Developing themes of his earlier works, Poulantzas here advances a vigorous critique of contemporary Marxist theories of the state, arguing against a general theory of the state, and identifying forms of class power crucial to socialist strategy that goes beyond the apparatus of the state.This new edition includes an introduction by Stuart Hall, which critically appraises Poulantzas’s achievement.

    H. Tawney addresses the question of how religion has affected social and economic practices. He tracks the influence of religious thought on capitalist economy and ideology since the Middle Ages, shedding light on the question of why Christianity continues to exert a unique role in the marketplace. In so doing, the book offers an incisive analysis of the morals and mores of contemporary Western culture.Religion and the Rise of Capitalism is more pertinent now than ever, as today the dividing line between the spheres of religion and secular business is shifting, blending ethical considerations with the motivations of the marketplace. By examining the period that saw the transition from medieval to modern theories of social organization, Tawney clarifies the most pressing problems of the end of the century. In tough, muscular, richly varied prose, he tells an absorbing and meaningful story. And in his new introduction, which may well be a classic in its own right, Adam Seligman details Tawney's background and the current status of academic thought on these issues, and he provides a comparative analysis of Tawney with Max Weber that will at once delight and inform readers.

    Whether they realize it or not, scientists always choose sides. The Dialectical Biologist explores this political nature of scientific inquiry, advancing its argument within the framework of Marxist dialectic. These essays stress the concepts of continual change and codetermination between organism and environment, part and whole, structure and process, science and politics. Throughout, this book questions our accepted definitions and biases, showing the self-reflective nature of scientific activity within society.

    It gives a history of the related processes of colonization and "housewifization" and extends this analysis to the contemporary new international division of labor and the role that women have to play as the cheapest producers and consumers. First published in 1986, it was hailed as a major paradigm shift for feminist theory. Eleven years on, Maria Mies' theory of capitalist patriarchy has become even more relevant; this new edition includes a substantial new introduction in which she both applies her theory to the new globalized world and answers her critics.

    First published in France in 1975, it is the major theoretical work of one of the foremost thinkers in Europe today.This is one of the most original and important works of contemporary European thought. First published in France in 1975, it is the major theoretical work of one of the foremost thinkers in Europe today.Castoriadis offers a brilliant and far-reaching analysis of the unique character of the social-historical world and its relations to the individual, to language, and to nature. He argues that most traditional conceptions of society and history overlook the essential feature of the social-historical world, namely that this world is not articulated once and for all but is in each case the creation of the society concerned. In emphasizing the element of creativity, Castoriadis opens the way for rethinking political theory and practice in terms of the autonomous and explicit self-institution of society.

    The arguments and controversies it has aroused are, furthermore, far from abating: the disintegration of the Soviet bloc, the emergence of new social and political identities linked to the transformation of late capitalism, and the crisis of a left-wing project whose essentialist underpinnings have increasingly come under fire have, if anything, made more relevant than ever the theoretical perspective that the book proposes. Moreover the political project of ‘radical and plural democracy’ that it advocates provides a much-needed antidote to the attempts to formulate a Third Way capable of overcoming the classical opposition between Left and Right.Updated with a new preface, this is a fundamental text for understanding the workings of hegemony and grasping the nature of contemporary social struggles and their significance for democratic theory.

    Italian political thinker Paolo Virno argues that the category of "multitude," elaborated by Spinoza and for the most part left fallow since the seventeenth century, is a far better tool to analyze contemporary issues than the Hobbesian concept of "people," favored by classical political philosophy. Hobbes, who detested the notion of multitude, defined it as shunning political unity, resisting authority, and never entering into lasting agreements. "When they rebel against the state," Hobbes wrote, "the citizens are the multitude against the people." But the multitude isn't just a negative notion, it is a rich concept that allows us to examine anew plural experiences and forms of nonrepresentative democracy. Drawing from philosophy of language, political economics, and ethics, Virno shows that being foreign, "not-feeling-at-home-anywhere," is a condition that forces the multitude to place its trust in the intellect. In conclusion, Virno suggests that the metamorphosis of the social systems in the West during the last twenty years is leading to a paradoxical "Communism of the Capital."

    We also examine issues of inequality and its elimination, systems of payment for labour, a democratic political constitution for a socialist commonwealth, the commune as a set of arrangements for living, and property relations under socialism.

    The Dialectical Imagination is a major history of this monumental cultural and intellectual enterprise during its early years in Germany and in the United States. Martin Jay has provided a substantial new preface for this edition, in which he reflects on the continuing relevance of the work of the Frankfurt School.

    The work also constitutes an enduring critique of liberalism and socialism from the perspective of an extreme eccentric individualism. Stirner has latterly been portrayed variously as a precursor of Nietzsche, a forerunner of existentialism, an individualist anarchist, and as manifestly insane. This edition includes an Introduction placing Stirner in his historical context.

    The devil is a stunningly apt symbol of the alienation experienced by peasants as they enter the ranks of the proletariat, and it is largely in terms of that experience that I have cast my interpretation. The historical and ethnographic context lead me to ask: What is the relationship between the image of the devil and capitalist development? What contradictions in social experience does the fetish of the spirit of evil mediate? Is there a structure of connections between the redeeming power of the antichrist and the analytic power of Marxism?

    The eight foundational lectures Hall delivered at the University of Illinois in 1983 introduced North American audiences to a thinker and discipline that would shift the course of critical scholarship. Unavailable until now, these lectures present Hall's original engagements with the theoretical positions that contributed to the formation of Cultural Studies. Throughout this personally guided tour of Cultural Studies' intellectual genealogy, Hall discusses the work of Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams, and E. P. Thompson; the influence of structuralism; the limitations and possibilities of Marxist theory; and the importance of Althusser and Gramsci. Throughout these theoretical reflections, Hall insists that Cultural Studies aims to provide the means for political change.

    Was Marx himself a 'Marxist'? Was his visionary promise of socialism betrayed by Marxist dictatorship? Is Marxism inevitably totalitarian? What did Marx really say? "Introducing Marxism" provides a fundamental account of Karl Marx's original philosophy, its roots in 19th century European ideology, his radical economic and social criticism of capitalism that inspired vast 20th century revolutions.

    It allegedly involved sexual exploitation, forced castrations, private militias, illegal trade in arms and opium, and land grab on an untold scale-until the self-styled godman was convicted for one of his many crimes in August 2017. The book opens with an anonymous letter which led to the first-ever journalistic investigation, in 2007-Tehelka's Operation Jhootha Sauda-into the reported criminal activities at the Dera. In the years that followed, the author continued to document the lonely battles for justice against the influential godman who had the might of the Dera's machinery and manpower behind him. This book is as much about the grit and determination of ordinary citizens fighting power systems as it is about the difficulty of investigating crimes committed by the rich and powerful in India today.

    Political thought and practice are stifled by a misconceived search fro consensus and the promotion of a bland social unanimity which, as Chantal Mouffe shows, far from being the sign of progress, constitute a serious threat for democratic institutions. Indeed, in many countries this ‘consensus of the centre’ is providing a platform for the growth of populist right-wing parties which, by presenting themselves as the only ‘anti-establishment’ forces, are trying to occupy the terrain of contestation deserted by the left.Taking issue with the work of John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas on one side, and with the tenets of the third way as practised by Tony Blair and theorised by Anthony Giddens on the other, Mouffe brings to the fore the paradoxical nature of modern liberal democracy. Against those who affirm that, with the demise of the left/right divide, antagonism has been eliminated from contemporary post-industrial societies and that an all-inclusive politics has become possible, she argues that the category of the ‘adversary’ plays a central role in the very dynamics of modern democracy. Drawing on the work of Wittgenstein and Derrida, and engaging with the provocative theses of Carl Schmitt, she proposes a new understanding of democracy in terms of ‘agonistic pluralism’ which acknowledges the ineradicability of antagonism and the impossibility of a final resolution of conflicts.