Acorns and fruit: From totalization to periodization in the critique of capitalism

Abstract

This article enlivens Marxist state debate by clarifying and furthering the appraisal of a series of interventions on the subject linked with Open Marxism. It highlights four particular weaknesses in Open Marxism, arguing that they stem from the same source: a totalizing ontology that takes the capital relation as the singular constitutive source of human social practice. This universal focus on the capital relation leaves Open Marxism ill-suited for the task of offering a critique of transformations and reorganizations of class power within state forms and specific phases of capitalist development.