Julian Roche

This book straddles two worlds and attempts to bring them together: that of Lefebvre’s Marxism, on the one hand, and that of real estate development, on the other. Lefebvre has now become a household name amongst many contemporary Marxists, especially those with an interest in urban planning and certain quarters of the architectural profession; however, his work is far less well known by real estate professionals, whether investors, developers, brokers, or, indeed, policymakers. This book has both a large scope and a very bold aim – to use an explication and analysis of the work of Henri Lefebvre not only to present a critique of development, but, on the contrary, also to draw these two worlds together. It therefore, first, aims to present the arguments of this increasingly well-known French Marxist philosopher, sociologist, and pioneer of urban studies; second, to situate contemporary real estate development in the light of Lefebvre’s work; and third, to analyse the potential application of Lefebvre’s work to each of the major components of contemporary real estate, to use Lefebvre’s work in order to recommend practical action for developers, working alongside planners and architects, to influence the future of global real estate. In addition to its direction at developers themselves, this book should be of interest to economists, real estate researchers and professionals, planners, urban studies scholars, and, of course, to those interested in the application of Lefebvre’s work to real estate.

Roger Garaudy was for many years at the centre of the French Communist Party but was eventually expelled for his liberal views. In the Seventies, he strove to bring Marxism and Christianity together, to include all humanity in a project to set all people free. What emerges from Garaudy’s project is a very modern Marxism, with its emphasis on the individual, its ecological politics, and in its insistence on religion as central to human emancipation. Although Garaudy himself became frustrated by the failure of Marxism and converted to Islam, eventually resulting in his work being discredited in the West, it is certainly possible that Garaudy’s project represents a good, perhaps even the best, starting point for Marxism in today’s world.

The problems with Conly’s proposed ‘one-child’ policy are a good example of where the attempt to limit paternalism becomes self-defeating, and actually ends up potentially aiding the case against controlling population rather than promoting it, as well as negatively influencing the debate about paternalism more generally. There are many better potential ways of developing public policy towards population control than a ‘one-child’ policy that synchronise with richer ways to understand individual interests

This paper sets out William Ash’s development of Marxist ethics. It suggests that he made a modest theoretical contribution in identifying plausible etymological roots of commonly used value words, as well as in evaluating some of the landmarks of traditional Western ethical thought as a Marxist and providing a workable synthesis of Marxist ethics itself. His work however suffers a failure to engage with other writers on Marxist ethics, as well as from poor political judgement that required embarrassing rewrites of the text and which could prejudice evaluation of his theory; and lurking behind his insistent Marxism may well have been a broader humanity that was confined by what others have called Marxist ‘dogma’.

Marxists have long moved beyond a perception of Marx as a Promethean ecological vandal. Yet those disputing his environmental credentials are generally united in deploring the unhappy history of population control. They implicitly accept the idea of currently forecast future population levels as consistent with a Marxist view of human emancipation. This assumption should be challenged, on the basis of what resources a truly unalienated future may require in order to achieve real freedom for each future individual.

This article examines the theory of personality compatible with Marxism developed by the French Marxist philosopher Lucien Sève, examines his view of how a Marxist biography should be written and how actual biographies should be evaluated. The conclusion is that Marxist biography should be distinctive, and that Sève has presented a plausible sketch of what a Marxist biography should look like. But he has also laid down an incredibly difficult set of criteria for success in which even Marxists themselves fail to satisfy in their biographical writing, and perhaps unsurprisingly no one does, or perhaps could ever, fulfil all the criteria of such a biography, however potentially worthwhile the effort.

Through his work on cities and the urban, as well as on the importance of everyday life, Henri Lefebvre (1901-1991) has enjoyed a posthumously renaissance, and is now one of the most influential of French Marxists. But was he one? He always claimed to be. Yet he took from Nietzsche crucial and lifelong components of his personal theoretical framework: personality, alienation, ethics, and even language. Commentators oscillate between accepting his claim to having successfully placed Marx and Nietzsche in separate silos on the one hand and asserting that he had done what he equally always insisted he had not – build his own system. Marxists themselves may not be satisfied with either formulation, even if the risk they run in separating Lefebvre from his Nietzschean heritage may be to extract a theory of the urban that is dead on arrival, or at least requiring resuscitation by Marxist means.

Jean-Paul Sartre pointed to the ‘gap’ in Marxism where a theory of the individual should be. Three attempts to fill it vied in the context of an intense ideological debate within the Parti Communiste Français (PCF) which still resonates today. On the one hand, Louis Althusser’s denial of individual agency as traditionally understood, structuralist theory which proved difficult to apprehend, let alone apply, in a capitalist world. On the other, Roger Garaudy’s Marxist humanist explanation of personality, most likely unsatisfactory for many Marxists on account of its spiritualistic leanings. Finally, Lucien Sève’s approach: very preliminary, often awkwardly formulated, and diluted over time, but a real alternative to structural Marxism and perhaps, in its final diluted form, not incompatible with a humanist approach after all. If the debate could be settled in his favour, the detailed practical work of applying the theory to psychology and other social sciences should take over with some urgency from here.

"Roger Garaudy was for many years at the centre of the French Communist Party but was eventually expelled for his liberal views. In the Seventies he developed a project to bring Marxism and Christianity together, to include all humanity in a project to set all people free. What emerges from Garaudy's project is a very modern Marxism, with its emphasis on the individual, its ecological politics, and in its insistence on religion as central to human emancipation. Although Garaudy himself became frustrated by the West and converted to Islam in 1982, ending his life discredited in the West, it is certainly possible that Garaudy's project represents a good, perhaps even the best, starting point for Marxism in today's world"--

Lucien Sève devoted his life to the development of a Marxist theory of the personality. In so doing, and as part of a theoretical debate with both Marxist humanists and structural Marxists within the Parti Communiste Français, he was inevitably drawn to analyse alienation as a category of Marxist analysis. His conclusion was that although Althusser had been right to argue for the ‘epistemological break’ in Marx’s thought, it was wrong to suggest that Marx abandoned the concept of alienation in his later work. Far from it: a transformed conception of alienation derived from historical materialism remains the key to understanding Marxism.

Marxism, Psychology and Social Science Analysis applies Marxist theory, psychology, and the work of Lucien Sève to specific research in the social sciences. It shows in practical terms what guidance can be offered for social scientific researchers wanting to incorporate Sève's view of personality into their work. Providing case studies drawn from different social sciences that give the book significant breadth of scope, Roche reviews the impact of "Taking Sève Seriously" across the study of international relations theory, economics, law, and moral philosophy. The book begins by placing the work of Lucien Sève in context and considers the development of psychology in relation to Marxism, before going on to summarise the work of Sève in relation to the psychology of personality. It considers the opportunities for refreshed research in social relations based on developments by Sève, before examining Marxist biography and the implications of Sève's views. The book also includes chapters on the social discount rate, on constructivism in international relations, on the concept of promising in moral philosophy and the Marxist conception of individual responsibility. It addresses not only how research should be carried out differently, but whether utilising the theoretical framework of other writers, even non-Marxists, can deliver a similar outcome. With its use of five distinct case studies to analyse the work of Lucien Sève, this unique book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of psychology, philosophy and social sciences.