Abstract

The title of this collection and the “note” from Georg Lukács which begins it, suggest that Mészáros has put together a document posing important theoretical and practical questions in need of concrete elaboration and critical discussion. Lukács writes that “The question you raised, concerning the determination of class consciousness today, is fundamentally the same as a real analysis of the inherent nature of present-day capitalism: a task Marxism has failed to realize so far.” Such an analysis would, he continues, be different from that presented in History and Class Consciousness, for “those direct economic motivational forces which used to determine both content and direction of spontaneous class consciousness have radically changed — and greatly weakened — in their immediate impact.”