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This title was first published in 2000: This engaging book suggests that Marx was right to reject 'utopian socialism' on the grounds that it undermined the principles of proletarian self-emancipation and self-determination. As a theoretician of the proletarian class, Marx sought to capture the spirit of revolution in a manner which precluded the need for utopian philanthropy and the messianic elitism which invariably accompanied it. In a powerful and original central argument, the book suggests that the categories which together define Marx’s own 'utopia' were nothing more than theoretical by-products of the models employed by Marx in order to supersede the need for utopianism. As such, Marx was an 'accidental' utopian. Rather than legitimating utopianism, however, the author argues that this conclusion reinforces the need to develop Marx’s anti-utopian project further. Emphasising the contemporary relevance of Marx’s original critique, the conclusion suggests that the future of socialism lies in its ability to harness, not the spirit of utopia, but the spirit of adventure.
Develops a critique of utopianism through a comparison of the works of Karl Marx and F. A. Hayek, challenging conventional views of both Marxian and Hayekian thought.
Utopia has long been banished from political theory, framed as an impossible—and possibly dangerous—political ideal, a flawed social blueprint, or a thought experiment without any practical import. Even the "realistic utopias" of liberal theory strike many as wishful thinking. Can politics think utopia otherwise? Can utopian thinking contribute to the renewal of politics? In Political Uses of Utopia, an international cast of leading and emerging theorists agree that the uses of utopia for politics are multiple and nuanced and lie somewhere between—or, better yet, beyond—the mainstream caution against it and the conviction that another, better world ought to be possible. Representing a range of perspectives on the grand tradition of Western utopianism, which extends back half a millennium and perhaps as far as Plato, these essays are united in their interest in the relevance of utopianism to specific historical and contemporary political contexts. Featuring contributions from Miguel Abensour, Étienne Balibar, Raymond Geuss, and Jacques Rancière, among others, Political Uses of Utopia reopens the question of whether and how utopianism can inform political thinking and action today.
The grounding assumption of this book is that an element of utopianism is a necessity in any political thinking, and that a self-conscious utopianism can generate a richer level of theory and practice. The text then follows the chequered career of utopianism in the Marxist tradition.
This title was first published in 2000. A 'generous soul' with 'ideas of genius' but a 'puerile idolater - Marx and his legacy remains an important focus for philosophers, economists, political scientists and others, but is Marxism dead and best forgotten, or is its relevance undiminished? Echoes of Utopia sets out to explore the relevance of Marxism in the contemporary world, through economic, political and human dimensions. Combining philosophical analysis of central economic and political concepts with an historically based examination of the unfolding of the twentieth century global economy, the author explores the work of Marx as well as two of his most trenchant critics, Schumpeter and Weil. While critical of that central pillar of Marxism, the labour theory of value,the author concludes that some of Marx's ideas, especially those concerning over-production, under-consumption, crises, planning, and international democratic governance, are more relevant than ever in today's world of economic, political and environmental turbulence.
The spectacular growth in the 1970s and 1980s of the Marxist literature on politics and the state in capitalist society was hailed at the time as cumulative proof of Marxism's success in producing an effective theory of the political superstructure. More generally, it was seen as confirmation of the health and vigor of Marxist theory. Axel van den Berg questions both of these claims. Through comprehensive analysis of Marxist thought on bourgeois politics and the state, from that produced by Marx himself on, van den Berg radically challenges the viability of a distinctly Marxist theory of the state and of recent Marxist theorizing in general. In an exhaustive review of the literature, van den Berg shows that neo-Marxist theories are, for the most part, not empirically testable. To the extent that it is possible to draw any empirical implications from these theories at all, such implications are virtually indistinguishable from those of "bourgeois" theories. Van den Berg proceeds to lay bare the contradiction at the heart of Marxist theory in general: it presupposes the viability and desirability of some ideal socialist society yet its "anti-utopian" insistence that all criticisms of capitalism must rest on foundations immanent in capitalism itself prohibits any open discussion of such a utopia. Now available in paperback, this is a fundamental work for political and social theorists. "This work is brilliant in its polemical courage, its originality, and its detailed and revealing examination of texts. Van den Berg demonstrates that postwar Marxist political theory and sociology is not only vague and contradictory but that it actually makes critical concessions to the bourgeois thought' it claims to surpass. Appearing in the midst of afar-reaching reconsideration of the Marxism project in Europe, this volume crystallizes these issues for North American social science..."--Jeffrey Alexander, University of California, Los Angeles. "Van den Berg has made a major contribution to the long overdue relegation of Marxism to the museum of nineteenth-century ideological antiquities."--Dennis Wrong, Contemporary Sociology. Axel van den Berg is a Dutch-Canadian professor of sociology at McGill University in Montreal. His most recent work is The Social Sciences and Rationality.
After the financial crash and the great recession, the media rediscovered Karl Marx, socialist theory, and the very idea that capitalism can be questioned. But in spite of the publicity, the main paths of contemporary critical thought have gone unexplored outside of the academy. Benjamin Kunkel’s Utopia or Bust leads readers – whether politically committed or simply curious – through the most important critical theory today. Written with the wit and verve of Kunkel’s best-selling novel, Indecision, this introduction to contemporary Leftist thinkers engages with the revolutionary philosophy of Slavoj Žižek, the economic analyses of David Graeber and David Harvey, and the cultural diagnoses of Fredric Jameson. Discussing the ongoing crisis of capitalism in light of ideas of full employment, debt forgiveness, and “fictitious capital,” Utopia or Bust is a tour through the world of Marxist thought and an examination of the basis of Western society today.