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Marxist Sociology (Sociology)

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. Karl Marx (b. 1818–d. 1883) and his lifelong collaborator Friedrich Engels (b. 1820–d. 1895) developed a body of thought that would inspire major social movements, initiate revolutionary social change across the globe, and provide the foundation for many socialist or communist governments. More recently, Marxism’s political influence has waned, with most of the formerly communist regimes undergoing significant change. It is important, however, to separate out Marxism as a system of ideas in the social sciences from Marxism as a political ideology and the foundation for revolutionary social movements and as a governing philosophy. Marxist ideas have influenced many fields of thought and indeed have played a particularly important role in the development of the discipline of sociology. Classical sociological theorists such as Émile Durkheim (b. 1858–d. 1917) and Max Weber (b. 1864–d. 1920), for example, developed their theories of society in conversation with the works of Karl Marx. However, as it evolved in the United States and western Europe in the middle parts of the 20th century, sociology’s dialogue with Marxian propositions declined. For example, the widely influential norm-oriented functionalist sociology of Talcott Parsons (b. 1902–d. 1979) had little engagement with Marxist thought. In the aftermath of the large-scale social struggles of the 1960s and 1970s, however, sociologists around the world increasingly embraced a historically oriented approach to knowledge and in many cases found in the classics of Marxism a source of inspiration. Debates and controversies over Marxism continue to shape the development of sociology up to the present time, although “neo-Marxism” is less influential today than it was twenty-five years ago. Nonetheless, serious students of sociology have to have some familiarity with some of the classical ideas and theorists of Marxism, and Marxist theories continue to influence some parts of the discipline today.
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  5. General Overviews
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  7. It is hardly surprising, given its historical significance, that hundreds of general overviews of Marxism have been written. As a body of thought and a political movement, Marxism can be synthesized from many points of view. McLellan 1974 offers an ideal introduction through an examination of the life and ideas of Marx himself. Draper 1977 and Draper 1978 focus more squarely on the relationship between Marxism and politics. In the case of Marxist sociology, Bottomore 1984 provides a historical analysis of the relationship between Marxism and sociology. Lefebvre 1968’s contribution provides a more advanced introduction. Mandel 1970 is a good place to start for students interested in Marxist economic theory (which is shaped by sociological insights far more than its neoclassical competitors). Foley 1986 develops more formalized models for understanding the basic contributions of Marx’s political economy. Finally, Ollman 1976 offers an excellent overview of Marx’s philosophical concept of alienation.
  8.  
  9. Bottomore, Tom. 1984. Sociology and socialism. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
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  11. A collection of essays that examine the historical relationship of Marxist theory to sociological thought, highlighting in particular the ways in which the growth of sociology has reflected an ongoing dialogue with Marxism.
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  13.  
  14. Draper, Hal. 1977. Karl Marx’s theory of revolution. Vol. 1, State and bureaucracy. New York: Monthly Review Press.
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  16. This is a thorough, wide-ranging, and easy-to-comprehend exegesis of Marx and Engels’ writings on democracy and their approach to politics. It is part of a five-volume collection on a range of central concepts and debates in Marxian theory.
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  18.  
  19. Draper, Hal. 1978. Karl Marx’s theory of revolution. Vol. 2, The politics of social classes. New York: Monthly Review Press.
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  21. This excellent follow-up to Volume 1 continues with a clear and wide-ranging exegesis of Marx and Engels, focused squarely on the question of social class—the class structure, classes in history, and classes and revolution.
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  23.  
  24. Foley, Duncan K. 1986. Understanding capital: Marx’s economic theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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  26. This clear and short book reviews the core contributions of all three volumes of Marx’s major economic treatise, Capital. This is a very useful resource for those who engage with Marx’s political economy.
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  28.  
  29. Lefebvre, Henri. 1968. The sociology of Marx. New York: Pantheon.
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  31. Seeks to uncover the systematic contributions to sociology in the writings of Karl Marx, including Marx’s contributions to social theory, the sociology of knowledge, political sociology, and class analysis. Originally published in French in 1966.
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  33.  
  34. Mandel, Ernest. 1970. An introduction to Marxist economic theory. New York: Pathfinder.
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  36. This short book offers a concise exploration of the basic concepts in Marx’s political economy.
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  38.  
  39. McLellan, David. 1974. Karl Marx: His life and thought. London: Harper & Row.
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  41. This is a key biography of Marx, situating his core theoretical contributions in his social and intellectual milieu.
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  43.  
  44. Ollman, Bertell. 1976. Alienation: Marx’s conception of man in a capitalist society. 2d ed. Cambridge Studies in the History and Theory of Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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  46. This is the most thorough exploration of Marx’s concept of alienation—the condition of human beings in capitalist society—in the English language.
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  48.  
  49. Resources
  50.  
  51. There are a few resources available for understanding Marxism and Marxian debates. The first is the website Marxists.org, which offers a huge archive of writings by leading figures in Marxism. Also, Bottomore 1991 is an excellent dictionary of Marxian terms that offers concise explanations on a very wide range of concepts relevant to Marxian sociology.
  52.  
  53. Bottomore, Tom B., ed. 1991. A dictionary of Marxist thought. 2d ed. Malden: Blackwell.
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  55. A scholarly dictionary, with the key terms and concepts of Marxism defined and explicated.
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  57.  
  58. Marxists.org.
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  60. This extraordinary Internet archive makes available the writings of almost 600 socialist and/or anticapitalist thinkers, from the 19th century up to the present. All writings are free to view and download.
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  62.  
  63. Journals
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  65. There are a large number of journals oriented toward Marxian research and political commentary. Many of these journals are political in nature and are organized by Marxian or socialist organizations. While several of these offer good analysis, we have included only journals with a specifically academic character and that are in English. These include Critical Sociology, Historical Materialism, Journal of Agrarian Change, Journal of World-Systems Research, Monthly Review, New Left Review, Rethinking Marxism, and Socialist Register.
  66.  
  67. Critical Sociology.
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  69. Originally published as the Insurgent Sociologist, this journal publishes work from Marxist, post-Marxist, and feminist perspectives.
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  71.  
  72. Historical Materialism.
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  74. An interdisciplinary journal that explores and develops the explanatory potential of Marxian theory.
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  76.  
  77. Journal of Agrarian Change.
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  79. This is the leading Marxian journal of agrarian political economy.
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  81.  
  82. Journal of World-Systems Research.
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  84. The leading journal of world-systems analysis. Not Marxist, per se, this journal encourages submission from a range of theoretical traditions, including Marxism.
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  86.  
  87. Monthly Review.
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  89. A long-running interdisciplinary Marxian journal, founded by the Marxist economists Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman in 1949. Well known for engaging with contemporary political controversies.
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  91.  
  92. New Left Review.
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  94. The premier journal of Marxist thought in the world. Interdisciplinary in character and theoretical tradition, as its contributions draw on a large range of intellectual traditions—from Marxism to post-Marxism—animated by an attention to contemporary political developments and intellectual debates.
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  96.  
  97. Rethinking Marxism.
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  99. An interdisciplinary journal that aims to engage with the challenges facing Marxism and the global left.
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  101.  
  102. Socialist Register.
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  104. An interdisciplinary Marxian journal that serves as an annual survey of movements and ideas. Each issue is thematically organized.
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  106.  
  107. Key Writings of Marx and Engels for Sociologists
  108.  
  109. Karl Marx (b. 1818–d. 1883) and Friedrich Engels (b. 1820–d. 1895) established a personal and intellectual collaboration that lasted a lifetime and produced an enormous output (the collected works of Karl Marx are over fifty volumes). This output generated the founding contributions to Marxism. The texts identified here provide some of their core contributions, especially those of interest to sociologists. These texts provide key introductions to the writings of Marx and Engels on capitalism and philosophy (Marx 1988, Marx 1998), “historical materialism” (the Marxist theory of history; Marx and Engels 1998a), the political economy of capitalism (Marx 1976, Marx 1991), the family and the state (Engels 2010), and capitalism and politics (Marx 2004, Marx and Engels 1998b).
  110.  
  111. Engels, Friedrich. 2010. The origin of the family, private property, and the state. London: Penguin Press.
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  113. This is the first materialist attempt at providing an account of the development of social relations from ancient society to antiquity. Originally published in 1844.
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  115.  
  116. Marx, Karl. 1976. Capital. Vol. 1. Translated by Ben Fowkes. New York: Vintage Books.
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  118. Marx’s magnum opus. The defining work of Marxist political economy, sociologists will find the most use in the following sections: The Commodity (chapter 1), The General Formula for Capital, The Concept of Relative Surplus Value, Simple Reproduction, The Transformation of Surplus Value into Capital, The General Law of Accumulation, and The Secret of Primitive Accumulation. Originally published in 1867.
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  120.  
  121. Marx, Karl. 1988. Economic and philosophical manuscripts of 1844. Translated by Martin Milligan. New York: Prometheus.
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  123. These are posthumously published notebooks that grapple with Hegel’s economics and philosophy. This book is most often used because of its chapter “Estranged Labor”(pp. 69–84), which develops Marx’s core ideas concerning alienation. Originally published in 1844.
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  125.  
  126. Marx, Karl. 1991. Capital. Vol. 3. London: Penguin.
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  128. Published posthumously, Volume 3 makes further critical contributions to Marx’s political economy. The key section is “Part Three: The Law of the Tendential Fall in the Rate of Profit” a formal statement of Marx’s theory of economic crisis. Originally published in 1894.
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  130.  
  131. Marx, Karl. 1998. Theses on Feuerbach. In The German ideology. By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Amherst, NY: Prometheus.
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  133. These are eleven short theses on the work of Feuerbach that offer a critique of both materialism and idealism. In a matter of two pages, these theses provide Marx’s core criticisms of the philosophy of his time. The theses conclude with one of Marx’s most memorable phrases, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.” Originally published in 1845.
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  135.  
  136. Marx, Karl. 2004. Eighteenth brumaire of Louis Bonaparate. New York: International.
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  138. Originally published in Die Revolution, a monthly publication, this work constitutes the best application by Marx of historical materialism to a concrete political situation. Utilizing a class analysis, Marx’s explains the 1851 coup d’etat of Louis Bonaparte and in turn demonstrates how competing classes and class fractions shaped political history. Originally published in 1852.
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  140.  
  141. Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. 1998a. The German ideology. Amherst, NY: Prometheus.
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  143. In addition to being a polemic against many of the prominent philosophers of the time, this work provides their only major exposition of the materialist theory of history. It also includes a famous section on ruling class-ideologies. First published from 1845–1846.
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  145.  
  146. Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. 1998b. The Communist manifesto. London: Verso.
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  148. The most-read of the classical contributions. This was written as a political tract for mass consumption and as such is both easy to grasp and presents their core insights in a tight and literary style. This is an ideal first introduction to classical Marxism. Originally published in 1848.
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  150.  
  151. Classical Marxism After Marx
  152.  
  153. Most of the Marxian theorists in the generation after Marx and Engels would play important roles in their respective national Communist parties. For example, V. I. Lenin (b. 1870–d. 1924) founded the Bolshevik Party in Russia. Edward Bernstein (b. 1850–d. 1932) was a leading theoretician in the Social-Democratic Party in Germany, the largest Marxist party in the world before World War I. Trotsky (b. 1879–d. 1940) would play a leading role in the Russian Revolution. Rosa Luxemburg (b. 1871–d. 1919) was an influential voice of left-wing Marxism in the context of the Social-Democratic Parties of both Poland and Germany. As such, the questions that the next generation engaged with reflected world-historic developments absent in the period of Marx and Engels. The rise of working-class struggles and Communist political parties put political and programmatic questions on the theoretical agenda more than ever before (Lenin 1987, Luxemburg 2004, Trotsky 1972, Trotsky 2007). The uneven development of capitalism led to a re-theorization of the peasantry (Lenin 1987, Kautsky 1988). Hilferding 1981 provides a novel and influential theory of the role of finance in the evolution of capitalism. Bernstein 1961 argues that the socialist movement should use a “reformist” strategy relying on elections and the steady transformation of capitalism rather than seeking a radical break through revolutionary upheavals. The outbreak of World War I pushed Marxian intellectuals to theorize the process of imperialism (Lenin 1987, Luxemburg 2004). The possibility of revolution led many to return to the revolutions of the past for clues into the way forward (James 1989).
  154.  
  155. Bernstein, Eduard. 1961. Evolutionary socialism: A criticism and affirmation. New York: Schocken.
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  157. A founding statement of the social-democratic tradition within Marxism, Bernstein argued that, in contrast to classical Marxism’s insistence on the inevitability of the collapse of capitalism as the context for a socialist revolution, socialism could be built from within capitalism (and taking advantage of democratic political institutions). This position would come to be known as the “revisionist” thesis, and it was deeply controversial among German Marxists. Originally published in 1899.
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  159.  
  160. Hilferding, Rudolf. 1981. Finance capital: A study of the latest phase of capitalist development. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
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  162. This work considers the relationship between the growing power of banks, economic monopolization, and the use of state-military power to expand markets. It contains almost every major point made by Bukharin and Lenin in their respective writings on imperialism. Originally published in 1910.
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  164.  
  165. James, C. L. R. 1989. The black Jacobins. New York: Vintage.
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  167. A brilliant Marxian account of how the French Revolution (1789) led to a breakdown of French rule in the French colony of Saint Dominique. Using a class-based account, the author shows how the revolution in Saint Dominique produced the first free nation in the Caribbean in 1803, Haiti. Originally published in 1938.
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  169.  
  170. Kautsky, Karl. 1988. The agrarian question. London: Zwan.
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  172. This is an exposition of major changes in European and American agriculture. Here, Kautsky analyzes situations in which the capitalist mode of production is dominant but precapitalist forms of production are able to coexist. This work counters Lenin’s The Development of Capitalism in Russia (Honolulu, HI: University Press of the Pacific, 2004; first published in Russian in 1899), which argues that capitalism was proletarianizing the Russian peasantry. Originally published in 1899.
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  174.  
  175. Lenin, Vladimir I. 1987. Essential works of Lenin. Edited by Henry M. Christman. New York: Dover.
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  177. Key introductory readings are selections from “What Is to Be Done?,” which begins to develop a theory of revolutionary organization; “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism,” which popularizes Hilferding’s theory of imperialism; and “The State and Revolution,” which argues that the capitalist state cannot be captured but instead must be destroyed for revolution to be successful. First published from 1929 to 1939.
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  179.  
  180. Luxemburg, Rosa. 2004. The Rosa Luxemburg reader. Edited by Peter Hudis and Kevin B. Anderson. New York: Monthly Review Press.
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  182. Luxemburg’s key works in this volume are the selections from The Accumulation of Capital, where she begins to develop a theory of imperialism that articulates the mechanisms of primitive accumulation; Social Reform or Revolution, where she argues against Bernstein’s reform-oriented socialism; and The Mass Strike, where she articulates a theory of spontaneous mass action. First published from 1906 to 1913.
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  184.  
  185. Trotsky, Leon. 1972. The revolution betrayed: What is the Soviet Union and where is it going? New York: Pathfinder.
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  187. This book constitutes the core of Trotsky’s critique of Stalin and the Stalinist model of socialism that was developing in the Soviet Union from the late 1920s on. Originally published in 1936.
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  189.  
  190. Trotsky, Leon. 2007. The history of the Russian Revolution. Chicago: Haymarket.
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  192. This study of the Russian revolution is a key in the Marxian pantheon, offering a challenging interpretation of the weakness of the tsarist regime and revolution more broadly. Originally published in 1930.
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  194.  
  195. Marxism After World War II
  196.  
  197. Marxism moved in a variety of directions after World War II. One important development was that ties between leading Marxist thinkers and the working-class movements weakened. Most of the major contributions to Marxian theory were made by academics, in many cases removed from political parties or social movements. This is a decisive shift relative to earlier periods. Largely freed from direct connection to socialist political movements, Marxist theorists pushed the boundaries of the Marxist tradition in new and unexpected ways. In this section, we survey some of the major new directions within Marxian theory: the so-called Western Marxist tradition, the new Marxist historiography, structural Marxism, Marxist political economy, Marxism in the less developed world, and Marxism feminism.
  198.  
  199. Western Marxism
  200.  
  201. “Western Marxism” refers to the group of intellectuals critical of classical Marxism who sought to develop new ways of understanding how capitalism developed new cultural underpinnings that tended to produce a kind of “false consciousness” among the working class. The writings of the “young” Lukács, Lukács 1971, and Gramsci 1971’s prison writing provide foundational insights (with Gramsci’s influence being felt much later than Lukács’s). The most prominent members of this generation of Marxists were associated with the Frankfurt School (e.g., Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Herbert Marcuse). Wiggershaus 1995 provides an intellectual history of the Frankfurt School, while Horkheimer and Adorno 2002 and Marcuse 1964 represent two classical contributions. Habermas 1975 is sometimes viewed as a direct descendent of the Frankfurt School, and his work on the “legitimation crisis” represents the most Marxian of his considerable body of work. Jay 1984 provides an overview of the entire tradition through the lens of the concept of “totality,” while Anderson 1976 develops a critique from a standpoint of classical Marxism.
  202.  
  203. Anderson, Perry. 1976. Considerations on Western Marxism. London: NLB.
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  205. A brilliant and searing indictment of the Western Marxist tradition, focused around the theme of the abandonment of classical questions of class power and socialist transformation in favor of a cultural critique of capitalism.
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  207.  
  208. Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the prison notebooks. Edited by Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Smith. New York: International.
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  210. Gramsci develops the critical concept of “hegemony” to account for how and why workers sometimes align themselves with capitalists or fascists. Gramsci also provided a language for moving beyond the classical Marxist account of the state as an instrument of bourgeois domination to an “ensemble” of ideological and social institutions that helped to obscure the true nature of capitalism. Originally published from 1929 to 1935.
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  212.  
  213. Habermas, Jürgen. 1975. Legitimation crisis. Boston: Beacon.
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  215. Among the most political work of Habermas’s vast oeuvre, this text seeks to fundamentally reshape classical Marxism’s notion of crisis by arguing that while contemporary capitalist regimes are capable of solving economic crises, they do so at the expense of undermining the legitimacy of capitalism.
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  217.  
  218. Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. 2002. Dialectic of enlightenment. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.
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  220. This classical work develops the critique of modernity. Among the most influential publications of the Frankfurt School of critical theory, the authors draw on a comparison of Nazi Germany and the American culture industry to argue that reason has triumphed to the point of irrationality. Originally published in 1947.
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  222.  
  223. Jay, Martin. 1984. Marxism and totality. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
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  225. A comprehensive overview of the writings of Western Marxists, organized around the question of “totality” (the notion that social systems are interconnected entities).
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  227.  
  228. Lukács, Georg. 1971. History and class consciousness. Translated by Rodney Livingstone. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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  230. This book engages with the processes of rationalization and reification. In it, Lukács argues that all classes have a class consciousness that has to be actively realized. According to his argument, the working class is the first class that has the potential to achieve true class consciousness, because only it can actively overcome capitalism. Originally published in German in 1923.
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  232.  
  233. Marcuse, Herbert. 1964. One-dimensional man: Studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society. Boston: Beacon.
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  235. Marcuse’s famous work offers a cultural criticism of capitalist society resting on the idea that consumerism leads individuals to repress their desire for freedom in favor of work. The working class has been absorbed into capitalism through the spread of consumerism; Marcuse argued that only the truly marginalized, and the young, could lead the revolutionary struggles of the future.
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  237.  
  238. Wiggershaus, Rolf. 1995. The Frankfurt School: Its history, theories, and political significance. Translated by Michael Robertson. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
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  240. The standard account of the Frankfurt School. First published in German in 1986.
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  242.  
  243. The New Marxist Historiography
  244.  
  245. Marxism has, from its origins in the writings of Marx and Engels, had a deeply historical component that seeks to theorize historical epochs in terms of material forces. The mass uprisings of the 1960s pushed a new generation of historians to think through a “history from below”—what came to be known as “social history.” Up to that point, political and economic history was largely told from the top down, that is, from the perspective of elites and their organizations. In shifting the emphasis, key historians from both sides of the Atlantic developed a body of work that made common working people—their work lives, their organizations, and their cultural and social experiences—the primary lens through which to formulate a new historiography. The new historians produced a rich literature covering ancient history (Croix 1998), the transition from feudalism to capitalism (Brenner 1985, Dobb 1947), the rise of the modern state (Anderson 1974), the development and decline of workers’ organizations (Broué 2006, Montgomery 1987), the culture of capitalism (Thompson 1966), and global history (Hobsbawm 1996).
  246.  
  247. Anderson, Perry. 1974. Lineages of the absolutist state. London: NLB.
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  249. This work is a key Marxist contribution to the scholarship on the rise of the state. The author argues that the age of absolutism had its origins in the crisis of feudalism. The threats of peasant uprisings in the countryside and merchant dominance in the city drove the Western European nobility to strengthen the Crown. This alliance provided the foundations for the rise of the absolutist state.
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  251.  
  252. Brenner, Robert. 1985. Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe. In The Brenner debate. Edited by T. H. Aston and C. H. E. Philpin, 10–63. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
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  254. This article is a critical contribution to the study of the transition from feudalism to capitalism. In it, Brenner makes the case that the origins of capitalism lie in changes in English agriculture.
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  256.  
  257. Broué, Pierre. 2006. The German Revolution, 1917–1923. Edited by Ian Birchall and Brian Pierce. Translated by John Archer. Chicago: Haymarket.
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  259. This is the definitive account of the failed workers’ revolution in Germany, the largest workers’ uprising in an advanced capitalist country. The story is told from the position of the revolutionaries themselves and their many, and fracturing, organizations. Originally published in 1971.
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  261.  
  262. Croix, G. E. M. de Ste. 1998. The class struggle in the ancient Greek world: From the archaic age to the Arab conquests. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
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  264. Croix provides the most thorough historical materialist analysis of Antiquity to date. It demonstrates that processes of class struggle were critical to the rise of democracy in Greece and the decline of the Greek city-state in the Roman Empire. Originally published in 1981.
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  266.  
  267. Dobb, Maurice. 1947. Studies in the development of capitalism. New York: International.
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  269. A pivotal history of the transition from feudalism to capitalism that finds the roots of capitalism in England. Specifically, it argues that changes in the structure of production and class relations account for the rapid development of English capitalism.
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  271.  
  272. Hobsbawm, Eric. 1996. The age of extremes: A history of the world, 1914–1991. New York: Vintage.
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  274. Gives a global history of the “short 20th century” (1914–1991) from a Marxian perspective.
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  276.  
  277. Montgomery, David. 1987. The fall of the house of labor: The workplace, the state, and American labor activism, 1855–1925. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  278. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511528774Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  279. This book is a key contribution to the study of the American working class from the end of the Civil War to the mid-1920s. It argues that the decline of labor power in the United States is associated with the loss of shop-floor control by unions.
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  281.  
  282. Thompson, E. P. 1966. The making of the English working class. New York: Vintage.
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  284. Thompson’s book is both pivotal and leading in the new Marxist historiography. In it, he aims to show that the English working class, 1780–1832, made itself and constituted its own class consciousness through traditional values of solidarity, Methodism, and mutuality. The book can be read as a counter to highly structural accounts of class. Originally published in 1963.
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  286.  
  287. Structuralist Marxism
  288.  
  289. For a brief period in the 1960s and 1970s, a brand of Marxism identified with the French philosopher Louis Althusser gained wide interest in sociology. As part of the larger structuralist movement in French philosophy and social science Althusser (Althusser 2001, Althusser 2005; Althusser and Balibar 1971) provided a language for “scientific” Marxism, dismissing the early critical writings of Marx in favor of the later, mature Marx of Capital. Althusser’s best-known adherents, such as Poulantzas 1973, went on to make major contributions to the study of politics. However, a devastating critique of Althusser was launched by E. P. Thompson 1996. Anderson 1983 also offers a unique critique and assessment of structuralist Marxism.
  290.  
  291. Althusser, Louis. 2001. Lenin and philosophy, and other essays. New York: Monthly Review Press.
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  293. Contains the important and controversial essay “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus,” which explores state power and the levels of society that reinforce it (the family, education, and so on), along with other pieces on Leninist thought. Originally published in 1971.
  294. Find this resource:
  295.  
  296. Althusser, Louis. 2005. For Marx. London: Verso.
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  298. Considered the founding text of structuralist Marxism. Most notable in this collection of essays are Althusser’s ideas of an “epistomological break” between the young and mature Marx and his concept of dialectics, which he terms contradiction and overdetermination. Originally published in French in 1965.
  299. Find this resource:
  300.  
  301. Althusser, Louis, and Étienne Balibar. 1971. Reading capital. New York: Pantheon.
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  303. This edition contains essay contributions from both Althusser and Balibar. It consists of an intensive rereading of Marx’s Capital that seeks to reestablish Marxism as a viable philosophical position. Originally published in French in 1968.
  304. Find this resource:
  305.  
  306. Anderson, Perry. 1983. In the tracks of historical materialism. London: Verso.
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  308. An intellectual history of the development of Marxism after the large-scale social struggles of 1968. Anderson deals critically, but sympathetically, with structuralist Marxism and its offshoots.
  309. Find this resource:
  310.  
  311. Poulantzas, Nicos. 1973. Political power and social classes. London: NLB.
  312. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  313. A leading text in the structuralist Marxist literature, Poulantzas seeks to develop a Marxian theory of the capitalist state. He introduces the concept of “relative autonomy” of the state, which has remained central to Marxian debates in state theory. Originally published in French in 1968.
  314. Find this resource:
  315.  
  316. Thompson, E. P. 1996. The poverty of theory and other essays. London: Merlin Press.
  317. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  318. A searing criticism of structuralist Marxism by the British Marxist historian. Originally published in 1978.
  319. Find this resource:
  320.  
  321. Marxist Political Economy
  322.  
  323. A group of scholars in the 1960s and 1970s began to reformulate and reapply Marx’s political economy to their contemporary contexts. These thinkers were forced to grapple with questions and situations that Marx did not fully foresee or comprehend. Cardoso and Vern 1979, Frank 1967, and Emmanuel 1972 broke heavily with orthodox Marxist theories of imperialism to develop a new account of global inequality based on “unequal exchange.” Baran 1957 and Baran and Sweezy 1966 also largely broke with orthodox Marxist political economy to theorize the American capitalism of their age—one that they believed was characterized by monopoly control by large firms. Mandel 1975 applies a more orthodox Marxist analysis to the new global context.
  324.  
  325. Baran, Paul A. 1957. The political economy of growth. New York: Monthly Review Press.
  326. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  327. A classical approach to capitalist development and underdevelopment. It demonstrates how surplus is used and reinvested.
  328. Find this resource:
  329.  
  330. Baran, Paul A., and Paul M. Sweezy. 1966. Monopoly capital: An essay on the American economic and social order. New York: Monthly Review Press.
  331. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  332. This book made a major contribution to Marxian political economy. In prior work on capitalist accumulation, Marxian scholars assumed competition between firms in their model. Baran and Sweezy, however, analyze capitalist accumulation in the context of monopolization and do not rely on earlier Marxian concepts such as surplus value.
  333. Find this resource:
  334.  
  335. Cardoso, Fernando Henrique, and Enzo Faletto Verne. 1979. Dependency and development in Latin America. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
  336. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  337. Provides a periodization of Latin American economic development, focusing in particular on the transition from the focused development of internal markets to the rise of global trade in the postwar era. In the 1979 postscript, the authors reexamine their original hypothesis in view of later developments. Cardoso would later become the two-term president of Brazil. Originally published in 1966.
  338. Find this resource:
  339.  
  340. Emmanuel, Arghiri. 1972. Unequal exchange: A study of the imperialism of trade. London: NLB.
  341. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  342. This influential analysis of modern forms of imperialism argues that free trade between capitalist countries is often “unequal,” to the systematic determinant of poor countries. He goes on to argue that these unequal exchanges explain the bulk of economic world inequality.
  343. Find this resource:
  344.  
  345. Frank, Andre Gunder. 1967. Capitalism and underdevelopment in Latin America: Historical studies of Chile and Brazil. New York: Monthly Review Press.
  346. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  347. Argues that the key to understanding the plight of countries in the global periphery is to look at their economic relationship with more developed countries. Trade relations with wealthy capitalist countries have locked less developed countries into economic activities that employ high levels of exploitation and low wages in order to produce very cheap goods for consumers of wealthier countries.
  348. Find this resource:
  349.  
  350. Mandel, Ernest. 1975. Late capitalism. Revised ed. London: NLB.
  351. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  352. In this work, the author aims to characterize the main dimensions of the capitalist accumulation of his time. Late capitalism, which is heavily reliant on fluid flows in financial markets, advances beyond the two previous phases of capitalist accumulation, market capitalism and monopoly capitalism. Mandel offers a wide-reaching theory of the long waves of economic development that draws heavily from Kondratieff. Originally published in 1972.
  353. Find this resource:
  354.  
  355. Marxism in the Less Developed World
  356.  
  357. Marxist theory primarily developed in the West and as a theory of capitalism in its most developed form. But Marxism was also drawn upon by Marxist thinkers elsewhere, particularly in China (under Mao) and in response to the wave of revolutionary and anticolonial struggles in Latin America and Africa. While Mao wrote on a range of topics (Mao 1971) a number of key texts to be translated into English took on a very practical and political nature. After all, anticolonial struggles and revolutions were happening in less developed countries across the globe. Guevara 2006 drew on his own experience as a leader of the Cuban revolution to write a book aimed at revolutionary movements in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Debray 1967 is a pivotal work that analyzes and synthesizes the prevailing strategic analyses of revolutionary movements in Latin America. Fanon 1963 revolutionized both the practice and the theorizing of Third World and black liberation movements. Finally, Freire 2006 the nature of education and studies of pedagogy by challenging the view that the poor cannot use education as an instrument of social change.
  358.  
  359. Debray, Régis. 1967. Revolution in the revolution? New York: Grove Press.
  360. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  361. Considered the primer for revolutionary movements in less developed countries.
  362. Find this resource:
  363.  
  364. Fanon, Franz. 1963. The wretched of the earth. New York: Grove Press.
  365. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  366. A canonical book in black liberation theory and actual black liberation and anti-colonial struggles. Using a Marxian analysis, Fanon penetrates the culture of the colonized, and offers some suggestions on how to navigate the path to liberation. Originally published in 1961.
  367. Find this resource:
  368.  
  369. Freire, Paulo. 2006. Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.
  370. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  371. Using a Marxian framework, this proposes a new pedagogy in which the roles of teacher and student are shifted in order to best effect change in society. Originally published in 1976.
  372. Find this resource:
  373.  
  374. Guevara, Che. 2006. Guerilla warfare. New York: Ocean Press.
  375. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  376. Draws out lessons from the Cuban Revolution for revolutionary movements in other less developed countries, by the famed revolutionary leader. Originally published in 1961.
  377. Find this resource:
  378.  
  379. Mao Tsetung. 1971. Selected readings from the works of Mao Tsetung. Peking: Foreign Languages Press.
  380. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  381. Offers a sampling of Mao’s large output of theoretical writings. Key selections include, “On Practice,” “On Contradiction,” “On the Correct Handling of Contradictions among the People,” and “Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?”
  382. Find this resource:
  383.  
  384. Marxist Feminism
  385.  
  386. Classical Marxism paid some attention to the “woman question,” as it was known, but provided little room for treating gender independently of class. In the 1970s, feminist scholars challenged the neglect of gender and gendered dynamics in sociology and other fields. A particularly interesting attempt to synthesize Marxist and feminist ideas emerged, known as “Marxist-feminist” or, more commonly, “socialist-feminism.” The theory was a striking attempt to build an integrated radical theory without reducing the centrality of inequality to class. The classical statements were those of Mitchell 1966, Rubin 1974, and Hartmann 1976, while Hartmann 1978 provides a classical assessment of the “unhappy marriage” between Marxism and feminism. A collection of contemporary debates motivated by Hartmann’s essay can be found in Sargent 1978. A later collection of writings on the socialist-feminism debate can be found in Hansen and Philipson 1990. Jackson 1999 offers a more recent review.
  387.  
  388. Hansen, Karen V., and Ilene J. Philipson, eds. 1990. Women, class, and the feminist imagination: A socialist-feminist reader. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press.
  389. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  390. An excellent collection of writings by socialist-feminist scholars, including both classical contributions, empirical efforts to test the theory, and some of the major debates on central topics such as the labor market, family life, socialist-feminist political organizations, and issues of race and gender.
  391. Find this resource:
  392.  
  393. Hartmann, Heidi. 1976. Capitalism, patriarchy, and job segregation by sex. Signs 1:137–169.
  394. DOI: 10.1086/493283Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  395. Argues that capitalist labor markets have been heavily shaped by the system of “patriarchy,” in which women workers are systematically disadvantaged and provide a body of low-wage workers.
  396. Find this resource:
  397.  
  398. Hartmann, Heidi. 1978. The unhappy marriage of Marxism and feminism: Towards a more progressive union. In Women and revolution: A discussion of the unhappy marriage of Marxism and feminism. Edited by Lydia Sargent, 1–41. Boston: South End.
  399. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  400. A classical essay that challenges the idea that Marxism’s privileging of class inequality can coexist in an emancipatory theory that takes gender inequality seriously. Hartmann argues that class inequality and gender inequality are of equal significance, and the intertwining of gender and class inequality produces a “dual system” of oppression.
  401. Find this resource:
  402.  
  403. Jackson, Stevi. 1999. Marxism and feminism. In Marxism and social science. Edited by Andrew Gamble, David Marsh, and Tony Tant, 11–34. London: Macmillan.
  404. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  405. A more recent overview of the complicated relationship between feminist and Marxist theory.
  406. Find this resource:
  407.  
  408. Mitchell, Juliet. 1966. Women: The longest revolution. New Left Review 40:11–37.
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  410. One of the earliest and classical statements of the problem of gender in the neo-Marxist tradition. Engages a number of topics that go far beyond the classic “woman question,” including sexuality and the problems of production and reproduction. Available online by subscription.
  411. Find this resource:
  412.  
  413. Rubin, Gayle. 1974. The traffic in women: Notes on the “political economy” of sex. In Towards an anthropology of women. Edited by Rayna R. Reiter, 157–210. New York: Monthly Review Press.
  414. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  415. A classic anthropological essay that traces male domination to its historical roots in the “trafficking” of women in premodern societies. Draws insights from Engels, Levi-Strauss, and Freud to suggest some universal aspects of gender inequality.
  416. Find this resource:
  417.  
  418. Sargent, Lydia, ed. 1978. Women and revolution. Boston: South End.
  419. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  420. Contains a number of critical responses to Heidi Hartmann’s landmark essay, “The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism.”
  421. Find this resource:
  422.  
  423. Contemporary Neo-Marxian Sociology
  424.  
  425. The relationship between Marxism and sociology is a complex one, as noted earlier. A significant segment of graduate students entering the discipline in the 1960s and 1970s, in the context of social upheaval, embraced Marxism as a means to make sense of the world and challenge reigning orthodoxies. While no major subfield was left untouched by the Marxian revival in sociology, several subfields commanded the bulk of the research. We summarize the major contributions of neo-Marxists in this section. These included class structure and class analysis, political sociology, the sociology of work, international political economy, cultural studies, and urban studies.
  426.  
  427. Overviews
  428.  
  429. Early surveys of Marxist sociology as it emerged in the Anglo-American world from the 1970s on can be found in Flacks 1982 and Burawoy 1982. A longer and more contemporary view can be found in Burawoy and Wright 2002’s sweeping statement, authored by the two most famous North American Marxists. Good collections of essays can be found in Shaw 1985; Bottomore and Goode 1983; and, most recently, Gamble, et al. 1999.
  430.  
  431. Bottomore, Tom, and Patrick Goode, eds. 1983. Readings in Marxist sociology. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
  432. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  433. This useful book of essays and excerpts highlights the core areas in which Marxism has relevance for sociology. They include theory, social formations, classes, politics, culture and ideology, development, imperialism, and socialism.
  434. Find this resource:
  435.  
  436. Burawoy, Michael. 1982. Introduction: The resurgence of Marxism in American sociology. In Special issue: Marxist inquiries: Studies of labor, class, and states. Edited by Michael Burawoy and Theda Skocpol. American Journal of Sociology 88:S1–S30.
  437. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  438. A superb and useful introduction to a unique collection of articles in a special issue of one of the flagship journals of American sociology, at the high-water mark of interest in Marxism in the Anglo-American sociology. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
  439. Find this resource:
  440.  
  441. Burawoy, Michael, and Erik Olin Wright. 2002. Sociological Marxism. In Handbook of sociological theory. Edited by Jonathan Turner, 459–486. New York: Plenum.
  442. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  443. An attempt to capture the field of “sociological Marxism” as it stands, with a particular focus on reconstructing the classical “core” and tracing through its modern evolution by later Marxists (including the authors themselves).
  444. Find this resource:
  445.  
  446. Flacks, Richard. 1982. Marxism and sociology. In The left academy: Marxist scholarship on American campuses. Edited by Bertell Ollman and Edward Vernoff, 9–52. New York: McGraw Hill.
  447. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  448. Another valuable survey of the state of Marxist sociology in the early 1980s. Nicely conveys the excitement of that era.
  449. Find this resource:
  450.  
  451. Gamble, Andrew, David Marsh, and Tony Tant, eds. 1999. Marxism and social science. London: Macmillan.
  452. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  453. This edited volume is very wide in scope. It covers the relationship between Marxism and a number of critical theoretical fields, such as postmodernity and feminism. In addition, it explores the role of Marxist theory in understanding a large number of substantive areas, such as the state, democracy, ecology, and globalization.
  454. Find this resource:
  455.  
  456. Shaw, Martin, ed. 1985. Marxist sociology revisited: Critical assessments. London: Macmillan.
  457. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  458. A collection of essays assessing the state of the relationship between Marxism and sociology, primarily in the Anglo-American world, in the mid-1980s.
  459. Find this resource:
  460.  
  461. Marxian Class Structure and Analysis
  462.  
  463. The study of social class has been a central theme in the revival of Marxist sociology since the 1970s. Wright’s (Wright 1985, Wright 1997) work addresses the “boundary” problem raised in classical Marxism by the rise of the “middle class,” while Gouldner 1979 advances a class analysis of the intelligentsia. Bonacich 1972 is a classical treatment of the problem of divisions among the working class along ethnic lines. Offe and Wiesenthal 1985 develops an argument that capitalist class actors have an inherent organizational advantage over the poor. Wood 1986 criticizes the turn away from class in the writings of post-Marxists. Katznelson 1981 tackles the question of American exceptionalism—that is, why American workers appear to identify less with their class than workers abroad.
  464.  
  465. Bonacich, Edna. 1972. A theory of ethnic antagonism: The split labor market. American Sociological Review 37:547–559.
  466. DOI: 10.2307/2093450Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  467. This important article argues that ethnic conflicts have class foundations.
  468. Find this resource:
  469.  
  470. Gouldner, Alvin Ward. 1979. The future of intellectuals and the rise of the new class. New York: Macmillan.
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  472. Gouldner argues that the history of capitalism is one in which “intellectuals,” by which he means professionals and managers as well the “cultural intelligentsia” of writers, artists, and professors, have been gradually coming to assert their power over the economic bourgeoisie. This “new class” is, in Gouldner’s view, well on its way to displacing the “old class” (the bourgeoisie) as the ruling class in the modern world.
  473. Find this resource:
  474.  
  475. Katznelson, Ira. 1981. City trenches: Urban politics and the patterning of class in the United States. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
  476. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  477. This book broadly asks why the American experience of class is so unique. It argues that American urban politics has been governed by a logic that stresses ethnicity, race, and territoriality, rather than class.
  478. Find this resource:
  479.  
  480. Offe, Claus, and Helmut Wiesenthal. 1985. Two logics of collective action. In Disorganized capitalism: Contemporary transformations of work and politics. Edited by Claus Offe, 170–220. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  481. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  482. This article makes a critical contribution to the study of class and class capacities. It argues that working people face much larger constraints on collective action then their better-positioned counterparts—employers.
  483. Find this resource:
  484.  
  485. Wood, Ellen Meiksins. 1986. The retreat from class: A new “true” socialism. London: NLB.
  486. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  487. This book provides a Marxian critique of post-Marxist theorists who have sought to reconsider the primacy of class.
  488. Find this resource:
  489.  
  490. Wright, Erik Olin. 1985. Classes. London: Verso.
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  492. Wright’s attempt to spell out a new model of the class location of individuals in middle-class positions by distinguishing three types of “assets” (capital, skills, organizational power) that individuals may possess, singularly or in combination. Empirically tests the implications of the model with opinion and income data from Sweden and the United States.
  493. Find this resource:
  494.  
  495. Wright, Erik Olin. 1997. Class counts: Comparative studies in class analysis. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  496. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  497. Drawing on survey data from twelve countries, Wright offers a major exploration of the impact of class location across a range of outcomes, such as attitudes, family and friendship patterns, class and gender, and social mobility.
  498. Find this resource:
  499.  
  500. Marxism and Political Sociology
  501.  
  502. The single most widely debated concept in the revival of Marxism in sociology is that of the state or, more particularly, the capitalist state. Prior Marxian analysis treated the state in largely functionalist terms, compelled to preserve capitalism. For neo-Marxian sociologists, renewed interest in the state meant breaking out of the standard functionalist view of the state. Barrow 1993 provides an overview and introduction. The essays by Block 1987 in the 1970s and 1980s were a classical attempt to theorize the conditions under which capitalist states could become autonomous from capitalist class interests. Miliband 1969 provides the classical “instrumentalist” theory of the state. Therborn 1978 develops a systematic typology of state and class relationships, while Poulantzas 1978 argues that contemporary states are divided along class lines. The rise of the welfare state has occasioned considerable debate among Marxists. Esping-Andersen 1990 is the standard “power resources” model, highlighting the role of class power in producing different types of welfare states, while O’Connor 1973’s classic argument points to the revolutionary potential in welfare-state formation. Finally, Lachmann 2000 points to the important role of conflicts between political and economic elites in the transition from feudalism to capitalism and the rise of the state.
  503.  
  504. Barrow, Clyde. 1993. Critical theories of the state: Marxist, neo-Marxist, post-Marxist. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press.
  505. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  506. This book provides a useful overview of Marxist, neo-Marxist, and post-Marxist theories of the state. The author develops a useful typology of radical theories of the capitalist state that identifies critical areas of overlap and difference among them.
  507. Find this resource:
  508.  
  509. Block, Fred L. 1987. Revising state theory: Essays in politics and postindustrialism. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press.
  510. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  511. In the chapter “The Ruling Class Does Not Rule: Notes on the Marxist Theory of the State,” the author provides the most innovative attempt to specify the mechanisms that account for the relative autonomy of the state from capital. He argues that the tendency for the state to act in the interests of employers is an outcome of the struggle between three actors: capitalists, workers, and “state managers.”
  512. Find this resource:
  513.  
  514. Esping-Andersen, Gøsta. 1990. The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  515. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  516. This book provides a critical contribution to the study of welfare states in advanced Western societies. Esping-Andersen argues that there are three major types of welfare regimes that correspond to the particular histories of the countries that support them.
  517. Find this resource:
  518.  
  519. Lachmann, Richard. 2000. Capitalists in spite of themselves: Elite conflict and economic transitions in early modern Europe. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  520. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  521. Develops an innovative account of the rise of the absolutist state and the transition from capitalism to feudalism by focusing on conflicts within the elite: landlords, clergy, officeholders, and kings. In the aftermath of the Reformation, elites found themselves embracing capitalism in order to preserve their privileges from rivals.
  522. Find this resource:
  523.  
  524. Miliband, Ralph. 1969. The state in capitalist society. New York: Basic Books.
  525. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  526. This book constitutes the key instrumentalist account of the capitalist state. It provides a thorough empirical account of the British state that seeks to show that reforms are unlikely in contexts in which capitalist interest are so thoroughly dominant. Miliband shows that in terms of their class origins, career trajectories, and ideological dispositions, state bureaucrats tended willingly to ally with capital.
  527. Find this resource:
  528.  
  529. O’Connor, James. 1973. The fiscal crisis of the state. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
  530. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  531. Argues that the rise of the welfare state creates a set of societal demands for benefits, which in turn leads to inevitably fiscal imbalances, which eventually threaten the existence of capitalism itself.
  532. Find this resource:
  533.  
  534. Poulantzas, Nicos. 1978. State, power, socialism. London: NLB.
  535. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  536. While he retains the analysis of the relative autonomy of the state, Poulantzas’s later work breaks from his earlier structuralist Marxism that regarded the state as only having economic, repressive, and ideological functions. Here he argues that there is no pre-set form of the capitalist state and instead that the state is shaped by class struggle.
  537. Find this resource:
  538.  
  539. Therborn, Göran. 1978. What does the ruling class do when it rules? State apparatuses and state power under feudalism, capitalism and socialism. London: Verso.
  540. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  541. Develops a systematic typology of the critical differences between the state in feudalist, capitalist, and socialist societies, with a special focus on the differences in class power found under each.
  542. Find this resource:
  543.  
  544. Marxism and the Sociology of Work
  545.  
  546. Marx wrote widely on the nature of work. However, prior to the neo-Marxist resurgence in sociology, relatively few Marxists had taken up these themes; the predominant drift in the study of industrial sociology was toward a much more positive (albeit not uncritical) view of the labor process in contemporary capitalism. Optimism about shop-floor satisfaction and class compromise pointed to by industrial sociology hardly captured the underlying dynamics of persistent workplace conflict. Braverman 1974’s pivotal work largely reintroduced a critical analysis of shop-floor processes. Burawoy 1979 and Edwards 1979 were largely responsible for incorporating and extending Braverman in the academy. Both Lee 1998 and McKay 2006 built on Burawoy’s analysis to study work life in less developed countries. Fantasia 1988’s work asks about the historical nature of class consciousness, and Seidman 1994 asks how class-oriented workers’ movements are made under different historical conditions. Silver’s recent contribution (Silver 2003) puts work and labor conflict into a global and long-term perspective and tries to identify some of the macro causes for the rise and fall of labor movements.
  547.  
  548. Braverman, Harry. 1974. Labor and monopoly capital: The degradation of work in the twentieth century. New York: Monthly Review Press.
  549. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  550. This very influential work revitalized the study of the labor processes from a Marxian perspective. Braverman argues that capitalism incrementally reduces a worker’s control over the work process by deepening the division of labor and separating the conception of work tasks from its execution.
  551. Find this resource:
  552.  
  553. Burawoy, Michael. 1979. Manufacturing consent: Changes in the labor process under monopoly capitalism. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
  554. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  555. Uses ethnography of the shop-floor to explain a missing component of Braverman’s account: how is workers’ consciousness shaped at work? He finds a collective striving among workers to achieve levels of production above 100 percent in a piece-rate system as the basis for status hierarchies in the shop, which had the consequence of increasing antagonisms between workers while decreasing conflict with management.
  556. Find this resource:
  557.  
  558. Edwards, Richard. 1979. Contested terrain: The transformation of the workplace in the twentieth century. New York: Basic Books.
  559. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  560. This work provides an analysis of the varieties of control at work in historical terms. According to Edwards, the form control takes is largely governed by workplace conflict and the economics of the firm’s operation. He identifies three historically successive forms of shop-floor control: simple, technical, and bureaucratic.
  561. Find this resource:
  562.  
  563. Fantasia, Rick. 1988. Cultures of solidarity: Consciousness, action, and contemporary American workers. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
  564. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  565. This innovative work challenges the notion that American workers lack class consciousness. Instead it shows the contingent and historical character of the development of class consciousness.
  566. Find this resource:
  567.  
  568. Lee, Ching Kwan. 1998. Gender and the South China miracle: Two worlds of factory women. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
  569. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  570. Lee’s study of the labor process shows how labor markets interact with gender to create a distinct set of outcomes in two manufacturing firms in China. In one case, a plant in Shenzhen, women workers are predominantly single and migrant. In the other case, in Hong Kong, women workers are predominantly married. According to Lee, these variations produce different management strategies for control, constructions of gender, and forms of collective action.
  571. Find this resource:
  572.  
  573. McKay, Steven C. 2006. Satanic mills or silicon islands? The politics of high-tech production in the Philippines. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
  574. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  575. This book utilizes Burawoy’s framework in The Politics of Production (London: Verso, 1985) to identify distinct types of work regimes in high-tech factories in the Philippines but suggests critical variation in the logics of control depending on the nature of the product that the firm manufactures (i.e., capital-intensive or labor-intensive), the nature of production (i.e., complex or deskilled), and the gendered dimensions of the labor pool that the factory draws on.
  576. Find this resource:
  577.  
  578. Seidman, Gay W. 1994. Manufacturing militance: Workers’ movements in Brazil and South Africa, 1970–1985. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
  579. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  580. This comparative analysis of South African workers and Brazilian workers asks how two countries that are so different could produce two labor movements committed to the broader working class, as opposed to more narrow sectoral interests. Seidman’s study shows that state policies, which increased demand for skilled workers but simultaneously degraded the positions of the skilled alongside the nonskilled urban poor, generated general animosity toward the state.
  581. Find this resource:
  582.  
  583. Silver, Beverly. 2003. Forces of labor: Workers’ movements and globalization since 1870. Cambridge studies in comparative politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  584. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  585. This spatially and temporally wide-ranging work argues that there is a long-term pattern across the globe in which, as production expands, workers’ power expands and labor unions eventually begin to develop and challenge for a greater share of profits.
  586. Find this resource:
  587.  
  588. Globalization and International Political Economy
  589.  
  590. Classical Marxists after Marx explicitly theorized processes of economic and political globalization, paying special attention to the role of imperialism. However, with the rise of Stalinism and “socialism in one country” and the decline of revolutionary movements after the failed German revolution in 1923, Marxists wrote less and less about the global dimension of capitalism. With the explosion of anticolonial struggles in Africa, Asia, and Latin America in the 1960s, Marxist political activists increasingly considered the role of the Third World. This interest helped drive a new generation of neo-Marxian sociologists to interrogate the global dimension of capitalism. Two main currents emerge in the literature: world-systems theory (Arrighi 1994, Arrighi and Silver 1999, Wallerstein 1974) and orthodox Marxism (Brenner 1977, Brenner 2006, Harvey 2007, Wood 2005). Brewer 1990 offers a particularly useful overview of Marxian theories of international political economy and imperialism in particular.
  591.  
  592. Arrighi, Giovanni. 1994. The long twentieth century: Money, power, and the origins of our times. London: Verso.
  593. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  594. This is a large study of global capitalism. It argues that recurring configurations of business and state organizations lead systemic cycles of accumulation. According to the author, these cycles take the form of large-scale expansions of capitalism into new areas of the globe, capital reaching the limit of this approach, and the subsequent transfer of capital into high finance.
  595. Find this resource:
  596.  
  597. Arrighi, Giovanni, and Beverly J. Silver. 1999. Chaos and governance in the modern world system. Minnesota: Univ. of Minnesota Press.
  598. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  599. In this book, the authors present a theory of the rise and fall of world hegemons. According to the argument, financial expansions lead to declining strength of the world hegemon’s power, resulting in global chaos, followed by a transformation in the national bloc of business and state organizations that will emerge as the new hegemonic power.
  600. Find this resource:
  601.  
  602. Brenner, Robert. 1977. The origins of capitalist development: A critique of neo-Smithian Marxism. New Left Review 104:25–92.
  603. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  604. This is an extensive critique of world-systems theory and the dependency school from an orthodox Marxist perspective. It is a major contribution to the debate about global capitalism. Available online by subscription.
  605. Find this resource:
  606.  
  607. Brenner, Robert. 2006. The economics of global turbulence: The advanced capitalist economies from long boom to long downturn, 1945–2005. London: Verso.
  608. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  609. This is a large-scale survey of the world economy from 1950 to the early 2000s. It argues that the sources of capitalist crises on a global level are overproduction and overcompetition. According to the author, both processes have been responsible for the long-term crisis since the early 1970s.
  610. Find this resource:
  611.  
  612. Brewer, Anthony. 1990. Marxist theories of imperialism: A critical survey. 2d ed. London: Routledge.
  613. DOI: 10.4324/9780203003817Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  614. This overview provides a very useful introduction to the core Marxian contributions to the study of imperialism. It is a must for those who are interested in a Marxian approach to geopolitics.
  615. Find this resource:
  616.  
  617. Harvey, David. 2007. A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  618. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  619. This survey of global economic practice since the 1970s tells the story of the rise and implementation of an approach to political and economic policy known as neoliberalism.
  620. Find this resource:
  621.  
  622. Wallerstein, Immanuel M. 1974. The modern world-system I: Capitalist agriculture and the origins of the European world-economy in the sixteenth century. New York: Academic.
  623. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  624. This book initiated a large research program around what came to be called world-systems theory. The main argument is that the world is broken down into different zones: the core, semiperiphery, and periphery. These zones exist in an unequal and exploitative relationship because of unequal exchanges generated through trade.
  625. Find this resource:
  626.  
  627. Wood, Ellen Meiksins. 2005. Empire of capital. London: Verso.
  628. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  629. Wood offers a new theory of imperialism. According to the author, as distinct from past historical experiences of empire, modern empire has come to reflect the social relations that are at the core of capitalism.
  630. Find this resource:
  631.  
  632. Marxism and Culture
  633.  
  634. In recent decades, building on the work of Western Marxism (see Western Marxism) but also responding to the renewal of the subfield of cultural sociology, Marxist studies of culture and cultural processes have bloomed. Williams 1978 provides an important early study of the rise of the dominant cultural forms in the West, while his later work (Williams 1983 provides an overview of, and offers new directions for, “cultural materialism.” One strand of Marxist analysis of culture has been in the area of ideology; Parekh 1982 provides a useful overview of Marx’s theory of ideology. Harvey 1990 and Jameson 1991 both offer strong critiques of the postmodernist turn in social theory. Harris 1992 develops an account of Gramsci’s influence on cultural studies. Zukin 1989 offers a classical treatment of how the ebb and flow of capitalist dynamics open up new spaces for the definition of what is “chic.” McChesney 2008, with the eye of a political economist, analyzes the reasons the American media are dominated by corporate interests.
  635.  
  636. Harris, David. 1992. From class struggle to the politics of pleasure: The effects of Gramscianism on cultural studies. New York: Routledge.
  637. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  638. A study of the influence of Gramsci on cultural studies, ranging from youth movements to the mass media and the cultural politics of the contemporary state.
  639. Find this resource:
  640.  
  641. Harvey, David. 1990. The condition of postmodernity: An inquiry into the origins of cultural change. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
  642. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  643. This offers an innovative critique of postmodernism. It argues that it is a cultural effect of late capitalism. A global economy that compresses time and space by shifting from Fordist production methods to more flexible and global methods also radically transforms culture.
  644. Find this resource:
  645.  
  646. Jameson, Fredric. 1991. Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press.
  647. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  648. A critique of postmodernism from a Marxian perspective. This work started with a famous and widely discussed, 1984 article in the New Left Review. It links cultural changes and postmodernism to the rise of multinational capitalism.
  649. Find this resource:
  650.  
  651. McChesney, Robert. 2008. The political economy of the media: Enduring issues, emerging dilemmas. New York: Monthly Review Press.
  652. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  653. Demonstrates how business and political elites mobilize their resources in order to consolidate control over media institutions and how this undermines democracy.
  654. Find this resource:
  655.  
  656. Parekh, Bhikhu. 1982. Marx’s theory of ideology. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press.
  657. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  658. A systematic attempt at understanding the concept of ideology within Marx’s larger theoretical vision. It situates Marx’s understanding of ideology within his understanding of truth and objectivity.
  659. Find this resource:
  660.  
  661. Williams, Raymond. 1978. Marxism and literature. London: Oxford Univ. Press.
  662. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  663. Extends the author’s earlier work by analyzing major Marxist contributions to the study of literature. The author develops his own account by articulating a theory of “cultural materialism.”
  664. Find this resource:
  665.  
  666. Williams, Raymond. 1983. Culture & society: 1780–1950. New York: Columbia Univ. Press.
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  668. A major Marxist contribution to grapple with the emerging questions in the sociology culture. It explores how the concept of culture developed in the West out of the Industrial Revolution, rooting these developments in class dynamics. Originally published in 1958.
  669. Find this resource:
  670.  
  671. Zukin, Sharon. 1989. Loft living: Culture and capital in urban change. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press.
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  673. This study of the transformation of lower Manhattan from a derelict former industrial zone into one of the most expensive and chic places to live in the world links cultural change with the political economy of cultural forms.
  674. Find this resource:
  675.  
  676. Marxism and Urban Studies
  677.  
  678. In the 1970s, Marxist scholars began to take seriously both how cities were run and the issues of space. Harvey 2009 and Castells 1979 were early pioneers of Marxian works that grappled with the nature of the city. Harvey 1989 provides a useful overview of his large output concerning the city. Lefebvre 1992 argues that modes of production also corresponded to certain social uses of space. More recently, Davis 2006 identifies the materialist tools for understanding the class history of a city. Smith 1996 theorizes the processes of gentrification, and Wacquant 2007 identifies the relationship between capitalist development and marginalization of disadvantaged subgroups. Finally, Brenner 2004 identifies how state power and the subnational level have changed since the 1970s.
  679.  
  680. Brenner, Neil. 2004. New state spaces: Urban governance and the rescaling of statehood. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
  681. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  682. Whereas most studies of the state focus on the national or transnational level, this book looks at the transformation of subnational state spaces, such as cities, since the 1970s. He argues that state power has been drastically rescaled.
  683. Find this resource:
  684.  
  685. Castells, Manuel. 1979. The urban question. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  686. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  687. A classic in Marxian urban studies. This utilizes an Althusserian framework to understand the function of cities in social, symbolic, and economic terms. Originally published in 1972.
  688. Find this resource:
  689.  
  690. Davis, Mike. 2006. City of quartz: Excavating the future in Los Angeles. London: Verso.
  691. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  692. Using a Marxian framework, the author reconstructs the history of Los Angeles. Originally published in 1991.
  693. Find this resource:
  694.  
  695. Harvey, David. 1989. The urban experience. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press.
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  697. An introduction to Harvey’s influential work on urbanism.
  698. Find this resource:
  699.  
  700. Harvey, David. 2009. Social justice and the city. Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press.
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  702. Probably the leading figure in the new Marxian urbanists. This major contribution identifies the material forces that produce cities, urban planning, and policy. It asks if there is a relationship between social justice and space, answering with an affirmative. Originally published in 1973.
  703. Find this resource:
  704.  
  705. Lefebvre, Henri. 1992. The production of space. Translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Blackwell.
  706. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  707. This book widened the scope of Marxist theory into the realm of space and has deeply influenced contemporary urban theory. In it, Lefebvre contends that space is a social product and that there are many modes of production of space. Originally published in 1974.
  708. Find this resource:
  709.  
  710. Smith, Neil. 1996. The new urban frontier: Gentrification and the revanchist city. London: Routledge.
  711. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  712. This book theorizes the processes of urban gentrification.
  713. Find this resource:
  714.  
  715. Wacquant, Loïc. 2007. Urban outcasts: Towards sociology of advanced marginality. Cambridge, MA: Polity.
  716. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  717. This ties the relationship of advanced capitalist development to urban marginalization of American blacks and French immigrants in the banlieue. An influential work in “critical urban studies” that places a heavy emphasis on the role of capitalism in inequality.
  718. Find this resource:
  719.  
  720. New Directions in Marxian Social Science
  721.  
  722. As Communism crumbled in the Soviet Union and eastern Europe in the late 1980s, a wave of reassessments of the Marxist project appeared. These can be grouped into four broad categories: post-Marxism, analytical Marxism, utopian radical Marxism, and works that specifically sought to reassess the Soviet experiment. Therborn 2008 provides a general and critical survey of the trajectory of Marxism and the post-Marxist approaches that branched off it.
  723.  
  724. Therborn, Göran. 2008. From Marxism to post-Marxism? London: Verso.
  725. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  726. A survey covering the recent trajectory of Marxist theory and social science since the fall of Communism, with a chapter devoted to emerging trends including many of the ones identified in the section.
  727. Find this resource:
  728.  
  729. Post-Marxism
  730.  
  731. In the context of declining social movement in the late 1970s, a new group of radical thinkers drastically shifted away from the economic and class-based framework of Marxism. On the one hand, these post-Marxists came to see themselves in partial argument with Marxian theory (Bourdieu 1984, Laclau and Mouffe 2001). On the other hand, they more and more incorporated ideas from psychoanalysis (Žižek 2009), cultural studies (Hardt and Negri 2000, Robinson 2000), and postmodernism (Derrida 2006). This group of thinkers contributed to the broader “cultural turn” in history and the social sciences in the late 1980s and 1990s.
  732.  
  733. Bourdieu, Pierre. 1984. Distinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
  734. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  735. The great French sociologist has a long and complicated relationship with Marxism. In particular, one of the guiding themes of Bourdieu’s work has been the role of “class reproduction,” that is, how children of different classes have great difficulty escaping their class of origin. In this classical work, Bourdieu argues that cultural tastes are defined by and reinforce power relationships in society. Class is an important determinant for cultural practice. Originally published in 1979.
  736. Find this resource:
  737.  
  738. Derrida, Jacques. 2006. Specters of Marx: The state of debt, the work of mourning and the new International. Translated by Peggy Kamuf. London: Routledge.
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  740. Derrida’s first serious statement on Marx. This poses a theory of deconstruction that posits the possibility of many Marxisms. Originally published in 1993.
  741. Find this resource:
  742.  
  743. Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. 2000. Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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  745. Argues that while classical colonialism and the state have withered away, a new empire has taken its place. According to the authors only “the multitude” can challenge the diffuse web of sociopolitical forces that now covers the globe.
  746. Find this resource:
  747.  
  748. Laclau, Ernesto, and Chantal Mouffe. 2001. Hegemony and socialist strategy. 2d ed. London: Verso.
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  750. A pivotal work in post-Marxism. This book traces the discursive roots of class and subverts the primacy of economic relations in the Marxian framework. Originally published in 1985.
  751. Find this resource:
  752.  
  753. Robinson, Cedric J. 2000. Black Marxism: The making of the black radical tradition. Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press.
  754. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  755. Not a part of the post-Marxist tradition per se. However, this work challenges the Marxian emancipatory framework as an unsubstantial way to understand black people and black experiences. The author argues that a critical analysis of the history of black radicalism must be traced to the traditions of Africa and the specific experiences of blacks in the West. Originally published in 1983.
  756. Find this resource:
  757.  
  758. Žižek, Slavoj. 2009. The sublime object of ideology. The Essential Žižek. London: Verso.
  759. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  760. A post-Marxist take on the concept and process of ideology. Originally published in 1989.
  761. Find this resource:
  762.  
  763. Analytical Marxism
  764.  
  765. Analytical Marxism developed as an alternative to and critique of existing dialectical Marxism and post-Marxism in the 1980s. Its aim was to revitalize Marxism by emphasizing clarity and rigor in constructing social theories and historical explanations concerning subjects that carried a lot of ideological baggage. In particular, the tools of contemporary analytical philosophy (Cohen 2000) and neoclassical economics (Roemer 1982) were brought to bear in justifying Marxian understandings. A number of the most well-known analytical Marxist works applied rational choice theory to Marxism, rejecting its holistic assumptions; see especially Przeworski 1985 and Elster 1985. Collections of analytical Marxist writings can be found in Roemer 1986 and Carver and Thomas 1995, while Mayer 1994 provides an overview and critique.
  766.  
  767. Carver, Terrell, and Paul Thomas, eds. 1995. Rational choice Marxism. University Park: Pennsylvania Univ. Press.
  768. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  769. This short collection includes founding essays of analytical Marxism such as, Wright’s “What is Analytical Marxism?” and Carlin’s “Rational Choice Marxism.” It also includes critical responses by Michael Burawoy, Ellen Meiksins Wood, and Michael Goldfield, among others.
  770. Find this resource:
  771.  
  772. Cohen, G. A. 2000. Karl Marx’s theory of history: A defence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
  773. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  774. This is the founding text of analytical Marxism. Here, Cohen attempts nothing short of defending historical materialism using the tools of analytical philosophy. Originally published in 1978.
  775. Find this resource:
  776.  
  777. Elster, Jon. 1985. Making sense of Marx. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  778. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  779. Using the analytic tools of contemporary social science and philosophy of the time, Elster tries to assess what is viable in Marx’s system. In conclusion, he argues for the need for a microfoundation of social action while criticizing functionalism and teleology in Marx.
  780. Find this resource:
  781.  
  782. Mayer, Thomas F. 1994. Analytical Marxism. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
  783. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  784. An overview and critique of the major works of the analytical Marxist group.
  785. Find this resource:
  786.  
  787. Przeworski, Adam. 1985. Capitalism and social democracy. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  788. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  789. Using rational choice assumptions, this book explores socialist strategies. It shows that workers have incentives in the maintenance of capitalism in a way that undermines revolutionary agendas. Reform strategies also face electoral limitations because of the relatively small size of the working class.
  790. Find this resource:
  791.  
  792. Roemer, John. 1982. A general theory of exploitation and class. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  793. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  794. This book uses game theory and neoclassical economics to articulate a theory of exploitation. Against Marxist orthodoxies, it argues that a labor theory of value is not necessary to explain class and exploitation.
  795. Find this resource:
  796.  
  797. Roemer, John, ed. 1986. Analytical Marxism. Studies in Marxism and social theory. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
  798. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  799. A key edited work containing examples of the major writings of the analytical Marxists.
  800. Find this resource:
  801.  
  802. Utopian Radical Marxism
  803.  
  804. Following the collapse of state socialism, a number of leading Marxists turned to utopian investigations. In their survey of “sociological Marxism,” Burawoy and Wright 2002 (see Contemporary Neo-Marxian Sociology) urge both theoretical and empirical investigations of “real” utopias, as Wright 2010, the leader in the field, called them. A number of thinkers sought to develop blueprints for alternatives to capitalism, such as “participatory economics” (Albert 2003) or “market socialism” (Roemer 1994). Others identified institutional changes such as basic income (Van Parijs 1992) or labor exchange networks (Offee and Heintz 1992). Still others have emphasized the importance of thinking about alternatives in a context of historic defeat for the left (Harvey 2000, Wallerstein 1998). On balance, this current of scholarship emphasizes the need for radical social science to think critically about what concrete alternatives to capitalism would be like.
  805.  
  806. Albert, Michael. 2003. Parecon: Life after capitalism. London: Verso.
  807. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  808. Lays out a framework for “participatory economics” as an alternative to capitalism. The framework is built on the ideal values of democracy, solidarity, equity, and diversity.
  809. Find this resource:
  810.  
  811. Harvey, David A. 2000. Spaces of hope. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press.
  812. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  813. Through a study of the city, this book argues that we can and indeed must use utopian imaginations that challenge the idea that there is no alternative to capitalism. Harvey poses an alternative, which he terms dialectical utopianism.
  814. Find this resource:
  815.  
  816. Offe, Claus, and Rolf Heintze. 1992. Beyond employment: Time, work, and the informal economy. Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press.
  817. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  818. Explores labor exchange networks as an alternative to conventional labor markets.
  819. Find this resource:
  820.  
  821. Roemer, John. 1994. A future for socialism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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  823. The fall of the Soviet Union raised doubts about the viability of state socialism. One alternative that has long engaged some Marxian scholars has been the idea of “market socialism,” the development of a socialist model that still relies heavily on market mechanisms of distribution. This book is the major contribution to that debate.
  824. Find this resource:
  825.  
  826. Van Parijs, Philippe, ed. 1992. Arguing for basic income: Ethical foundations for a radical reform. London: Verso.
  827. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  828. Contributors John Baker, Brian Barry, Alan Carling, Michael Freeden, Robert Goodin, Andre Gorz, Bill Jordan, Richard Norman, Claus Offe, Guy Standing, Hillel Steiner, and Philippe Van Parijs debate the need for a basic universal income.
  829. Find this resource:
  830.  
  831. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1998. Utopistic, or historical choices of the twenty-first century. New York: New Press.
  832. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  833. Poses ideas about the world’s future in light of the history of the 20th century.
  834. Find this resource:
  835.  
  836. Wright, Erik Olin. 2010. Envisioning real utopias. London: Verso.
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  838. The leading figure among the recent trend in radical utopian studies, Wright has sponsored a series of collective works advocating new forms of utopian thinking. This represents a culmination of that project. It develops a framework for understanding a variety of concrete and emancipator alternatives to capitalism.
  839. Find this resource:
  840.  
  841. Reassessing the Socialist Experience
  842.  
  843. The collapse of the socialist project occasioned both reassessments of what happened and hard thinking about the implications for the future of Marxism. Blackburn 1991 contains a major set of essays by leading Marxist scholars and thinkers reassessing the future of socialism in the wake of the collapse of Communism in eastern Europe. Kornai 1992 and Burawoy and Lucács 1994 provide classical treatments of the inner workings of the state socialist economy. Eyal et al. 1998 develops a class analysis of the pathways out of state socialism. Kharkhordin 1999 offers a remarkable post-Marxist and Foucaultian treatment of the cultural life of Soviet Communism. Linden 2009 provides a critical and comprehensive overview of Marxist debates on the nature of the Soviet Union since 1917.
  844.  
  845. Blackburn, Robin, ed. 1991. After the fall: The failure of Communism and the future of socialism. London: Verso.
  846. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  847. Written in the aftermath of the 1989 upheaval, this collection includes essays by such luminaries as Eric Hobsbawm, Jürgen Habermas, E.P. Thompson, Ralph Miliband, Fredric Jameson, Göran Therborn, and Norberto Bobbio.
  848. Find this resource:
  849.  
  850. Burawoy, Michael, and János Lukács. 1994. The radiant past: Ideology and reality in Hungary’s road to capitalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  851. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  852. Based on studies in both the machine and steel industries in Hungary between 1983 and 1990, the authors consider the transition from socialism to capitalism from the viewpoint of the working class.
  853. Find this resource:
  854.  
  855. Eyal, Gil, Iván Szelényi, and Eleanor Townsley. 1998. Making capitalism without capitalists: Class formation and elite struggles in post-Communist central Europe. London: Verso.
  856. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  857. A novel approach to the transition from socialism to capitalism in post-communist Central Europe. It shows how capitalism emerged without actual capitalists.
  858. Find this resource:
  859.  
  860. Kharkhordin, Oleg. 1999. The collective and the individual in Russia: A study of practices. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press.
  861. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  862. A study of how Soviet Communism relied on public rituals of self-examination and critique that have no parallel in modern Western societies. The system of societal surveillance, critical to the perpetuation of party rule, found its firmest footing in Russia because it could draw on Russian orthodox cultural traditions.
  863. Find this resource:
  864.  
  865. Kornai, János. 1992. The socialist system: The political economy of Communism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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  867. The classical work on the political economy of socialism, emphasizing the economics of “scarcity” as a critical (and ultimately social) aspect of the failure of socialist economies to keep pace with their capitalist competitors.
  868. Find this resource:
  869.  
  870. Linden, Marcel van der. 2009. Western Marxism and the Soviet Union: A survey of critical theories and debates since 1917. Chicago: Haymarket.
  871. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  872. This text provides a critical overview of debates among Marxists on the nature of the USSR since 1917. Originally published in 2007.
  873. Find this resource:
  874.  
  875. Critiques
  876.  
  877. Marxism as both a system of thought, and as the foundation for Soviet-style Communism, has generated an immense critical literature, both in the academy and outside of it. In this section, we identify a few of the most important such critiques, as well as those that have been especially important for sociology. Philosophical criticisms of Marxism can be found in Kolakowski 2008 and Walicki 1995. Bell 2000 and Selznick 1952 provide sociologically grounded critiques. Gouldner 1985 focuses on the contradictions in Marxism as a movement of intellectuals but claiming to speak for the working class. Van den Berg 1988 criticizes neo-Marxian theories of politics and the state.
  878.  
  879. Bell, Daniel. 2000. The end of ideology: On the exhaustion of political ideas in the fifties. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.
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  881. Bell argues that the demise of Marxism as a critical challenger to capitalism heralds the beginnings of an era in which political controversy will concern fewer global questions. Although sometimes mistakenly read as implying that all conflict will disappear, Bell’s essay in fact provides a sociologically informed critique of the Marxist tradition. The new edition contains a useful introduction by David Plotke that situates Bell’s contribution alongside other critical assessments of Marxism. Originally published in 1960.
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  883.  
  884. Gouldner, Alvin Ward. 1985. Against fragmentation: The origins of Marxism and the sociology of intellectuals. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
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  886. This explains the rise of Marxism as rooted in the interests of middle-class intellectuals, not the working class. Nearly all of the Marxist leaders were the products of middle-class upbringings with no direct connection to the working class. As a consequence, Gouldner argues, Marxism’s “dirty little secret” is that it was never a working-class movement to begin with.
  887. Find this resource:
  888.  
  889. Kolakowski, Leszak. 2008. Main currents of Marxism: The founders, the golden age, the breakdown. Vols. I–III. New York: Norton.
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  891. An outstanding philosophical case against Marxism. This is considered the definitive work. Originally published in 1978.
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  893.  
  894. Selznick, Philip. 1952. The organizational weapon: A study of Bolshevik strategy and tactics. Santa Monica: Rand.
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  896. A critique of Marxist strategies for seizing control of organizations, in some cases non-Marxist, by use of a particular set of tactics that undermine internal democracy.
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  898.  
  899. Van den Berg, Axel. 1988. The immanent utopia: From Marxism on the state to the state of Marxism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
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  901. A comprehensive critique of the Marxist theory of the state, beginning with Marx and Engels through the work of Poulantzas and the revival of Marxist state theory in the 1970s.
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  903.  
  904. Walicki, Andrzej. 1995. Marxism and the leap to the kingdom of freedom: The rise and fall of the Communist utopia. Stanford, CA: Stanford Univ. Press.
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  906. Monumental study arguing that the seeds of the Communist distortion of Marx’s emancipatory vision can in fact be traced to the anomalies and assumptions of the classical writings.
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