Marx Now! 2020

Copenhagen Business School, October 9-10, 2020

Border and Boundaries

Capital knows no bounds, yet thrives in a world of borders and boundaries; between classes, between individuals, between nation states, between politics, economy and household, between production and reproduction. These divisions define the terrain of capital, as well as the struggles against it.

The nation state, which has been the main frame of reference and struggle for left-wing politics since the First World War, remains exposed to the economic and political pressures of global capital as well as the threat of nationalist recuperation. Right-wing parties have proven uniquely capable of leveraging this national(-ist) framework to reframe the widespread anger with the economic and political system following the 2008 financial crisis, in order to capture power. Meanwhile, novel and increasingly deadly border regimes have been developed in the US, EU and beyond, and new ones are currently proliferating across the globe in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Capital not only traverses and transcends national borders and boundaries but is also driven to transgress the natural limits of life on the planet, while nation state competition hinders any meaningful response to the impending ecological collapse. We are currently entering a new epoch, where capital erodes not only its own foundations but also the preconditions of human survival as such.

The Danish Society for Marxists Studies wants to interrogate and address the significance of these borders and boundaries to contemporary capitalism and anticapitalist struggles. We therefore invite contributions on this and related topics for the fifth annual Marx Now conference. Topics might include (but are not limited to):

• The relationship between capitalism and the international state system, including war and the construction of border regimes in historical or contemporary perspective.
• The relationship of nationalism(s) and fascism(s) to capitalism and the nation state system, as well as the recent rise of right-wing nationalism and populism.
• The origins and significance of the structural division of social life under capitalism into separate spheres, i.e., domestic, economic and political spheres, as well as productive and reproductive labour, their particular dynamics, struggles and interrelations. The limits to capital accumulation and the subsumption of different spheres of social and natural life.
• The causes of and responses to the unfolding climate crises within global capitalism and the international system.
• The relationship between limited value production and unlimited asset valorization in the financial sector.

Open Call

The ambition with the annual Marx Now conferences is also to create a common platform for critical and emancipatory research in Denmark. For this reason, as in previous years we are also happy to welcome papers that do not directly touch upon this year’s theme but contribute to these research traditions

Please submit your abstract of 200-300 words to info@marxistiskestudier.com no later than June 15, 2020. Abstracts and presentations may be in Danish or English.