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Nicos Poulantzas was one of the leading Marxist theorists of the twentieth century, developing seminal analyses of the state and social classes during the crisis of monopoly capitalism. This volume brings together a wide selection of Poulantzas' key writings in legal philosophy and political sociology, including some important pieces translated here for the first time. Texts include his early analyses of law, his studies of hegemony, authoritarianism, and social classes, and his debate on the state with Ralph Miliband and Ernesto Laclau. An essential introduction for the scholar and the student to a body of work that continues to reverberate across the social sciences.
First-ever collection of the key writings of one of the most influential political theorists of the postwar epoch.
The Greek Marxist and political sociologist Nicos Poulantzas is one of the most influential postwar European left thinkers. Although he died more than 30 years ago, this discourse argues that Poulantzas’s political impulses and studies are more topical than ever. Offering valuable insight, the book maps controversies and reflects upon the differing views regarding how Poulantzas’s work should be continued and surpassed. Four major themes are explored: the economy and the state in the capitalist mode of production; power and domination; space and statehood; and crisis, transformation and political strategies.
The resurgence of the far right across Europe and the emergence of the "alt-right" in the US have put the question of fascism urgently back on the agenda. For those trying to understand these forms of politics, there is no better place to start than Fascism and Dictatorship, the unrivalled Marxist study of German and Italian fascism. It carefully distinguishes between fascism as a mass movement before the seizure of power and what it becomes as an entrenched machinery of dictatorship. It compares the distinct class components of the counterrevolutionary blocs mobilised by fascism in Germany and Italy; analyses the changing relations between the petty bourgeoisie and big capital in the evolution of fascism; discusses the structures of the fascist state itself, as an emergency regime for the defence of capital; and provides a sustained and documented criticism of official Comintern attitudes and policies towards fascism in the fateful years after the Versailles settlement. Fascism and Dictatorship represents a challenging synthesis of factual evidence and conceptual analysis, a standard bearer of what Marxist political theory should be.
In State, Power, Socialism, the leading theorist of the state and European communism advances a vigorous critique of contemporary Marxist theories of the state. Arguing against a general theory of the state, Poulantzas identifies forms of class power crucial to socialist strategy that go beyond the state apparatus.
Marx circles us, and we him. These essays approach Marx through three circles – the source; the legacy into the twentieth century; and the developments since the postwar boom. This work represents a lifetime’s engagement with Marx and his legacy.
What is wrong with capitalism, and how can we change it? Capitalism has transformed the world and increased our productivity, but at the cost of enormous human suffering. Our shared values—equality and fairness, democracy and freedom, community and solidarity—can provide both the basis for a critique of capitalism and help to guide us toward a socialist and democratic society. Erik Olin Wright has distilled decades of work into this concise and tightly argued manifesto: analyzing the varieties of anticapitalism, assessing different strategic approaches, and laying the foundations for a society dedicated to human flourishing. How to Be an Anticapitalist in the Twenty-First Century is an urgent and powerful argument for socialism, and an unparalleled guide to help us get there. Another world is possible. Included is an afterword by the author’s close friend and collaborator Michael Burawoy.
Nicos Poulantzas’s third major work is a pioneering survey of some of the most fundamental, yet least studied, aspects of the class structure of advanced capitalist societies today. The book starts with a general theoretical essay that for the first time seriously explores the distinction between the “agents” and “positions” of capitalist relations of production, and seeks to avoid the typical errors of either functionalism or historicism. It also provides a polemical reconsideration of the problem of the “nation state” as a political unit today, and its relationship to the internationalization of capital. Finally, and most originally, Poulantzas develops a long and powerful analysis of the much-abused concept of the “petty-bourgeoisie.” In this, he scrupulously distinguishes between the “traditional” categories of petty-bourgeoisie—shopkeepers, artisans, small peasants—and the “new” categories of clerical workers, supervisors, and salaried personnel in modern industry and commerce. At the same time he demonstrates the reasons why a unitary conceptualization of their class position is possible. The difficult question of the definition of “productive” and “unproductive” labor within Marx’s own account of the capitalist mode of production is subjected to a novel and radical reinterpretation. The political oscillations peculiar to each form of petty-bourgeoisie and especially their characteristic reactions to the industrial proletariat, are cogently assessed. Poulantzas ends his work with a reminder that the actions and options of the petty-bourgeoisie are critical to any successful struggle by the working class, which must secure the alliance of important sections of the petty-bourgeoisie if the fateful experience of Chile is not to recur elsewhere tomorrow. Combining empirical and theoretical materials throughout, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism represents a notable achievement in the development of Marxist social science and political thought.