State Transformations: Classes, Strategy, Socialism

State Transformations: Classes, Strategy, Socialism
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2021-07-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004462260

This volume addresses the ‘impoverishment of state theory’ over the last decades and insists on the continued salience of class analysis to the study of capitalist states – neoliberal restructuring, the political architecture of imperialism, and the potentials for democratic transformation.

Encyclopedia of Critical Political Science

Encyclopedia of Critical Political Science
Author: Clyde W. Barrow
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 813
Release: 2024-03-14
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1800375913

An indispensable and exemplary reference work, this Encyclopedia adeptly navigates the multidisciplinary field of critical political science, providing a comprehensive overview of the methods, approaches, concepts, scholars and journals that have come to influence the disciplineÕs development over the last six decades.

Capital and Politics

Capital and Politics
Author: Greg Albo
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2022-12
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1583679863

The 59th annual volume of the Socialist Register examines the growth of corporate power and other important organizational trends in global capitalism. Rejecting such notions as “stakeholder capitalism,” it reviews the organization and strategies of unions and the left as it searches for new routes to socialism.

From Consent to Coercion

From Consent to Coercion
Author: Bryan Evans
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Total Pages: 246
Release: 2023-02-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1487534213

From Consent to Coercion examines the increasing assault against trade union rights and freedoms in Canada by federal and provincial governments. Centring the struggles of Canadian unionized workers, this book explores the diminution of the welfare state and the impacts that this erosion has had on broader working-class rights and standards of living. The fourth edition witnesses the passing of an era of free collective bargaining in Canada – an era in which the state and capital relied on obtaining the consent of workers and unions to act as subordinates in Canada’s capitalist democracy. It looks at how the last twenty years have marked a return to a more open reliance of the state and capital on coercion – on force and on fear – to secure that subordination. From Consent to Coercion considers this conjuncture in the Canadian political economy amid growing precarity, poverty, and polarization in an otherwise indeterminate period of austerity. This important edition calls attention to the urgent task of rebuilding and renewing socialist politics – of thinking ambitiously and meeting new challenges with unique solutions to the left of social democracy.

Shifting Gears

Shifting Gears
Author: Stephanie Ross
Publisher: UBC Press
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2024-09-03
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0774870885

In the decades following the Second World War, autoworkers were at the forefront of the labour movement. Their union urged members to rally in the streets and use the ballot box to effect change for all working-class people. But by the turn of this century, the Canadian Auto Workers union had begun to pursue a more defensive political direction. Shifting Gears traces the evolution of CAW strategy from transformational activism to transactional politics. Class-based collective action and social democratic electoral mobilization gave way to transactional partnerships as relationships between the union, employers, and governments were refashioned. This new approach was maintained when the CAW merged with the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union in 2013 to create Unifor, Canada’s largest private-sector union. Stephanie Ross and Larry Savage explain how and why the union shifted its political tactics, offering a critical perspective on the current state of working-class politics.

New Polarizations and Old Contradictions: The Crisis of Centrism

New Polarizations and Old Contradictions: The Crisis of Centrism
Author: Greg Albo
Publisher: NYU Press
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2021-12-27
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1583679391

Takes the buzzword "polarization" as its point of departure to describe the vast, and ever-growing economic inequality worldwide "Polarization" is a word commonly used by everyone from mainstream journalists to the person in the street, whatever their political stripe. But this widely recognized phenomenon deserves scrutiny. The 58th volume of the Socialist Register takes up the challenge, asking such questions as: Are the current tendencies towards polarization new, and if so, what is their significance? What underlying contradictions—between race, class, income, gender, and geopolitics—do the latest polarization trends expose? And to what extent can "centrist" politics continue to hold and contain these internal contradictions? This volume's original essays examine the escalating polarization of national, racial, generational, and other identities, all in the context of growing economic inequality, new forms of regional and urban antagonism, "vaccine nationalism," and the shifting parameters of rivalry between the "Great Powers."

The Capitalist Transformation of State Socialism

The Capitalist Transformation of State Socialism
Author: David Lane
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 481
Release: 2013-11-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1135008809

David Lane outlines succinctly yet comprehensively the development and transformation of state socialism. While focussing on Russia and the countries of Eastern Europe, he also engages in a discussion of the Chinese path. In response to the changing social structure and external demands, he outlines different scenarios of reform. He contends that European state socialism did not collapse but was consciously dismantled. He brings out the West’s decisive support of the reform process and Gorbachev’s significant role in tipping the balance of political forces in favour of an emergent ascendant class. In the post-socialist period, he details developments in the economy and politics. He distinguishes different political and economic trajectories of countries of the former USSR, the New Member States of the European Union, and China; and he notes the attempts to promote further change through ‘coloured’ revolutions. The book provides a detailed account not only of the unequal impact of transformation on social inequality which has given rise to a privileged business and political class, but also how far the changes have fulfilled the promise of democracy promotion, wealth creation and human development. Finally, in the context of globalisation, the author considers possible future political and economic developments for Russia and China. Throughout the author, a leading expert in the field, brings to bear his deep knowledge of socialist countries, draws on his research on the former Soviet Union, and visits to nearly all the former state socialist countries, including China.

Class, Crisis and the State

Class, Crisis and the State
Author: Erik Olin Wright
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 198
Release: 2016-02-23
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1784787868

One of the major works of the new American Marxism, Wright's book draws a challenging new class map of the United States and other, comparable, advanced capitalist countries today. It also discusses the various classical theories of economic crisis in the West and their relevance to the current recession, and contrasts the way in which the major political problem of bureaucracy was confronted by two great antagonists - Weber and Lenin. A concluding essay brings together the practical lessons of these theoretical analyses, in an examination of the problems of left governments coming to power in capitalist states.

Structure, Agency and Theory

Structure, Agency and Theory
Author: Ib Gram-Jensen
Publisher: BoD – Books on Demand
Total Pages: 418
Release: 2021-04-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 8743018920

"Structure, Agency and Theory" challenges common readings of Marx' and Engels' historical materialism and argues the necessity of abandoning their conception of the dialectic of forces and relations of production as the motive power of historical development and transformations because of its doubtful validity and deterministic implications. Instead another fundamental conception in historical materialism, the interaction between social circumstances and agency as the motive power of history, is accentuated with an emphasis on agents' experiences as a causal factor, arguing its potential in terms of historical explanation, and attempting to spell out some of its strategic implications for revolutionary socialism.

Marx's Capital after 150 Years

Marx's Capital after 150 Years
Author: Marcello Musto
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2019-09-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 100070694X

Faced with a new crisis of capitalism, many scholars are now looking back to the author whose ideas were too hastily dismissed after the fall of the Berlin Wall. During the last decade, Marx’s Capital has received renewed academic and popular attention. It has been reprinted in new editions throughout the world and the contemporary relevance of its pages is being discussed again. Today, Marx’s analyses are arguably resonating even more strongly than they did in his own time and Capital continues to provide an effective framework to understand the nature of capitalism and its transformations. This volume includes the proceedings of the biggest international conference held in the world to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Capital’s publication. The book is divided into three parts: I) "Capitalism, Past and Present"; II) "Extending the Critique of Capital"; III) "The Politics of Capital". It contains the contributions of globally renowned scholars from 13 countries and multiple academic disciplines who offer diverse perspectives, and critical insights into the principal contradictions of contemporary capitalism while pointing to alternative economic and social models. Together, they reconsider the most influential historical debates on Capital and provide new interpretations of Marx’s magnum opus in light of themes rarely associated with Capital, such as gender, ecology, and non-European societies. The book is an indispensable source for academic communities who are increasingly interested in rediscovering Marx beyond 20th century Marxism. Moreover, it will be of great appeal to students, as well as established scholars interested in critique of capitalism and socialist theory.