Theories for Radical Change

Raju Das is Professor at York University, Toronto. His research interests include Marxist political economy. His recent books include: Marxist Class Theory for a Skeptical World (Brill, 2017) and Marx’s Capital, Capitalism and Limits to the State (Routledge, 2022).

• Acknowledgements List of Figures and Tables 1 Introduction 1 The Political Context 2 The Theoretical Context 3 Overview 2 Marx and Engels’ The Communist Manifesto: Class Relations, Global Capitalism, Workers’ Conditions and Revolutionary Politics 1 Class Relations and the State across Class Societies 2 Capitalist Economic System and World Market 3 Capitalism, Culture and the State 4 Workers’ Experience of Exploitation and Its Effects 5 Workers’ Struggle within and against Capitalism 6 Conclusion 3 Marx’s Introduction to Grundrisse: Primacy of Production over Distribution, Exchange and Consumption 1 Production as a Moment of the Economic Realm 2 Distribution, Exchange and Consumption as Moments of the Economic Realm 3 Production’s Primacy over Other Moments of the Economic Realm 4 Implications of the Primacy of Production for Contemporary Debates in Political Economy 5 Conclusion 4 Marx’s Introduction to Grundrisse: the Relation of the Economic Realm to the Political and the Cultural Realms 1 Conception of the Producing Individual in Relation to Society 2 The Relation of the Economic to the Political 3 The Relation of the Economic to the Cultural 4 Conclusion 5 Marx’s 1859 Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy Fettering of Productive Forces by Social Relations, and Questions of Labour and Nature 1 Marx (and Engels) on Fettering of Productive Forces by Production Relations 2 Existing Interpretations of Marx’s Concept of Fettering 3 A Partial Critique of Existing Interpretations of Marx’s Concept of Fettering 4 Towards an Integrative Perspective on Fettering for Today’s World 5 Conclusion 6 Marx’s Capital Volume 1: Relations of Property, Commodity and Value, and the State 1 Property Relations of Class Society, and the State 2 Property Relations of Capitalist Class Society, and the State 3 Capitalist Commodity and Value Relations, and the State 4 Conclusion 7 Marx’s Capital Volume 1: Capital Circuit, Capitalist Accumulation, and the State 1 The M–C (MP + LP) and the C′–M′ Phases of the Capital Circuit, and the State 2 The ‘P’ Phase of Capital Circuit, and the State 3 The Crisis-Ridden Capitalist Accumulation and the State 4 Conclusion 8 Marx’s Capital Volume 1: Labour Circuit, Class Struggle, Economic Reforms, and the State 1 The Labour Circuit (C–M–C′–R–C) and the State’s Pro-worker Interventions 2 Driving Forces behind the State’s Pro-worker Measures 3 Limits to State’s Pro-worker Interventions, and Why? 4 Conclusion 9 Lenin’s Development of Capitalism in Russia and Other Economic Writings: Commodity Production, Class Differentiation, Capitalism, and Imperialism 1 What Is Political Economy, and How to Study It? 2 Commodity Production and Class Differentiation 3 Capitalism as the Highest Form of Commodity Production, and Its Social and Spatial Forms and Effects 4 Capitalism as a Transient Progressive Social Form Production 5 Capitalist (Super-)Exploitation, Economic Inequality, and Impoverishment 6 Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism, and National Exploitation 7 Workers’ Struggle for Improvements within Capitalism, and for Socialism 8 Conclusion 10 Theoretical and Practical Implications of Marxist Political Economy 1 A General Map of Marx’s and Lenin’s Political Economy as a Field of Study 2 Political Economy of the Relation between the Economic and the Extra Economic 3 Political Economy of Class Society 4 Political Economy of Capitalist Class Society 5 Political Economy of Imperialism as the Highest Stage of Capitalism 6 Political Economy of the Progressive and Dark Sides of Capitalism/Imperialism 7 Political Economy of the Capitalist State 8 Political Economy of the Conditions of Workers and Petty Producers 9 Political Economy as a Guide to People’s Struggle against Capitalism Bibliography Index