This is a study of the choices faced by socialist movements as they developed within capitalist societies. Professor Przeworski examines the three principal choices confronted by socialism: whether to work through elections; whether to rely exclusively on the working class; and whether to try to reform or abolish capitalism. He brings to his analysis a number of abstract models of political and economic structure, and illustrates the issues in the context of historical events, tracing the development of socialist strategies (...) since the mid-nineteenth century. Several of the conclusions are novel and provocative. Professor Przeworski argues that economic issues cannot justify a socialist programme, and that the workers had good reasons to struggle for the improvement of capitalism. Therefore, the project of a socialist transformation, and the fight for economic advancement, were separate historical phenomena. (shrink)

This is a study of the choices faced by socialist movements as they developed within capitalist societies. Professor Przeworski examines the three principal choices confronted by socialism: whether to work through elections; whether to rely exclusively on the working class; and whether to try to reform or abolish capitalism. He brings to his analysis a number of abstract models of political and economic structure, and illustrates the issues in the context of historical events, tracing the development of socialist strategies (...) since the mid-nineteenth century. Several of the conclusions are novel and provocative. Professor Przeworski argues that economic issues cannot justify a socialist programme, and that the workers had good reasons to struggle for the improvement of capitalism. Therefore, the project of a socialist transformation, and the fight for economic advancement, were separate historical phenomena. (shrink)

Jason Brennan and John Tomasi have argued that if we focus on income alone, the Difference Principle supports welfare-state capitalism over property-owning democracy, because capitalism maximizes long run income growth for the worst off. If so, the defense of property-owning democracy rests on the priority of equal opportunity for political influence and social advancement over raising the income of the worst off, or on integrating workplace control into the Difference Principle’s index of advantage. The thesis of (...) this paper is that even based on income alone, the Difference Principle is not as hostile to property-owning democracy as it may seem, because the Difference Principle should not be interpreted to require maximizing long run income growth. The main idea is that it is unfair to make the present worst off accept inequality that doesn’t benefit them, for the sake of benefitting the future worst off, if the future worst off will be better off than they are anyway. (shrink)

Philosophical Investigations, Volume 45, Issue 1, Page 98-104, January 2022.

Environmental commodification, trading and offsetting are business as usual approaches to environmental policy. There is also consensus across political divides about the need for economic growth. Many environmental NGOs have become apologists for corporate self-regulation, market mechanisms, carbon pricing/trading and biodiversity offsetting/banking, while themselves commercialising species 'protection' as eco-tourism. In this issue of Environmental Values the state and direction of the environmental movement are at the fore. D'Amato et al. contrast pragmatism with the need for revolutionary change and consider which (...) will achieve social ecological transformation. Parry raises the issue of how animal activists should operate within an idealised deliberative democracy and what they could then legitimately justify doing to further their cause. Quist and Rinne are concerned with the challenges that disenfranchised groups face in building shared agendas and expressing themselves in their struggles to protect the environment and their ways of life. How natural resource extraction issues are framed by the media is the concern of Davies et al. Issues of power, inclusion and representation in the environmental movement are also raised in the paper by Fenney, which addresses the challenges specifically faced by disabled people. Societal change is an inherently value laden and political issue. Environmental policy is no more a win-win than any other policy; this journal issue shows how different polices change winners and losers. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

This edited collection examines the relationship between three central terms-capitalism, feminism, and critique-while critically celebrating the work and life of a thinker who has done the most to address this nexus: Nancy Fraser. In honor of her seventieth birthday, and in the spirit of her work in the tradition of critical theory, this collection brings together scholars from different disciplines and theoretical approaches to address this conjunction and evaluate Fraser's lifelong contributions to theorizing it. Scholars from philosophy, political science, (...) sociology, gender studies, race theory and economics come together to think through the vicissitudes of capitalism and feminism while also responding to different elements of Nancy Fraser's work, which weaves together a strong feminist standpoint with a vibrant and complex critique of capitalism. Going beyond conventional disciplinary distinctions and narrow debates, all the contributors to this project share a commitment to critically understanding the connection between capitalism, exploitation, and the viable roads for emancipation.. They recover insights provided by classical traditions of political and social thought, but they also open new research directions adapted to the global challenges of our time. (shrink)

Political philosophy provides the basis for political praxis; it requires a functional understanding of society in which the economy is an extraordinarily significant component. This is no less true of Marxism than it is of liberalism: it is all at once a political philosophy and an analysis of political economy, both of which are oriented toward and motivated by an agenda of human engagement. Often obscured by the complexities of Marxian analysis is the nature of its critique of liberalism, which (...) preceded it and to which it was intended as both a theoretical and practical response. Beyond Liberalism offers a detailed elaboration of that critique, restoring to a central position the long history of imperialism that has been at the heart of capitalism since its inception and explicating Marxism's relevance to the contemporary era of globalization, in particular financial globalization. The dramatic opposition between the two political theories turns heavily on their differential perspectives on individual freedom. The book provides a corrective to the common misperception that, while liberalism is concerned with such freedom, Marxism and the socialist agenda it advances emphasize instead a contrasting sphere of the collective. Prabhat Patnaik argues that liberalism and Marxism give very different analyses of the status of the individual within capitalism and that the Marxist alternative leads to the conclusion that the freedom of the individual can be realized only by means of an upheaval of capitalism through collective action. It is as relevant to Keynesian social democracy, marked by state intervention to alleviate conditions of unemployment, poverty, and inequality, as it is to classical liberalism. In the latter the functioning of the capitalist system constrains individual freedom; in the former, on the capacity of the state to intervene, which is especially apparent in our era in which finance is globalized but states remain national. Capitalism requires a degree of unemployment, for example, to limit wages and maintain the accrual of surplus value. The system also tends toward the centralization of capital, augmenting the power imbalance of global corporations over nation-states and the coercion of individual agency. It is only through the overturning of the system and the adoption of a socialist system that individual freedom and economic equality can be fostered. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Political and Economic Democracy Objections: Elitism and Egalitarianism Egalitarian or Elitist? Further Reading.

The fall of the Berlin wall was seen by many as the final triumph of liberal democracy over communism. But now, in the wake of the great financial crisis of 2008 and its aftermath, things look a little different. New questions are arising about capitalism and democracy, new social movements are challenging established institutions and new political possibilities are emerging. Is democracy an inevitable hostage of capitalism, or can it reinvent itself to meet the challenge (...) of globalization? In an exclusive, previously unpublished dialogue, Alain Badiou, a key figure of the radical left and a leading advocate of the communist idea, and Marcel Gauchet, a major exponent of anti-totalitarianism and a champion of liberal democracy, confront one another. Together, they take stock of history, interrogate one another s views and defend their respective projects: on the one side, the revival of the communist hypothesis, and on the other, the radical reform of a contested democratic model. (shrink)

Barbarians at the Gates of the Public Library is a philosophical and historical analysis of how the rise of consumerism has led to the decline of the original mission of public libraries to sustain and promote democracy through civic education. Through a reading of historical figures such as Plato, Helvetius, Rousseau, and John Stuart Mill, the book shows how democracy and even capitalism were originally believed to depend upon the moral and political education that public libraries (and (...) other institutions of rational public discourse) could provide. But as capitalism developed in the 20th century it evolved into a postmodern consumerism that replaced democracy with consumerism and education with entertainment. Public libraries have mistakenly tried to remain relevant by shadowing the rise of consumerism, but have instead contributed to the rise of a new barbarism and the decline of democracy. (shrink)

(2007). Democracy Still Matters: A Response to the Rejoinder of my Review of Teaching Against Global Capitalism and the New Imperialism: A Critical Pedagogy. Educational Studies: Vol. 42, No. 2, pp. 180-182.

In the Italian national elections in 2013, the Movimento Cinque Stelle, founded just four years earlier, gained 25 percent of votes, more than any other party. Analyses and interpretations are divided between those who consider M5S a member of the family of European populism and those who see M5S’s propositions as akin to the values of the left and social movements. The debate on M5S fits into the context of important ongoing trends in European politics: the growth of populist political (...) movements; the emergence of outsider parties able to challenge stable political systems; changing relationships between parties and social movements; changes in the forms of political organizing. This article investigates the political and cultural nature of this party by analyzing its discourse on democracy, its organizational choices and its main issues; comparing these elements with populism and the left; and linking its fundamental characteristics to contemporary economic processes usually termed “digital capitalism.”. (shrink)

This work analyzes certain aspects of postmodernist thought in terms of the challenges it presents to the secular, radical democratic project to which the author subscribes. It is argued that much of postmodernist thought has been effective in attacking foundationalism, as well as supporting marginalized persons and ideas, but holds little promise with regard to building an integrative democratic community. Postmodernist radicalism has not usually been directed against capitalist power; therefore, it is not clear how this form of radicalism can (...) be useful to a project that is predicated upon the incompatibilities between capitalism and bona fide democracy. (shrink)

The current political climate of uncompromising neoliberalism means that the need to study the logic of our culture that is, the logic of the capitalist system is compelling. Providing a rich philosophical analysis of democracy from a negative, non-identity, dialectical perspective, Vasilis Grollios encourages the reader not to think of democracy as a call for a more effective domination of the people or as a demand for the replacement of the elite that currently holds power. In doing so, (...) he aspires to fill in a gap in the literature by offering an out of the mainstream overview of the key concepts of totality, negativity, fetishization, contradiction, identity thinking, dialectics and corporeal materialism as they have been employed by the major thinkers of the critical theory tradition Marx, Engels, Horkheimer, Lukacs, Adorno, Marcuse, Bloch and Holloway. The concepts of the spell and all its implications, contradiction and of fetishism as a process played in them a common defining role. The author makes an innovative attempt to bring these concepts to light in terms of their practical relevance for contemporary democratic theory. (shrink)

Open the Readings on p.217 and look through the table of contents. Part I is an appreciation and critique of Marx. Schumpeter argues that Marx's argument to show that Capitalism will eventually destroy itself is unsound. Nevertheless, Schumpeter himself thinks that Capitalism contains the seeds of its one destruction. Hence Part II: Can Capitalism Survive? The answer he gives is No. But at first, Chapters 5-8, he explains the strengths and virtues of Capitalism. Then he explains (...) why it will eventually be transformed into socialism. Notice Chapter XIII, which is the first of the extracts we will read. (shrink)

A preeminent theorist of democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville has been both criticized for ignoring the dangerous impact of capitalism on democracy, and lauded for elucidating their happy symbiosis. In fact, Democracy in America features pungent, though limited and isolated, commentary on what Tocqueville calls ‘commerce’ and ‘industry’. In this article, these scattered observations are brought to bear on Tocqueville's rich portrait of democracy, its characteristic passions and anxieties, and its varying potentialities. The yield is a (...) critical psycho-political account of how commercial capitalism exacerbates democracy's unhealthy tendencies to undermine democracy's potential to foster healthy, meaningful democratic citizenship. (shrink)

The book begins with a critique of Marx. The subtitle of part 1 is 'The Marxian Doctrine'. The most interesting parts of it are chapter 2, 'Marx the Sociologist', and chapter 3 'Marx the Economist'. Schumpeter's criticisms are well-informed and sympathetic. His sociological views are like Weber's, and he is aware of the kinship between those views and the more sophisticated versions of Marxism, such as is found in the letters Engels wrote in the 1890s. 'Nevertheless, the question arises whether (...) the economic interpretation of history is more than a convenient approximation which must be expected to work less satisfactorily in some cases than it does in others.... Social structures, types and attitudes are coins that do not readily melt. Once they are formed they persist, possibly for centuries, and since different structures and types display different degrees of this ability to survive, we almost always find that actual group and national behaviour more or less departs from what we should expect it to be if we tried to infer it from the dominant forms of the productive process... Such facts Marx did not overlook but he hardly realized all their implications.... [Feudalism] influenced conditions of production, wants and technology included But its simplest explanation is to be found in the function of military leadership previously filled by the families and individuals who (retaining that function however) became feudal landlords after the definitive conquest of the new territory. This does not fit the Marxian schema at all well and could easily be so construed as to point in a different direction. Facts of this nature can no doubt also be brought into the fold by means of auxiliary hypotheses but the necessity of inserting such hypotheses is usually the beginning of the end of a theory. Many other difficulties that arise in the course of attempts at historical interpretation by means of the Marxian schema could be met by admitting some measure of interaction between the sphere of production and other spheres of social life.. (shrink)

Reconceptualizes central notions in political theory, utilizing insights from the Black radical tradition, to make sense of the systems of imperial popular sovereignty and self-determination. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

The author starts from the thesis that there is no such thing as a "natural" or "apolitical" economy. The economy is always already political, as it is the economy’s material core of power, control, and its main mechanisms, i.e. exploitation and oppression. It is no less so in the era of neoliberalism, a time in which we witness the divorce between capitalism and democracy. In order to lay the foundations of a different economy, one that is not based (...) on wage labor and the exploitation of human life and nature based on their auto-alienation, but rather on action in accordance with their resources, we need – according the author – to rethink the concept of the state in a non-philosophical and post-capitalist fashion, structurally different from the modern bourgeois state. If the structure originating in the bourgeois state, as conceived by modern humanism, is preserved, it will mean that the determination in the last instance is still the same. In order to arrive at a determination in the last instance of a non-exploitative, non-wage-labor-based social order where the determination is affected by the real, we must first arrive at the generic core of the notion of the modern state. As soon as we determine the generic term of "the state," we can radicalize it by letting it be determined by the effects of the real. The generic notion, isolated from the chôra of the transcendental material that is offered by modern philosophies originating in the Enlightenment, should be used as the minimal transcendental description for the determining effect of the real. (shrink)

Mainstream economics evaluates capitalism primarily from the perspective of efficiency. Social philosophy typically applies other or additional normative criteria, such as equality, democracy, and community. This essay examines the implications of these contrasting sets of criteria in the evaluation of capitalism. Its first two sections consider the criteria themselves, assuming that a trade-off exists between them. The last three sections question whether such a trade-off necessarily occurs, and explore the claim that improvements in nonefficiency dimensions of capitalist (...) society may enhance, rather than conflict with, efficiency. (shrink)

Mainstream economics evaluates capitalism primarily from the perspective of efficiency. Social philosophy typically applies other or additional normative criteria, such as equality, democracy, and community. This essay examines the implications of these contrasting sets of criteria in the evaluation of capitalism. Its first two sections consider the criteria themselves, assuming that a trade-off exists between them. The last three sections question whether such a trade-off necessarily occurs, and explore the claim that improvements in nonefficiency dimensions of capitalist (...) society may enhance, rather than conflict with, efficiency. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction: Rawls Against Capitalism Rawls's Critique of “Welfare State Capitalism” Rawls (and Meade) on the Aims and Features of “Property‐Owning Democracy” Putting the Democracy into Property‐Owning Democracy: POD and the Fair Value of the Political Liberties Power, Opportunity, and Control of Capital: POD and Fair Equality of Opportunity Power, Status, and Self‐Respect: POD, the Difference Principle, and the Value of Equality Welfare State Capitalism and Property‐Owning Democracy: Ideal Types, (...) Public Policy, and Real Politics Conclusion ‐ Liberty, Equality, and Property‐Owning Democracy References. (shrink)