Affiliation:
1. Università di Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy
Abstract
Abstract
The aim of the article is to contribute to a critical ontology of socio-economic transformation processes. Elements for such an ontology, it argues, can be found in the interaction between three foundational aspects of Marx’s thought: the notion of labour as a human social activity; the meaning and implications of the notion of alienation; and the relationship between quantitative and qualitative changes. After analysing these elements, the article discusses possible developments for an ontology of socio-economic transformation processes and concludes that Marx’s fundamental contribution to such an ontology is to show that the emergence of a new system of division of labour as a qualitative transformation requires a change in the relationships between the entities of an already existing system of division of labour that gives it a new functionality and a new direction. Marx teaches us that we need to identify the turning points in change processes and that, in this last respect, emergence is not a gradual process. The article argues that, in more general terms, the notion of emergence as a process of change in the functionality of an existing system of relationships to which a new direction is given can be used as a method to analyse socio-economic transformation processes at different levels of social reality. Thus understood, emergence involves the rejection of any form of reductionism in the social sciences.
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Subject
Economics and Econometrics
Cited by
5 articles.
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