic foundations of historical materialism through a focus on dialectics and the philosophy of internal relations as intrinsic to understanding political economy and the apparent separation of 'politics' and 'economics'. 

In this unit one book will be used as our foundation text. This is: 

Brenna Bhandar, Colonial Lives of Property: Law, Land and Racial Regimes of Ownership (Duke University Press, 2018). 

Each week you will be required to read at least one chapter from the book plus, at times, one additional reading. Rather than a reading kit, all the source material will be provided digitally, or accessible through the library. 

You are advised to purchase the foundation text but this is not compulsory.

The aim of this unit is to provide students with the opportunity to engage deeply with canonical texts by a leading thinker in their discipline. Additionally, there will be a constellation of further texts to build up competing understandings of the foundations of historical materialism. 

The philosophy of internal relations has become a central feature of Bertell Ollman’s work, ever since the publication of Alienation. He addresses a processual approach to concepts as the first step in understanding their internal relation. Rather than positing the external interaction of entities (e.g. 'politics' and 'economics', or 'states' and 'markets', or the 'state' and 'civil society', or 'productive forces' and 'relations of production'), historical materialism understands the world as a complex of internal relations. This is a dialectical ontology that avoids fetishising concepts or abstracting them from their alienated forms of appearance. 

It is the social property relations approach of Ellen Meiksins Wood that strongly exhibits elements of this philosophy of internal relations in her pathbreaking approach to understanding the appearance of the separation of the ‘state’ and the ‘market’ under capitalism. After a general introductory reading from Bertell Ollman, we will examine Ellen Meiksins Wood’s pivotal work on the separation of the ‘economic’ and the ‘political’ under capitalism. This will then be the platform from which to launch into the foundation book as the principal reading. 

It is this internal relations perspective that also appears, for example, in the political economy scholarship of David McNally, the feminist social reproduction theory of Tithi Bhattacharya, the ecofeminism of Ariel Salleh, or the world-ecology approach of Jason W. Moore, to name a few. For Derek Sayer, the key issue is to avoid what he refers to as the violence of abstraction. One can see this philosophy of internal relations perspective across inter alia the political economy analyses of figures such as Antonio Gramsci, Henri Lefebvre, Nicos Poulantzas, E.P. Thompson, or David Harvey. In addition to Karl Marx, some of these figures will also be deliberated during the course of our discussions. Throughout the duration of the unit we will also consider criticisms of the philosophy of internal relations as well as wider methodological work that might exhibit such a perspective useful for the construction of research projects. Here the work of Michael Burawoy and Philip McMichael will be especially pertinent. 

SHORT-FORM ESSAY QUESTION - 15% 

Submit a 1,000 word essay online by 23:59 on Monday 11 April. Your short essay should consider the conceptual critique and validity of one of Ellen Meiksin's Wood's key propositions on the economic abstractions associated with the apparent separation of 'politics' and 'economics' that pervades mainstream economics as well as other historical materialist perspectives: 

Critically engage with Ellen Meiksins Wood’s contention that bourgeois political economy ‘at best’, assumes that, ‘a spatially separate political sphere may intervene in the economy, but the economy itself is evacuated of social content and is, as it were, depoliticised’ [Wood, 1981: 68]. 

LONG-FORM ESSAY - 50%  

Submit a 3,000 word essay online by 23:59 on Monday 23 May. Your long essay should engage with one of the following three options: 

1. Critically assess Brenna Bhandar’s focus on the production of racial subjects and property law and her assertion that ‘The production of racial subjectivity and the constitution of private property relations are articulated conjointly’.

This essay wants you to track arguments about the ideology of improvement and its use that casts both land and its native inhabitants as in need of “improvement” through the logics of abstraction that underlie the commodified visions of land and human life.

2. Drawing from a variety of arguments, analyse debates on the “ideology of improvement” and its role as a means of enclosure and the concentration of property from agrarian capitalism to settler-colonialism.

This essay is demanding an engagement across the unit by threading together a focus on Raymond Williams, Ellen Meiksins Wood, Brenna Bhandar and Ntina Tzouvala to critically appraise the “ideology of improvement”.

3. To what extent does the philosophy of internal relations assume the identity of relations and processes so much so that it is impossible to register or account for real differences? 

Focusing more on Bertell Ollman’s work, especially in relation to his responses to critics in Alienation and elsewhere, this essay should critically evaluate the philosophy of internal relations and the degree to which it collapses core distinctions into each other that constitute capitalism. 

4. Engage with the arguments and critics of Ellen Meiksins Wood and the social property relations approach to deliberate the extent to which such arguments are Eurocentric. 

This question is prompting you to engage not only with the social property relations but wider work by its critics, including Jairus Banaji, Cemal Burak Tansel and Sébastien Rioux.

 PARTICIPATION - 20% 

 ECOP 4011 is designed as a seminar-based course. Your weekly participation is essential. Each student will be allocated a specific seminar to present at and lead discussion in during our first class. Your participation mark is equally comprised of both your weekly seminar participation and your seminar presentation/leadership. 

Seminar presentations/leadership includes the following tasks (as a single presenter or in groups of two): 

(a) Providing a short overview of the arguments laid out in the readings, responding to the week’s seminar question/s. This should take 

no more than 10-15 minutes per presenter and will provide the foundation for the following all-class discussion. 

 (b) Providing 2-3 clearly designed questions to prompt larger group discussion. 

 (c) Managing the group discussion. Seminar leaders are responsible for managing the class discussion, keeping fellow students on 

topic and, when necessary, asking follow-up questions that push fellow students to think deeper and more critically on the issues of the  week. 

 1. Seminar presentation/leadership will be assessed according to: 

1. The clarity and insight of the introductory overview; 

1. Clarity and relevance of the design of key questions; and 

1. Skill in leading and guiding group discussion. 

2. Seminar participation will be assessed according to: 

1. Your presentation of a critical understanding of key ideas and concepts introduced in the literature; 

1. Your capacity to discuss links between theoretical debates and current and/or historical events; and 

1. Respectful treatment and inclusion of other students in discussion. 

REFELECTIVE JOURNAL - 15% 

Submit a total of 2 x 500 word papers for any two seminars in weeks 2 to 12. One of these may be the week of your presentation. 

Seminar papers are due online before class (i.e. by 9am) on the day of the seminar. Your paper should provide a critical response to the week’s seminar focus. Additional research beyond the set readings is not required. Brief written feedback will be provided in the week following submission. A single mark for all three seminar papers will be awarded at the end of semester. 

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