This book explores a variety of interconnected themes central to contemporary Marxist theory and its further development as a critical social theory.

Championing the critique of political economy as a critical theory of society and rejecting Marxian economics as a contradiction in terms, it argues instead that economic categories are perverted social categories, before identifying the sheer unrest of life - the struggle to make ends meet - as the negative content of the reified system of economic objectivity. With class struggle recognised as the negative category of the cold society of capitalist wealth, which sees in humanity a living resource for economic progress, the author contends that the critique of class society finds its rational solution in the society of human purposes, that is, the classless society of communist individuals.

A theoretically sophisticated engagement with Marxist thought, A Critical Theory of Economic Compulsion will appeal to scholars of social and political theory with interests in critical theory and post-capitalist imaginaries.

Author: Werner Bonefeld
Binding Type: Hardcover
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 03/20/2023
Series: Critiques and Alternatives to Capitalism
Pages: 180
Weight: 0.99lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9781032318776

About the Author

Werner Bonefeld is Professor of Politics at the University of York, UK. He is the author of Critical Theory and the Critique of Political Economy and The Strong State and the Free Economy.