Paul Mattick – författare

Art In Its Time takes a close look at the way in which art has become integral to the everyday 'ordinary' life of modern society. It explores the prevalent notion of art as transcending its historical moment, and argues that art cannot be separated from the everyday as it often provides material to represent social struggles and class, to explore sexuality, and to think about modern industry and our economic relationships.

Art In Its Time takes a close look at the way in which art has become integral to the everyday 'ordinary' life of modern society. It explores the prevalent notion of art as transcending its historical moment, and argues that art cannot be separated from the everyday as it often provides material to represent social struggles and class, to explore sexuality, and to think about modern industry and our economic relationships.

Communism aims at putting working people in charge of their lives. A multiplicity of Councils, rather than a big state bureaucracy is needed to empower working people and to focus control over society. Mattick develops a theory of a council communism through his survey of the history of the left in Germany and Russia. He challenges Bolshevik politics: especially their perspectives on questions of Party and Class, and the role of Trade Unions. Mattick argues that a??The revolutions which succeeded, first of all, in Russia and China, were not proletarian revolutions in the Marxist sense, leading to the a??association of free and equal producersa??, but state-capitalist revolutions, which were objectively unable to issue into socialism. Marxism served here as a mere ideology to justify the rise of modified capitalist systems, which were no longer determined by market competition but controlled by way of the authoritarian state. Based on the peasantry, but designed with accelerated industrialisation to create an industrial proletariat, they were ready to abolish the traditional bourgeoisie but not capital as a social relationship.This type of capitalism had not been foreseen by Marx and the early Marxists, even though they advocated the capture of state-power to overthrow the bourgeoisie a?? but only in order to abolish the state itself.a??

Responding to growing interest in issues of gender and power as they arise within psychoanalysis, Freud, Dora, and the Confusion of Tongues re-examines Freud’s iconic case of Dora from the perspective of Sandor Ferenczi’s investigation of the sexual manipulation of children by adults. Freud believed that his analysis of Dora demonstrated the truth of his Oedipal theory; his treatment was based on interpretations of her statements as evidence of an unresolved Oedipal conflict. In contrast, Ferenczi’s Confusion of Tongues theory focused on the actual interactions between young people and adults who made use of their social status and power to substitute sexuality for the affection children desire. Where Freud located the origin of neurosis in psychological processes interior to the analysand, Ferenczi directed attention to the real traumatic aspects of the relationships between people. By such critical investigation, this book most strikingly shows that Freud’s imposition of his interpretations on Dora, despite his sincere wish to be of help to her, represented an abusive retraumatization. Arguing that it is essential to understand linguistic and other representational systems of experience, and the interrelation between the reproduction and transformation of self, in a contemporary analysis of Dora’s case, this book will appeal to psychoanalysts, philosophers and all those interested in a new understanding of classical psychoanalysis.

Responding to growing interest in issues of gender and power as they arise within psychoanalysis, Freud, Dora, and the Confusion of Tongues re-examines Freud’s iconic case of Dora from the perspective of Sandor Ferenczi’s investigation of the sexual manipulation of children by adults. Freud believed that his analysis of Dora demonstrated the truth of his Oedipal theory; his treatment was based on interpretations of her statements as evidence of an unresolved Oedipal conflict. In contrast, Ferenczi’s Confusion of Tongues theory focused on the actual interactions between young people and adults who made use of their social status and power to substitute sexuality for the affection children desire. Where Freud located the origin of neurosis in psychological processes interior to the analysand, Ferenczi directed attention to the real traumatic aspects of the relationships between people. By such critical investigation, this book most strikingly shows that Freud’s imposition of his interpretations on Dora, despite his sincere wish to be of help to her, represented an abusive retraumatization. Arguing that it is essential to understand linguistic and other representational systems of experience, and the interrelation between the reproduction and transformation of self, in a contemporary analysis of Dora’s case, this book will appeal to psychoanalysts, philosophers and all those interested in a new understanding of classical psychoanalysis.

Originally published in 1978, the essays in this text discuss issues surrounding inflation, governmental roles in economic matters and varying economic systems and theories with a particular lean towards discussing capitalism evaluating how all of these factors affect the economic state of America. Mattick takes on the view that Economics is not an exact science and calls into question its predictive powers and as such, emphasises the issues that he felt needed most attention at the time of writing. This title will be of interest to students of economics and politics.

Originally published in 1978, the essays in this text discuss issues surrounding inflation, governmental roles in economic matters and varying economic systems and theories with a particular lean towards discussing capitalism evaluating how all of these factors affect the economic state of America. Mattick takes on the view that Economics is not an exact science and calls into question its predictive powers and as such, emphasises the issues that he felt needed most attention at the time of writing. This title will be of interest to students of economics and politics.

Theory as Critique, while discussing many central issues of Marxian theory, has two main emphases: First, as the title suggests, it takes seriously Capital’s claim to be a critique of economic theory, rather than a contribution to political economy. Understanding what this means, it shows, goes far to unravelling many difficulties traditionally found in Marx’s book, from the nature of his theory of class to the 'transformation problem'. Secondly, Mattick’s volume carefully explores how to bridge the gap between the extreme abstraction of Marx’s ideas and the complex reality that they are intended to help us understand.

How is scientific knowledge of social life possible? If there are social sciences, must they employ methods different from those of the natural sciences? In Social Knowledge, Paul Mattick argues that the well-known difficulties of the social sciences -- in particular the predictive and explanatory failures of economics -- are due not to an inherent resistance of social life to scientific explanation, but to the failure of social scientists to include their own categories of social explanation among the objects of scientific study.Looking at Marx as an anthropological theorist, Mattick compares his critique of political economy with Evans-Pritchard 's analysis of Azande witchcraft. Just as the British anthropologist attempted to explain Azande ideas and rituals in terms of their place in native life, Marx wished to explain the continued faith in economics -- despite its striking weakness as a science -- in terms of the central role played by this system of ideas in the daily lives of natives of capitalist society. This comparison leads to the questions about the nature of scientific thinking and its relation to our everyday knowledge of social reality that are the subject of this book.Second edition, with a new Preface by the author. The first edition was published in 1986 by Hutchinson, ISBN 9780091654603.

The last year has seen the return of inflation as a preoccupation of political decision-makers, economists and the general public. After two decades of wondering why inflation was so low, despite vast economic stimulus, economists were surprised by the recent surge of price increases. Despite disagreement about what exactly is happening in the economy, there is unanimity that growth must be slowed in order to control inflation. To focus on inflation’s return, Paul Mattick looks at past and present, placing current events in the context of capitalism’s history. Exploring in novel terms the nature of money itself, he provides a concise, jargon-free understanding of recent inflation, and official efforts to control it, illuminating the state of our contemporary economy.

DOES DISCOURSE HAVE A 'STRUCTURE'? HARRIS'S REVOLUTION IN LINGUISTICS As a freshman back in 1947 I discovered that within the various academic divisions and subdivisions of the University of Pennsylvania there existed a something (it was not a Department, but a piece of the Anthropology Department) called 'Linguistic Analysis'. I was an untalented but enthusiastic student of Greek and a slightly more talented student of German, as well as the son of a translator, so the idea of 'Linguistic Analysis' attracted me, sight unseen, and I signed up for a course. It turned out that 'Linguistic Analysis' was essentially a graduate program - I and another undergraduate called Noam Chomsky were the only two undergraduates who took courses in Linguistic Analysis - and also that it was essentially a one-man show: a professor named Zellig Harris taught all the courses with the aid of graduate Teaching Fellows (and possibly - I am not sure - one Assistant Professor). The technicalities of Linguistic Analysis were formidable, and I never did master them all. But the powerful intellect and personality of Zellig Harris drew me like a lodestone, and, although I majored in Philosophy, I took every course there was to take in Linguistic Analysis from then until my gradua­ tion. What 'Linguistics' was like before Zellig Harris is something not many people care to remember today.

DOES DISCOURSE HAVE A 'STRUCTURE'? HARRIS'S REVOLUTION IN LINGUISTICS As a freshman back in 1947 I discovered that within the various academic divisions and subdivisions of the University of Pennsylvania there existed a something (it was not a Department, but a piece of the Anthropology Department) called 'Linguistic Analysis'. I was an untalented but enthusiastic student of Greek and a slightly more talented student of German, as well as the son of a translator, so the idea of 'Linguistic Analysis' attracted me, sight unseen, and I signed up for a course. It turned out that 'Linguistic Analysis' was essentially a graduate program - I and another undergraduate called Noam Chomsky were the only two undergraduates who took courses in Linguistic Analysis - and also that it was essentially a one-man show: a professor named Zellig Harris taught all the courses with the aid of graduate Teaching Fellows (and possibly - I am not sure - one Assistant Professor). The technicalities of Linguistic Analysis were formidable, and I never did master them all. But the powerful intellect and personality of Zellig Harris drew me like a lodestone, and, although I majored in Philosophy, I took every course there was to take in Linguistic Analysis from then until my gradua­ tion. What 'Linguistics' was like before Zellig Harris is something not many people care to remember today.