I. Pre-Marxian Socialism: Saint-Simon and Comte. Explain the original meaning of socialism as it developed in the works of Henri de Saint-Simon. Why was technological development central to this conception? Explain further how socialism was related to the larger project of creating a true science of society tied to science and positivism. (2 pp. minimum)
II. Socialism/ Marxism-Leninism: Explain the meaning of historical materialism and its implications for philosophy as the West traditionally understood philosophy. Explain the centrality of the economic base in history. Summarize the labor theory of value, and how that explains why profit is a form of expropriation from the workers. Explain the roles of the superstructure and ideology in capitalist society. Explain the historical developments of the immiseration of the proletariat, the success of the proletarian revolution leading to the dictatorship of the proletariat, then the further phases of the withering away of the state and communism.
B. Explain Lenin’s contributions to the original theory in terms of the “vanguard party,” and the interrelated theories of imperialism and the labor aristocracy. How did Mao and Third World Marxists refine the doctrine even further. (4 pp.)
III. Augusto Del Noce: Explain the fundamental differences between Del Noce and the predominant thinking in the social sciences in recent decades. What is his understanding of modernity and its predominant tendencies? Explain what he means by the “decomposition of Marxism” and how the specific philosophies at work in this decomposition (the Enlightenment and the relativist dimension of Marxism) combined to create the contemporary world based on (a) scientific positivism, (b) secularization and (c) eroticism. (3 pp.)
