Knowledge, Class, and Economics

Theodore Burczak is Professor of Economics at Denison University and author of Socialism after Hayek.  Robert Garnett is Associate Dean and Honors Professor of the Social Sciences in the John V. Roach Honors College at Texas Christian University, USA.Richard McIntyre is Professor of Economics and Chair of the Economics Department, University of Rhode Island, USA.

• List of Figures and TablesList of ContributorsIntroduction: Marxism without guaranteesRichard McIntyre, Theodore Burczak, and Robert GarnettContributorsPart I: Knowledge, class, and economicsChapter OneA Conversation with Rick WolffRichard McIntyrePart II: Economics without guaranteesChapter TwoStrangers in a Strange Land: A Marxian Critique of EconomicsDavid F. RuccioChapter ThreeMarxian Economics without Teleology: The Big New Life of ClassBruce NortonChapter FourClass-Analytic Marxism and the Recovery of the Marxian Theory of EnterpriseErik OlsenChapter FiveUncertainty and OverdeterminationDonald W. KatznerChapter SixCatallactic Marxism: Marx, Hayek, and the MarketTed BurczakPart III: Labor, value, and classChapter SevenClass and Overdetermination: Value Theory and the Core of Resnick and Wolff’s MarxismBruce RobertsChapter EightWolff and Resnick’s Interpretation of Marx’s Theory of Value and Surplus-Value: Where’s the Money?Fred MoseleyChapter NineRethinking Labor: Surplus, Class, and JusticeFaruk Eray DüzenliPart IV: Heretical materialismChapter TenThe Last Instance: Resnick and Wolff at the Point of HeresyWarren MontagChapter ElevenAleatory Marxism: Resnick, Wolff, and the Revivification of AlthusserJoseph W. ChildersChapter TwelveProcess: Tracing Connections and ConsequencesYahya M. MadraPart V: Appraising the postmodern turnChapter ThirteenMarxism’s Double Task: Deconstructing and Reconstructing PostmodernismJan RehmannChapter FourteenOverdetermination: The Ethical MomentGeorge DeMartinoChapter FifteenThe Cost of Anti-EssentialismPaul SmithChapter SixteenMarxism and Postmodernism: Our Goal is to Learn from One AnotherRichard D. WolffPart VI: Postcolonial MarxChapter SeventeenGlobal Marx?Gayatri Chakravorty SpivakChapter EighteenPrimitive Accumulation and Historical Inevitability: A Postcolonial Critique Anjan Chakrabarti, Stephen Cullenberg, and Anup DharChapter NineteenDraining the "Blood Energy": Destruction of Independent Production and Creation of Migrant Workers in Post-Reform ChinaJoseph Medley and Lorrayne CarrollChapter TwentyProblematizing the Global Economy: Financialization and the "Feudalization" of CapitalRajesh Bhattacharya and Ian J. Seda-IrizarryChapter Twenty OneReproduction of Noncapital: A Marxian Perspective on the Informal Economy in IndiaSnehashish BhattacharyaPart VII: Capitalism and class analysisChapter Twenty TwoManagement Ideologies and the Class Structure of Capitalist Enterprises: Shareholderism vs. Stakeholderism at Scott Paper CompanyMichael Hillard and Richard McIntyreChapter Twenty ThreeLewis L. Lorwin’s "Five-Year Plan for the World": A Subsumed Class Response to the Crises of the 1930sClaude MisukiewiczPart VIII: Communism without guaranteesChapter Twenty FourBad CommunismsMaliha Safri and Kenan ErçelChapter Twenty FiveHope without Guarantees: Overdeterminist Anti-Capitalism amidst Neoliberal PrecarityEllen RussellPart IX: Knowledge and class in everyday lifeChapter Twenty SixThe Work of SexHarriet FraadChapter Twenty SevenHomelessness as Violence: Bad People, Bad Policy, or Overdetermined Social Processes?Vincent Lyon-CalloChapter Twenty EightFamily Farms, Class, and the Future of FoodElizabeth RameyChapter Twenty NineA Long Shadow and Undiscovered Country: Notes on the Class Analysis of EducationMasato AokiChapter ThirtyEcological Challenges: A Marxist ResponseAndriana VlachouIndex

"A superb achievement! This is the definitive collection dedicated to the work of Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff, the influential scholars who, with their "Amherst School" students, changed Marxian economics forever. It includes piercing, yet appreciative evaluations of their bedrock concepts: class, Marxian knowledge, and overdetermination. The authors in this compendium are all the right commentators (former students, colleagues, and famed social theorists), and the editors—Theodore Burczak, Robert Garnett, and Richard McIntyre—have turned in the most insightful, lucid, and useful introductory essay to the work of Resnick and Wolff yet written. A must for undergraduates, graduates, scholars, and activists everywhere, for whom Marxism remains a living tradition.", Jack Amariglio, Professor of Economics, Merrimack College, USA"Nearly a half century of stagnant wages and rising inequality, and the economic crisis following the financial crisis of 2008, has brought renewed interest to Marxian economics even while undermining the credibility of orthodox economic analysis. Richard Wolff and the late-Stephen Resnick did not need this crisis to discover the importance of Marxian analysis. Through their teaching as much as their writing, they have advanced Marxian analysis beyond the simple materialism of the Second International and Stalinism. Recognizing that capitalism is rarely a total and all-encompassing system, and that there are elements of noncapitalism all around us, they have developed a Marxian political economy that recognizes the importance of multiple forms of identity and engagement where social life is interwoven with forms of exploitation and resistance. They did this by building a community of scholarship and political engagement with colleagues and students, and students who became colleagues. These students and colleagues have collected a set of essays drawing on their work, and developing a central concept in Resnick and Wolff’s thought: "Marxism without Guarantees." While providing a superb introduction to Resnick and Wolff’s thought, Knowledge, Class, and Economics is a set of 30 challenging, fascinating, and stimulating essays. They are a worthy return to the many scholarly gifts that Resnick and Wolff gave us all.", Gerald Friedman, Professor of Economics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA"History’s ironies never end. The interest in Marxism is now more intense than it has been in more than three decades. This collection offers a theoretical and political invitation that deserves full consideration. It showcases the scope and depth of the innovativeness of an approach, which began its life in the work of Stephen Resnick, Richard Wolff, their students and colleagues, in an impressive range of themes at the level of epistemology and philosophy; economic and historical analysis of capitalism’s different sites; and non-capitalisms in theory and practice. The essays presented in this volume all call for our attention, because they have come from an intellectual source that has breathed new life into Marxism: one ‘without guarantees,’ and one, which offers ‘hope without guarantees.’ It is one that calls for continuous reflection; it is for re-thinking Marxism indeed.", Professor Serap Ayșe Kayatekin, Division of Social Sciences and Humanities, American College of Thessaloniki, Greece"This incisive and wide-ranging collection does far more than commemorate the moment of the Amherst School and the possibilities of rethinking Marxism these past thirty years. It shows us what radical thinking looks like today. Knowledge, Class, and Economics will soon be required reading across the social sciences and humanities.", Andrew Parker, Comparative Literature, Rutgers University