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This book addresses core questions about the nature and structure of contemporary capitalism and the social dynamics and countervailing forces that shape modern life. From a robust and self-consciously sociological framework, it analyzes and interrogates such issues as the nature of the social, the power of the sacred, the nature of authority, the problem of representation, reification, alienation, utopia, and collective resistance. Historical materialism reveals that the scope of productive functions is broader than the crude realism of economism. Marx's critical theory of the commodity and his analysis of the capitalist regime of accumulation remain as vital as ever and serve as a guiding light for the continued exploration of the philosophical underpinnings of critical inquiry and praxis.
List of contents
Social Ontology and Social Critique: A New Paradigm for Critical Theory .- Critical Theory in the Twenty-First Century. The Logic of Capital between Classical Social Theory, the Early Frankfurt School Critique of Political Economy, and the Power of Artifice Harry Dahms .- The Sacred and the Profane in the General Formula for Capital: Re-Mapping the Capitalist Mode of Production for both Skeptics and Bamboozled Realists .- Social Form and the "Purely Social": Toward better Understanding Value and the Value-Form .- The Political Economy of Debt and the Present Moment of World History .- The (In)Visibility of Capital. Reflections on Film, Lukacs, and Contemporary Critical Realism .- Demand the Impossible: Greece, the Eurozone, and the Anti-Utopian Complex .- The Constellation of Social Ontology: Walter Benjamin, Eduard Fuchs, and the Body of History .- The Body Ontology of Capitalism .- Critical Theory and the Morality of Misery.
About the author
Dan Krier is Associate Professor of Sociology at Iowa State University, USA. He is the author of
Speculative Management: Stock Market Power and Corporate Change (2005),
NASCAR, Sturgis and the New Economy of Spectacle (with Bill Swart, 2016), the editor of
Capitalism's Future: Alienation, Emancipation and Critique (with Mark P. Worrell, 2016) and has published academic articles in the
American Journal of Economics and Sociology,Current Perspectives in Social Theory,
Critical Sociology, and
Fast Capitalism.
Mark P. Worrell, Associate Professor at SUNY Cortland, USA, has published widely in critical social theory journals including
Telos,
Rethinking Marxism, Current Perspectives in Social Theory,
Fast Capitalism,
Logos, and
Critical Sociology, where he also serves as an Associate Editor. His books include
Terror: Social, Political, and Economic Perspectives (2013), and the edited volume
Capitalism's Future: Alienation, Emancipation and Critique (with Dan Krier, 2016).
Summary
This book addresses core questions about the nature and structure of contemporary capitalism and the social dynamics and countervailing forces that shape modern life. From a robust and self-consciously sociological framework, it analyzes and interrogates such issues as the nature of the social, the power of the sacred, the nature of authority, the problem of representation, reification, alienation, utopia, and collective resistance. Historical materialism reveals that the scope of productive functions is broader than the crude realism of economism. Marx’s critical theory of the commodity and his analysis of the capitalist regime of accumulation remain as vital as ever and serve as a guiding light for the continued exploration of the philosophical underpinnings of critical inquiry and praxis.
