Common Sense has no editors and hence contains no editorial. Its aim is to challenge the division of labour in contemporary society according to which theoretical discussion is monopolised by universities and confined to the pages of trade-journals read by professional and academic elites.

The term “common sense” signifies: (i) shared or public sense, and (ii) the interplay of differing perspectives and theoretical views. These meanings imply one another. Both are undermined to the extent that a social division of labour prevails. For theory, the undermining of common sense means that philosophy becomes separated from empirical enquiry, to the impoverishment of both. The arid abstraction of analytical philosophy and the plodding boredom of positivism are the complementary results. For practice, the undermining of common sense means that political action is denied any space for self-reflection and so goes forward in terms which confirm the social status quo. Common sense admits of no fixed definition. No less elusive than it is intelligible, it exists only where criticism and self-criticism are the order of the theoretical and political day. A continuing development of critical theory is the only brief which the journal Common Sense holds.

From Issue Two

WHY COMMON SENSE?

In the 18th century, Scottish philosophy understood common sense to mean (a) public or shared sense (sensus communis) and also (b) an as-it-were “sixth” sense which establishes relations and distinctions between the data supplied by the other five. What is exciting in this philosophy is its thesis that these two meanings of common sense by no means exclude, but on the contrary imply, one another. On the one hand, I can achieve a coherent totalisation of my experience only in and through interaction with other people; and, on the other hand, it is only as a totalised (an autonomous) individual that I can authentically interact. Thus selfhood and society form a unity. So too do theory and practice, since I can theorise my experience truly only where social and practical conditions making for a free interaction obtain. Theorising, in short, both summons and presupposes what Hegel terms ‘mutual recognition’: an interest in truth and in social emancipation go hand in hand.

For the Scottish philosophers, common sense enters crisis in a-society where a social division of labour exists. In the Hegelian and Marxian traditions, this becomes the thesis that truth can appear only once existing alienations have been set at naught. The journal Common Sense draws the conclusion: wherever it enters crisis, common sense can go forward only as critique.

In keeping with its inspiration, the procedures of Common Sense are wholly novel. Material submitted is photocopied, stapled and distributed on a non-profitmaking basis by a nonexisting editorial board. Only boring – which is to say unthinkingly conformist – material counts as non-commonsensical inasmuch as such material merely reproduces the categories which underwrite existing alienations, i.e., the existing order of social things.

In this way, the hegemony of the division of labour as between theory and practice, between readership and contributors and between contributors and editors is thrown to the winds. So too is the division of labour between academia and the outside world (a division which academia itself, like any closed monopoly or corporation, seeks always to keep in play). Thereby, through a detonation of existing boundaries, a space is cleared in which common sense in its two-fold meaning can authentically come to be.

Common Sense is thus as much an idea as a journal: start your own, on the same minimalist basis, and let discussion proliferate outwith the confines which orthodox academia, always respectful of authority, adopts as its favoured own.

From Issue Four

THE AIMS OF COMMON SENSE

Common Sense aims to challenge the division of labour in contemporary society according to which theoretical discussion is monopolised by universities and confined to the pages of trade-journals read by professional and academic elites . It is run on a co-operative basis and reproduces articles submitted to it in typescript form. The term “common sense” signifies : (i) shared or public sense and (ii) the interplay of differing perspectives and views. These meanings imply one another: both are undermined to the extent that a social division of labour prevails. For theory, the undermining of common sense means that philosophy becomes separated from empirical enquiry, to the impoverishment of both. The arid abstraction of analytical philosophy and the plodding boredom of positivism are the complementary results. For practice, the undermining of common sense means that political action is denied space for self-reflection and so goes forward in terms which confirm the social status quo. Common sense admits of no fixed definition . No less elusive than it is intelligible , it exists only where criticism and self-criticism are the order of the theoretical and political day. A continuing development of critical theory is the only brief which the journal Common Sense holds.

From Issue Five

The journal Common Sense exists as a relay station for the the exchange and dissemination of ideas. It is run on a co-operative and non-profitmaking basis. As a means of maintaining flexibility as to numbers of copies per issue, and of holding costs down, articles are reproduced in their original typescript. Common Sense is non-elitist, since anyone (or any group) with fairly modest financial resources can set up a journal along the same lines. Everything here is informal, and minimalist.

Why, as a title. ‘Common Sense’? In its usual ordinary-language meaning, the term ’common sense’ refers to that which appears obvious beyond question: “But it’s just common sense!”. According to a secondary conventional meaning, ‘common sense’ refers to a sense (a view, an understanding or outlook) which is ‘common’ inasmuch as it is widely agreed upon or shared. Our title draws upon the latter of these meanings, while at the same time qualifying it, and bears only an ironical relation to the first.

In classical thought, and more especially in Scottish eighteenth century philosophy, the term ‘common sense’ carried with it two connotations: (i) ‘common sense’ meant public of shared sense (the Latin ‘sensus comunis‘ being translated as ‘publick sense’ by Francis Hutcheson in 1728). And (ii) ‘common sense’ signified that sense, or capacity, which allows us to totalise or synthesise the data supplied by the five senses (sight, touch and so on) of a more familiar kind. (The conventional term ‘sixth sense‘, stripped of its mystical and spiritualistic suggestions, originates from the idea of a ‘common sense’ understood in this latter way). It is in this twofold philosophical sense of ‘common sense’ that our title is intended.

Why is the philosophical sense a two-fold one? Classical and Scottish thought was always alive to the circumstance that senses (i) and (ii) of ‘common sense’ are interdependent. On the one hand, a public or shared sense amounts to more than a contingently agreed upon consensus only when those who share it are individuals whose experience is totalising: in other words they must be individuals who are self-reflective and thereby autonomous and answerable for what they do and say. On the other hand (conversely), individuals who thus totalise their experiences can do so only through interaction with others: that is, they can achieve totalisation and autonomy only as members of an interactive – a social or ‘public’ world. Individuality is here social without remainder, as Marx signals in his construal of the ‘human essence’ as the ‘ensemble of the social relations’ and as Hegel also signals when he urges that self-consciousness (human self – aware subjectivity) exists ‘only in being recognised’. Hegel draws the conclusion of the interdependence of the two senses of common sense when he urges that it is only in a community of individuals who are mutually recognitive that truth can appear.

Having explained our title, it remains to justify it. The Scottish philosophers understood that common sense, in its two-fold meaning, enters crisis where ever (as in, according to their terminology, modern ‘commercial’ society) a social division of labour obtains. For then individuals become constrained to their role-definitions and functions: mutual recognition vanishes and, with it, autonomy; we can no longer see ourselves and our experience through others’ eyes. (Just as we can no longer see others’ experiences through our own eyes.) As in Burns, ‘seeing ourselves as others see us’ becomes less an actuality than a wish. In Hegel and Marx, the same theme is sounded under the heading of ‘alienation’. Marx perceptively connects alienation from our ‘species being’ (Gattungswesen)’ (that is, alienation from our capacity to be autonomous and self-determining) with alienation from others with whom we associate and interact. At one and the same stroke, the two senses of common sense are nullified or at least rendered problematic. Capitalism is that social form (or practical totality) wherein common sense (practice’s theoretical and self-reflective moment) enters crisis in an paradigmatic way.

That which enters crisis can exist only critically. In an alienated – a crisis ridden – social world, common sense can exist only as critique; common sense exists as critical theory in a society which threatens to erode its roots. Conversely. inasmuch as truth and autonomy are (as Hegel emphasised) interdependent, the project of a critical theory can exist only as the project of a renewed common sense. Something of this appears in Gramsci, who urged that ‘common sense’ (in the sense of commonly agreed-upon obviousness must be translated into critical ‘good sense’ (common sense in our title’s meaning), and that such a translation can be finally effected only when ‘universal subjectivity’ (Hegel’s ‘mutual recognition’) appears. To achieve this, common sense has to thematise the crisis of the social order which challenges it: the crisis of common sense is not merely its own crisis, but that of the social order wherein its project stands to be renewed. Critique and crisis (or ‘theory’ and ‘practice’) are no less interdepedent than are the two senses of common sense distinguished above. Epistemological crises are social crisis and vice versa. To paraphrase Wittgenstein: to imagine a critical form of language is to imagine – but we don’t have to imagine it – a crisis-ridden form of social life.

Hence, critique – the interrogation of existing circumstances – is the only brief which the journal Common Sense holds. In our initial publicity it was stated that, as a matter of editorial direction, ‘the only material to be excluded or anathematized is material which is boring’, ‘Boring’, here, has not just an aesthetic meaning. Rather, it refers to material which is uncritical in the sense of failing to place at issue the categories of the world it inhabits, i.e. the categories which proffer themselves as those of unselfreflective theorising whatever the topic of such theorising may be. Boring theory is theory which, lacking practical reflexivity, ‘recognises the world by means of different interpretation of it’, to quote once more Marx. The immodest goal of Common Sense is to place at issue anything and everything. Where enstrangement prevails, mutual recognition (the space of common sense) can exist, at most, only on the margins and in the interstices of a massified world. But crisis places the margins at the centre, and so this immodesty finds its justification.

Placing anything and everything at issue, Common Sense relates ironically to ‘common sense’ in the sense of received (or soi disant) obviousness. Projecting critical theory as common-sense- theory, Common Sense builds on but also qualifies ‘common sense’ in the sense of that mode of thinking which in an estranged world happens to be public or shared. In an estranged world a shared sense is an enstranged sense. However, at the same time estrangement (alienation) exists not as a seamless monolith but as the movement of contradiction. Every social world, says Hegel, ‘is not a dead essence but is actual and alive‘: this applies to alienated social worlds too.

Common Sense is the movement (the movement-towards-resolution) of the resulting contradiction. Common Sense is the centralisation of the margins, and the margins can be centeralised only as common sense.

The editors of Common Sense have no “power” – no apparatus of authority based on resources or professional prestige – and, in this regard, are non-existing. Our journal, which is as much an idea as a set of pages which can he physically held and turned, will have succeeded when a network of similarly-produced journals cover the land. Common Sense is an `invisible college’ devoted to the propagation of critical thought.

From Issue 10

Common Sense was first produced in Edinburgh in 1987. It offered a direct challenge to the theory production machines of specialised academic journals, and tried to move the articulation of intellectual work beyond the collapsing discipline of the universities. It was organised according to a minimalist production and editorial process which received contributions that could be photocopied and stapled together. It was reproduced in small numbers, distributed to friends, and sold at cost price in local bookshops and in a few outposts throughout the world. It maintained three interrelated commitments: to provide an open space wherein discussion could take place without regard to style or to the rigid classification of material into predefined subject areas; to articulate critical positions within the contemporary political climate; and to animate the hidden Scottish passion for general ideas. Within the context of the time, the formative impetus of Common Sense was a desire to juxtapose disparate work and to provide a continuously open space for a general critique of the societies in which we live.

For the first nine issues, the pages of Common Sense were filled with various attempts to address the issues of the day and with items that did not seek to be classified as one thing or another. Space was offered to ranters, to poets, to philosophers, to theorists, to musicians, to cartoonists, to artists, to students and teachers, to writers, and to whosoever could produce work that could be photocopied. However, times have now changed and the minimalist attitude to production has proved to be somewhat restrictive. Consequently, Common Sense has expanded to the form you see before you here. Nevertheless, the basic commitments of the journal remain as they were at its inauguration – to pose the continuous question of what the common sense of our age is, to articulate critical positions in the present, and to offer a space for those who have produced work that they feel should be disseminated but that would never be sanctioned by the dubious forces of the intellectual police.

Common Sense has not however been confined to the pages of a journal, and its various editors and contributors have done much more than produce words. All have experienced the massive changes that have characterised living in Scotland during the late 1980s, and all have been involved in one form or another with struggles against the creeping attempts of the British State to control and socialise its population into the so called “Thatcherite” management plan. In January 1989, Common Sense helped to organise a conference on the poll tax that deliberately refused to be drawn into party political or factionalised bickering, and that attempted to theorise the thing beyond the simplistic conventional wisdom of the “its unfair” argument. From this developed an increased awareness of the politics of debt enforcement in relation to the crisis of late twentieth century capitalism, and a realisation that resistance to the poll tax involves much more than criticism of the party of government and must also involve resistance to government and state. Questions were raised thereby in relation to the adequacy of traditional political theory and practice, to the status of the law, and to the supposed benefits of the capitalist social democratic state.

The experience of this conference fed into the pages of the journal as discussions about the relevance of Marx(ism) to the imposition of the poll tax, and it suffused the independent anti poll tax groups who were increasingly discovering that the enemy was not only the Westminster parliament but also – and more crucially – the Labour Party controlled local councils with their bully boys – Scotland’s very own unofficial riot police – the Militant Tendency. Common Sense moved with the common sense of the general revolt against the poll tax, and into the experience of autonomous resistance – frequently in direct opposition to Parties that offer themselves as representatives of the common cause, Common Sense has thus developed connections between radical philosophy, the critical or open tradition of Marx(ism), anarchism, innovative theory, autonomous activity, alternative forms of education, and good old-fashioned common sense.

The newly formed Common Sense now finds itself in a highly volatile and transitional period of historical movement. The Labour Party Mafia is preparing itself to continue where the Tories left off, and the Scottish National Party believes that the Westminster Parliament has just voted the poll tax out of existence. Meanwhile, under instruction from local government toadies, sheriff officers continue in their efforts to recuperate poll tax arrears as community resistance does its best to protect people. Local government generally is in a state of financial chaos, and the legitimacy of the British legal and justice systems daily becomes more obviously absurd. Moreover, in the aftermath of the so called Gulf War and with the breaking down of the boundary between East and West, masses of people seek work as capital attempts to produce larger more mobile markets, to assert itself in new areas of control, and to pay off its debts. The struggles within these movements will no doubt form the basis of the next century and set the terms of the common sense of tomorrow. The conditions of critical debate have already changed as new political positions become articulated within the demise of those nebulous entities that usually went by the names of Monetarism and The Cold War….

* * * * *

In this changing context, Common Sense is a form of words that needs to be clarified somewhat. It could easily signify anything from the conventional wisdom of the dying enterprise culture, to the pragmatic street wisdom of the many who have been excluded by its beneficiaries and who are thereby forced to struggle for basic human dignity. According to the Scottish Philosophical tradition, common sense has two major meanings: the psychological sixth sense that unites and distinguishes the perceptions of the other five; and the sensus communis or public sense that negotiates a shared sense of who and where we are, that maintains a sensible critique of the political world, and that animates the general feelings of a society. Common Sense thus recalls the notion of the Democratic Intellect according to which ideas are freely and generally available to all, and it resonates with a literary style of philosophical generalism that is utterly different from the dominant Anglo-Saxon and analytic traditions to which we have now become too accustomed in the educational institutions of the twentieth century, but which remains a powerful force at the margins of educational life and in the movements of Scottish culture more generally.

The producers of Common Sense remain committed to the journal’s original brief – to offer a venue for open discussion and to juxtapose written work without regard to style and without deferring to the restrictions of university based journals, and they hope to be able to articulate something of the common sense of the new age before us. Common Sense does not have any political programme nor does it wish to define what is political in advance. Nevertheless, we are keen to examine what is this thing called “common sense”, and we hope that you who read the journal will also make contributions whenever you feel the inclination. We feel that there is a certain imperative to think through the changes before us and to articulate new strategies before the issues that arise are hijacked by the Universities to be theorised into obscurity, or by Party machines to be practiced to death.

The producers of Common Sense will consider contributions From anywhere by anyone on any issue and in any form that can without difficulty be included in our new format – we are prepared to publish anything from recipes to meditations on truth. We will accept copy as typescript, camera ready artwork, photographs, and computer files (Apple or IBM stored on 3.5 inch floppies). We would like the journal to be as full as possible of disparate work, and we would like to keep contributions as short and up to the minute as possible. We would prefer that articles be no longer than 5000 words or so, although we will consider everything we receive and will begin to publish longer pieces as occasional pamphlets loosely organised according to themes or particular debates. In this turbulent world, it would be politically naive to uncritically publish everything we receive, but at the same time we have no access to hard and fast criteria of exclusion. These issues are themselves subject to vigorous debate amongst the producers of Common Sense. It is for you as potential contributors to judge on the basis of critical common sense what should be included in the pages before you now.

See also, Richard Gunn’s article Marxism and Common Sense in issue 11.

This is our last issue. Common Sense is no more. We, the editors, are exhausted.

The demise of Common Sense had been on the cards since late 1998. The journal was left hanging in thin air when all but three members of the editorial board threw in their towels. Their decision was motivated by a number of reasons. Some disliked the political direction in which the journal had developed; others simply could no longer cope with the pressure of work. They felt burned out. Since its inception, Common Sense was a shoe-string operation. Financial trouble was a continuing nuisance and this is still the case. We are grateful to our authors: they kept submissions coming in on a regular basis. We are grateful to our subscribers. Thanks to you we were able to continue as long as we did. Yet, this is the end: Over the last few years, the editorial collective declined in numbers and this despite the fact that more people joined the editorial board. The committed core got smaller and smaller and burnt itself out. There was, then, a political problem: political work without enthusiasm, motivation, and endeavour transforms the question of politics into a question of administration that is discharged with an air of indifference. The core group was not indifferent but exhausted itself in it constant quest to maintain sanity in the face of administrative indifference of the many. Indifference stopped Common Sense in its tracks.

We have decided to publish this final issue to say farewell properly. We did not wish to disappear as if we had not existed over the last 12 years. We wanted to leave with a proper issue to celebrate what we have been, with our heads up and with pride. We no longer will write to you requesting that you renew your subscription. We ask those with standing orders to cancel them. We ask those who are due future issues to let us keep the money as a donation to pay off our debts. Of course, if you wish to get your money back, write to us and we will see what can be done. We ask all our readers to order back-issues to help us to make ends meet. We ask all our friends to send donations, small or big, in support.

In order to minimise the problems of production/distribution/editing, such a journal must be of a wholly novel type. In fact, these problems can almost entirely be avoided if journal-production is thought of in a fresh way.

Technology, (word processing, xeroxing, etc.) is increasingly on our side. Contributors to such a journal would submit their work in readable (which means: attractively readable) typescript, A4, single spaced, so that articles are not retyped but merely photocopied; the resulting bundle of different articles can then be stapled together and put between simple folded covers (a different colour for each issue, perhaps, but retain the same format each time in order to keep production-costs down). The only tasks confronting the production-group would then be photocopying, stapling and distributing. An editorial policy could virtually be dispensed with since there would be no fixed limit on the number of articles a given journal issue might contain; for the same reason, articles could be short or long. The journal could be published occasionally rather than regularly depending on material to hand. It would be sold more or less at cost price.

Initially, its circulation could be minimal: today, a readership of half a dozen and tomorrow the world . . . . Back-issues could be reproduced either as a whole or in part, depending on demand, simply by xeroxing a master-copy. Starting small would keep initial costs very low; we could build up a relationship by means of a ‘network’ of personal contacts depending solely on the quality of the material carried; there could also be some local sales. Thereby, problems of distribution could be avoided no less than the other problems mentioned above. Financial risks would be minimal, and we would need to aim only at producing a ‘readable-attractive’ as opposed to a ‘commercial-attractive’ publication since it would only be the quality and interest of our contents that was germane.

The attraction of the scheme is its anarchism: it ignores all problems, all commerce, all professional boundaries, all academic establishments, all editorial anxieties. We could publish matter which was esoteric, heterodox, inflammatory and beyond every pale. Articles on anarchist collectives would sit side by side with articles on aesthetic theory; medieval theology could be juxtaposed with venomous political attacks. There would be absolutely no need to write in a popular or accessible way, and yet there would be no need to write in an academically respectable fashion either. The only material to be anathematized would be material which was boring. Through a minimalist approach to journal-production, we solve all problems by ignoring them and circumvent all authority by attacking it, not head-on, but from behind its back.

This was the initial announcement of the idea underlying Common Sense, carried in Edinburgh Review No. 76 (1987)

Common Sense was first produced in Edinburgh in 1987. It offered a direct challenge to the theory production machines of specialised academic journals, and tried to move the articulation of intellectual work beyond the collapsing discipline of the universities. It was organised according to minimalist production and editorial process which received contributions that could be photocopied and stapled together. It was reproduced in small numbers, distributed to friends, and sold at cost price in local bookshops and in a few outposts throughout the world. It maintained three interrelated commitments: to provide an open space wherein discussion could take place without regard to style or to the rigid classification of material into predefined subject areas; to articulate critical positions within the contemporary political climate; and to animate the hidden Scottish passion for general ideas. Within the context of the time, the formative impetus of Common Sense was a desire to juxtapose disparate work and to provide a continuously open space for a general critique of the societies in which we live. – May 1991 editorial

The life of Common Sense began in 1987 and ended in 1999 after the publication of 24 issues. Since then, a selection of articles from the journal have been republished in the book, Revolutionary Writing, and a few have been collected on libcom. Despite the journal’s significance in the development of open and autonomous Marxist critical theory, a complete set of issues has been difficult to source, until now. You can read how the digitising got under way and a few notes on the scanning process itself.

The complete set of issues that were kindly donated by past Common Sense editors for the digitisation project has been deposited with the British Library for preservation. A further set is held by the National Library of Scotland.

Contents

An Alternative View of the Yugoslav Conflict     5
Alfred Mendes

The End of Work or the Renaissance of Slavery? A Critique of Rifkin and Negri     20
George Caffentzis

On Fascism: Note on Johannes Agnoli’s Contribution 39
Werner Bonefeld

Wildcat (Germany) reads John Holloway – A Debate on Marxism and the Politics of Dignity     58
Wildcat and John Holloway

The Politics of Change: Ideology and Critique     76
Werner Bonefeld

From the Revolution Against Philosophy to the Revolution Against Capital     91
Mike Rooke

Book Reviews

Jon Stewart (ed)
The Phenomenology of Spirit Reader, Critical and Interpretive Essays     100
Dr John Glassford

Download issue 24 (PDF)

Contents

The Gulf Crisis Re-examined     5
Alfred Mendes

The Native Within Us, the Earth We Belong To     14
Mariarosa Dalla Costa

Commodity Fetishism & Reification     53
Mike Rooke

The Communist Manifesto 1848-1998

150 Years Old: Looking Back in Anger     80
Werner Bonefeld

The Communist Manifesto Today     83
John Holloway

Book Review

Ruth Milkman
Farewell to the Factory: Autoworkers in the Late Twentieth Century     89
Curtis Price

Notes on Contributors 92

Download issue 23 (PDF)

Contents

Mexico is Not Only Chiapas, Nor is the Rebellion in Chiapas Merely a Mexican Affair    5
Katerina

Dignity and the Zapatistas     38
John Holloway

Lavori in Corso     43
Riccardo Bellofiore

Globalisation and Democracy: An Assessment of Joachim Hirsch’s Competition State 61
Werner Bonefeld

Marxism and Subjectivity: searching for the marvellous (Prelude to a Marxist notion of action)     83
Ana Dinerstein

Book Review

Terry Brotherstone & Geoff Pilling (eds.)
Economic History and the Future of Marxism: Essays in Memory of Tom Kemp     97
Chris Arthur

Download issue 22 (PDF)

Contents

An Uncommon View of the Birth of an Uncommon Market     7
Alfred Mendez

Zapatista Discourse: What is New     18
Alejandro Giullermo Raiter & Irene Ines Munoz

Reappropriations of Public Space     31
Toni Negri

The Autonomy of the Economy and Globalisation     41
Massimo De Angelis

Notes on Anti-Semitism     60
Werner Bonefeld

Review Article

Revolutionary Theory in 1579     77
Richard Gunn

Keith Jenkins On ‘What is history?’ – From Carr and Elton to Rorty and White     91
Derek Kerr

Download issue 21 (PDF)

Contents

Reflections on Social Movements & the Politics of Need: Locating the Dialectic Between Identity and Difference     5
Peter Kennedy

Colonial Anthropology: An Enlightenment Legacy? The Lockean Discourse on Nature, Social Order and Difference     21
Athena Athanasiou

Guy Debord and the Metaphysics of Marxism: an obituary of Guy Debord     34
Steve Turner

The Realidad in Europe: an account of the first European meeting against neoliberalism and for humanity     49
Massimo De Angelis

Two Zapatista Dialogues     60
Eloina Pelaez and John Holloway

Mersey Dockers Interview     67
from the Liverpool Dock Strike

Review Article

The Game’s a Bogey: John Maclean and class recomposition today     73
Allan Armstrong

Download issue 20 (PDF)

Contents

Marxist literary theory after Derrida     5
Drew Milne

The Concept of Power and the Zapatistas     20
John Holloway

The Zapatistas: Conference Notice     28
EZLN

The Crisis of Political Space     33
Toni Negri

A Critique of the Fordism of the Regulation School     42
Ferruccio Gambino

Rewriting the Politics of The City Builders: A Review of Susan S. Fainstein     65
Brian McGrail

Book Reviews

Cyril Smith Marx at the Millenium 75
Werner Bonefeld

Terry Eagleton & Drew Milne Marxist Literary Theory 78
Olga Taxidou

Mariarosa Dalla Costa & Giovanna Dalla Costa
Paying the Price, Women and the Politics of International Economic Strategy 80
Werner Bonefeld

Murray E. G. Smith Invisible Leviathan 82
Chris J. Arthur

Download this issue (PDF)

Contents

Page 1 . NO POLITICS WITHOUT INQUIRY: A PROPOSAL FOR A CLASS COMPOSITION INQUIRY PROJECT 1996-7
by Ed Emery

Page 12 . FLEXIBILISATION OF LABOUR AND THE ATTACK ON WORKERS LIVING STANDARDS
by Anne Gray

Page 34 . CYCLES & CIRCUITS OF STRUGGLE IN HIGH-TECHNOLOGY CAPITALISM
by Nick Witheford

Page 81 . BOOK REVIEWS

‘SHADOWS OF TENDER FURY and ‘ZAPATISTAS!’
reviewed by Olga Taxidou

‘RACE REBELS: CULTURE, POLITICS AND THE BLACK WORKING CLASS’
reviewed by Curtis Price

Page 91 . SUBSCRIPTION AND BACK-ISSUES

Download this issue (PDF)

Contents

Page 1 . THE ZAPATISTA UPRISING
A LETTER FROM THE ZAPATISTAS
by the E. Z. L. N.

Page 4 . THE ZAPATISTAS
by John Holloway

Page 11 . DEVELOPMENT & REPRODUCTION
by Mariarosa Dalla Costa

Page 34 . MAYAS & ZAPATISTAS
by Javier Villanueva

Page 39 . WHAT DO WE OWE TO THE SCOTS?
Reflections on Caffentzis, the Property Form and Civilization
by Richard Gunn

Page 69 . THE POLITICS OF DEBT: SOCIAL DISCIPLINE AND CONTROL
by Werner Bonefeld

Page 92 . BOOK REVIEWS
by Adrian Wilding and Peter Fraser

Page 98 . SUBSCRIPTION AND BACK-ISSUES

Download this issue (PDF)

Contents

Page 5 . BEYOND THE NEWS
BOSNIA, BOHEMIA AND BILDERBERG: THE COLD WAR INTERNATIONALE
by Alfred Mendes

Page 15 . NAZISM AND THE WORKING CLASS 1933-93
by Sergio Bologna

Page 58 . MISTAKING RIGHTS AND NORMATIVITY
by Manolis Angelidis

Page 65 . ON THE SCOTTISH ORIGIN OF ‘CIVILISATION’
by George Caffentzis

Page87 . INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO NEGRI’S ‘CONSTITUENT REPUBLIC’
Editorial Committee

Page 88 . CONSTITUENT REPUBLIC
by Toni Negri

Page 96 . BOOK REVIEWS
by Alice Brown and Cyril Smith

Page 103 . SUBSCRIPTION AND BACK-ISSUES

Download this issue (PDF)

Contents

Page 5 . BEYOND THE NEWS
THE CHIAPAS UPRISING AND THE FUTURE OF CLASS STRUGGLE
by Harry Cleaver

Page 18 . THE TIME OF TRIAL BY SPACE
by Derek Kerr

Page 37 . OPEN MARXISM

Page 38 . THE RELEVANCE OF MARIXSM TODAY
by John Holloway

Page 43 . HUMAN PRACTICE AND PERVERSION: BEYOND AUTONOMY AND STRUCTURE
by Werner Bonefeld

Page 53 . MARXISM & CONTRADICTION
by Richard Gunn

Page 60 . V.A.T. ON FUEL

Page 62 . SCIENCE AND HUMANITY: HEGEL, MARX AND DIALECTIC
by Cyril Smith

Page 75 . THOMAS PAINE ON COMMON SENSE
by Richard Gunn

Page 82 . BOOK REVIEWS
by Ian Fraser, David Gorman and Brian McGrail

Page95 . SUBSCRIPTION AND BACK-ISSUES

Download this issue (PDF)

Contents

Page 5 . BEYOND THE NEWS
CAPITAL’S ‘WATER CRISIS’: A SCOTTISH ANALYSIS
by Brian McGrail

Page 17 . THE FREEING OF MARX
by John Holloway

Page 22 . MARXISM, NEO-REALISM AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
by Peter Burnham

Page 32 . MARXIAN CATEGORIES, THE CRISIS OF CAPITAL AND THE CONSTITUTION OF SOCIAL SUBJECTIVITY TODAY
by Harry Cleaver

Page 58. HISTORY AND ‘OPEN MARXISM’
A REPLY TO JOHN HOLLOWAY
by Heidi Gerstenberger

Page 63 . MONEY AND CRISIS: MARX AS CORRESPONDENT OF THE NEW YORK DAILY TRIBUNE, 1856-57.
by Sergio Bologna

Page 90 . BOOK REVIEWS
by Paul Barret, Alan Rice, Adrian Wilding, Ian Fraser and Andrew Watson

Page 103 . SUBSCRIPTION AND BACK-ISSUES

Download this issue (PDF)

Contents

Page 5 . BEYOND THE NEWS
NOIZE MUSIC: THE HYPOSTATIC INSURGENCY
by Robert Ovetz

Page 24 . MAYDAY or THE ONE-LEGGED DANCE OF THE IDIOT HOUSE-PAINTER
by Ed Emery

Page 29 . MONEY AND CRISIS: MARX AS CORRESPONDENT OF THE NEW YORK DAILY TRIBUNE, 1856-57.
by Sergio Bologna

Page 54 . THE GLOBAL MONEY POWER OF CAPITAL AND THE CRISIS OF KEYNESIANISM
by Werner Bonefeld

Page 63 . THE DANGEROUS MYTHOLOGY OF NEW TIMES
by Colin Hay

Page 68 . SOME NOTES ON JACQUES BIDET’S STRUCTURALIST INTERPRETATION OF MARX’S CAPITAL
by Helmut Reichelt

Page 76 . OPEN MARXISM, HISTORY & CLASS STRUGGLE
by John Holloway

Page 87 . SUBSCRIPTION AND BACK-ISSUES

Download this issue (PDF)

Contents

Page 5 . BEYOND THE NEWS
THE GENERAL ELECTION AND THE BREAK-UP OF THE U.K.

Page 36 . POETRY
by Margaret Fulton Cook

Page 43 . DESTRUCTION AS DETERMINATION OF THE SCHOLAR IN MISERABLE TIMES
by Jaochim Agnoli

Page 52 . THEORY AND HISTORY OF THE MASS WORKER IN ITALY (Part 11)
by Sergio Bologna

Page 79 . POETRY
by Colin Chalmers

Page 82 . ART, M E SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF THE SELF AND THE CLASSICAL TRADITION IN SCOTLAND
by Murdo Macdonald

Page 93 . THE POLL TAX REBELLION
Reviewed by Bob Goupillot

Page 98 . WOMEN IN ARMED RESISTANCE
Reviewed by Werner Bonefeld

Page 101 . DAVIE’S SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT
Reviewed by Richard Gunn

Page 105 . POST-FORDISM AND SOCIAL FORM
Reviewed by Brian McGrail

Download this issue (PDF)

Contents

Page 5 . EDITORIAL

Page 7 . BEYOND THE NEWS

A TRULY RUSSIAN COUP?
by Common Sense playwrights

Page 16 . THEORY AND HISTORY OF THE MASS WORKER IN ITALY
by Sergio Bologna

Page 30 . POETRY
by Colin Chalmers and Bobbie Christie

Page 34. DEATH RULES OVER GERMANY
by Karl-Heinz Roth

Page 42 . THE ECONOMICS OF THE FINAL SOLUTION
by Götz Aly and Susanne Heim

REQUIEM FOR TWO OR THREE SCOTTISH MINERS. . .
by Ed Emery

Page 69 . IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE SCREAM
by John Holloway

Page 79 . MARXISM AND COMMON SENSE
by Richard Gunn

Page 101 . SUBSCRIPTION AND BACK-ISSUES

Download this issue (PDF)

Contents

Page 5 . EDITORIAL

Page 9 . THESES ON THE GULF WAR
by a Common Sense discussion group

Page 17 . PRODUCING THE PROPER CRISIS
by Philip Agee

Page 31 . THE STUDENT DEBT CRISIS: DANGER AND OPPORTUNITY
by Robert Ovetz and Ross Dreyer

Page 40 . POEMS
by Bryan Duncan

Page 43 .  SCOTLAND AND ITS PEOPLE
A Photo Investigation

Page 49 . WORKERS’ STRUGGLES UNDER THE NAZIS
by Elisabeth Behrens

Page 58 . ARGENTINE GAUCHOS
by Harry Cleaver

Page 62 . POLICING THE POLL TAX
Trafalgar Square Defendants Campaign

Page 75 . POEMS
by Jim Ferguson

Page 79 . SUBSCRIPTION AND BACK-ISSUES

Download this issue (PDF)

Contents

Editorial : An Outbreak of Democracy? …………………….. 2

M R James : Two Short Discussions of Ghost Stories …………. 4

Martin McAvoy : Philosophy as Fiction …………………….. 11

Harry Cleaver: Competition? or Cooperation? ………………. 20

Robert Mahoney : Reflections on the Iran-Contra Affair ……… 23

Les Levidow & Martin Walker : We Need Solidarity …………… 48

John Holloway : The Politics of Debt ……………………… 51

Les Levidow : Women Who Make the Chips ……………………. 5 8

J F Ferrier : Institutes of Metaphysic: Against Reid ……….. 70

Review : Masson’s The Assault on Truth : Freud’s Suppression of the Seduction Theory (Richard Gunn) ………………. 72

Download this issue (PDF)

Contents

Walter Gibson : Bingo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Interview : The Trial of Ingrid Strobl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Harry Cleaver : The Uses of an Earthquake . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Harry Cleaver : Marginality and Self-Valorisation . . . . . . . . . 22

CSE-Edinburgh : The Anti-Poll Tax Campaign: New Forms of Class Struggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Peter Dymohe : Suspect World-View: Non-Deterministic History and the Eating of Greens. . . . . . . . . . 34

George Bataille : Letter to X (Kojéve) . . . . . . . 46

Brian McGrail : What is Enlightenment? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50

Review of : Stephen Houlgate Hegel, Nietzsche and the Criticism of Metaphysics . . . . . . . .62

Download this issue (PDF)

Contents

Editorial …………………………………………….. 2

Andrew Duncan: The Scientistic Fallacy ………………….3

Keith Mothersson (an interview): Nuclear ‘Weapons’ and People’s Law …26

Martin McAvoy: Philosophy as Poison ……………………….46

John Holloway: Marxism. ……………………………..59

Johan de Wit: Two Poems ……………………………60

Richard Gunn: In Defence of a Consensus Theory of Truth…….63

Anon.: Future News ……………………………………..82

Download this issue (PDF)

Contents

Norah Martin: An Introduction to Susanne Langer’s Mind: An Essay On Human Feeling . . . . . . . .4

Interview: The Protest against the World Bank/IMF Meeting in Berlin – An Interview . . . . . . 14

Adam Beck: Here Comes the Ocean . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 4

Walter Gibson: The Political Activist and Trade Unions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Werner Bonefeld: Class Struggle and the Permanence of Primitive Accumulation . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Richard Gunn: Marx between Hegel and Kant . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Alan Hunter: Theses on Britain’s Nuclear Weapons and Disarmament . . . . . . .  . . . . . .72

Costas Dikeos/Hilary Andersson: Two Letters on Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .76

Review : Communist Party: Facing up to the Future by Richard Gunn . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  82

Contents of Previous Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

Download this issue (PDF)

Contents

Colin Nicholson: Signifying Nothing: Noting Barthes’ Empire of Signs . . . . . .5

Judith Squires: Public Man, Private Woman: Feminist Approaches to the Public/Private Dichotomy . . . . . . . .16

Brian McGrail: Environmentalism: Utopian or Scientific? . . . . . . . . . . . . .25

Paul White: Small is Small – Or the Shrinking of Schumacher . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Peter Martin: National Strike at Ford-UK . . . . . . . .46

Robert Mahoney: On Civility & Terror . . . . . . . . . . . . . .60

George Davie: On Common Sense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69

Kosmas Psychopedis: Notes on Mediation-Analysis . . . . . . .72

John Holloway: An Introduction to Capital (or: How I fell in love with a Ballerina) . . . . . . . . . . . .79

Ewan Davidson: The Commonsense of Concessions – or ‘HE AINT’T HEAVY HE’S MY BROTHER . . . . . . . 83

Download this issue (PDF)

Contents

Hans Kastendiek: Teaching Politics: The Development of West German Political Science ……….3

Kim Tebble/Kenneth Brady: A Conversation on Cajun Music ………13

Paul Smart: Mill and Marx: Individual Liberty and the Roads to Freedom: A Proposal for a comparative critical Reconstruction ………..22

Guy Woodall: Absolute Truth …………33

Richard Gunn: ‘Recognition in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit …………40

Poem: Diaspora. Communicated to CS anonymously ……………69

Mark Kingwell: Just War Theory ……..71

Dario Fo: The Tale of a Tiger ………..74

Download this issue (PDF)