Considering the history of workers' and socialist movements in Europe, Frontier Socialism focuses on unconventional forms of anti-capitalist thought, particularly by examining several militant-intellectuals whose legacy is of particular interest for those aiming for a radical critique of capitalism. Following on the work of Michael Löwy, Quirico & Ragona identify relationships of “elective affinity” between figures who might appear different and dissimilar, at least at first glance: the German Anarchist Gustav Landauer, the Bolshevik Alexandra Kollontai, the German communist...

This book provides a comprehensive overview of historical and international debates on the theory of “labor money” or “labor notes.” These debates exist in a triangular context of market socialism, communism (community-based socialism), and local currency, joining numerous socialists, anarchists, and Marx and Engels. Labor note theory encompasses theoretical, ideological, and practical doctrines aimed at designing a fair and desirable labor-based market or non-market economy by reforming the monetary and credit system. This theory was considered an unfeasible utopian idea in the...

This book analyses contemporary capitalism from Brazil and from the Marxian critique of political economy, particularly; the co-dependency of wealth and poverty and of civilization and barbarism; the current tendency towards capital over-accumulation and the specific form assumed by the capitalist crisis in recent decades; the financialisation process of capital accumulation, its effects on the world of labour; and the place that the state assumes in this broad process. Current trends toward increasing social inequality, impoverishment of large sections of the population, precariousness of...

This book mediates between postcolonial positions that criticize Marxist approaches (and Marx’s writings) for their Eurocentrism and defenders of Marx, who claim that this accusation is a myth. In different contributions to this volume, Kolja Lindner pleads for a differentiated assessment of the whole of Marx’s work, including less known manuscripts, and a theoretical reconstruction of various elements that have come into the focus of postcolonial critique: ethnocentrism, Orientalism, false universalism and the oblivion of modernity’s global entanglement. Against this background, two...

This edited volume presents an interdisciplinary and international revaluation of Friedrich Engels as much more than “junior partner” to Karl Marx or “second fiddle” in the Marxist orchestra. The nineteen critical essays in this collection are the work of scholars from Germany, USA, UK, Italy, China, India, Mexico and the Philippines. Together they present and evaluate archival material and scholarly commentary that covers epistemology, political economy, political theory, gender studies, cultural studies, political geography, philosophy of social science and sociological studies...

Following Marx’s own itinerary from Paris to London, from politics to the critique of political economy, The Marx of Communism delves into a creatively unfolding international debate on the democracy-communism relation, while supporting a 21^st century communism as a social alternative to capitalism. Taking into consideration Marx’s analysis of communism both as a movement and a social formation, this study focuses on the dialectics of transition from capitalism to communism. Dealing with communism as the outcome of a long-term cultural and...

In this book, translated into English for the first time, Lelio Demichelis takes on a modern perspective of the concept/process of alienation. This concept—much more profound and widespread today than first described and denounced by Marx—has largely been forgotten and erased. Using the characters of Narcissus, Pygmalion and Prometheus, the author reinterprets and updates Marx, Nietzsche, Anders, Foucault and, in particular, critical theory and the Frankfurt School views on an administered society (where everything...