50 SOCIAL SCIENTIST of the many different 'disciplinary* forms of Marxian thought. That is, in our view, Marxian economic thought shares more concepts, approaches, and methods—may have more discursive regularity— with Marxian literary theory than do Marxian economic thought and neoclassical economic theory. The comparison of Marxian economic thought and literary theory is instructive. While we cannot develop all of the many points of commonality between these discursive forms, we call attention to a few that may help readers in comprehending our claim that the disciplinary bounds of a singular 'economics*—marking its distance from non-economic disciplines—can only uneasily be drawn. Some of the key concepts and methods that may be shared (sometimes, we note, as objects of criticism) by the various traditions and discursive forms within Marxism include a commitment to 'historical* analysis, the notions of dialectics and contradiction, a focus on the conditions of existence or 'mode of production" of discursive and non-discursive events, a close concern with the relation of these events to socioeconomic class, and an explicit recognition and engagement with the political determinations and effects of theoretical practice. We should state that since Marxism is itself comprised of diverse and often contradictory discourses, these concepts enter into the various traditions to different degrees and with different understandings. Yet, a quick glimpse at Marxian literary theory over8 the past 20 years, for example in the work of Fredric Jameson (1971, 1981) Terry Eagleton (1976, 1983, 1986), Pierre Macherey (1978), Raymond Williams (1977), and Michel Pecheux (1982), demonstrates a shared discursive terrain with varius kinds of Marxian economic thought.1 For Jameson, for example, the determination of the meanings and effects of literary narratives—their specific, concrete historicities—is combined with an effort to locate such narratives within the context of the forms of historical production of the non-discursive as well. Indeed, this context provides a necessary grid through which narratives must be read. Hence, in his critique of postmodernism, Jameson (1984) presents this latest/ cultural form as such a narrative (or set of narratives) whose meanings and effects must be placed within the broader historical conditions—of 'late capitalism'—where it resides, is nourished, and for which it provides important cultural underpinnings. Eagleton (1976), following Macherey and Louis Althusser, caUs attention to the concrete modes of production of particular literary forms, but also reminds the reader that the means of literary production within any such mode cannot be limited to discursive elements alone. Thus, an understanding of the historical conditions oi literary production is a crucial ingredient in 'reading* texte since the meanings 'of these texts change in response to changes in their production and, ir^ some readings, may be shown to 'represent,' reflect, or, at teast^ to narrativize the historical wnditions of their production.