Storming Heaven is the only book which looks at Italian workerist theory and practice, from its origins in the anti-Stalinist left of the 1950s to its heyday twenty years later. It focuses on the theme of workerism, or 'operaismo', which includes the refusal of work, class self-organisation, mass illegality and the extension of revolutionary agency, of of which are still practiced today by workers across the world.Emphasising the dynamic nature of class struggle as the distinguishi...

This collection brings together key texts and previously unavailable essays of the influential Italian feminist author and activist Mariarosa Dalla Costa. In recent years there has been both a renewed interest in theories of social reproduction and an explosion of women’s struggles and strikes across the world. The collection offers both historical and contemporary Marxist feminist analysis of how the reproduction of labour and life functions under capitalism.Dalla Costa’s essays, ...

A central figure for anti-authoritarian Marxists and radicals who see the working class as an autonomous force, capable of acting independently and not simply reacting to the depredations of capitalism, Harry Cleaver brings this vision up to date, interpreting capitalism’s latest crises and demonstrating how ordinary people can, and do, rupture the smooth functioning of the system that exploits them.

This book provides an up-to-date reading of Capital Volume I, emphasizing the relevance of Marx's analysis to everyday twenty-first century struggles.Harry Cleaver's treatise outlines and critiques Marx's analysis chapter by chapter. His unique interpretation of Marx's labour theory of value reveals how every theoretical category of Capital designates aspects of class struggle in ways that help us resist and escape them. At the same time, while rooted within the tradition of worker...

This book situates John Locke’s philosophy of knowledge and his political theory within his engagement in British monetary debates of the 17th and 18th century.Anchored in extensive archival research, George Caffentzis offers the most expansive reading of Locke’s economic thought to date, contextualizing it within the expansion of capitalist accumulation on a world scale and the universality of money as a medium of exchange.Updated with a new introduction by Paul Rekret, a ...

This collection brings together key texts and previously unavailable essays of the influential Italian feminist author and activist Mariarosa Dalla Costa. In recent years there has been both a renewed interest in theories of social reproduction and an explosion of women's struggles and strikes across the world. The collection offers both historical and contemporary Marxist feminist analysis of how the reproduction of labour and life functions under capitalism. Dalla Costa's essays, speeche...

'Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,Where wealth accumulates, and men decay' - Oliver GoldsmithSomething is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of shared purpose. But we have forgotten how to think about the life we live together: its goals and purposes. We are now not only post-ideological; we have be...

In this provocative but balanced essay, Kenneth Minogue discusses the development of politics from the ancient world to the twentieth century. He prompts us to consider why political systems evolve, how politics offers both power and order in our society, whether democracy is always a good thing, and what future politics may have in the twenty-first century. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subjec...

Why should we pay attention to the great social critics like Marx? Americans, especially now, confront serious questions and evidences that our capitalist system is in trouble. It clearly serves the 1% far, far better than what it is doing to the vast mass of the people. Marx was a social critic for whom capitalism was not the end of human history. It was just the latest phase and badly needed the transition to something better. We offer this essay now because of the power and usefulness t...

The Gutenberg Galaxy catapulted Marshall McLuhan to fame as a media theorist and, in time, a new media prognosticator. Fifty years after its initial publication, this landmark text is more significant than ever before.Readers will be amazed by McLuhan’s prescience, unmatched by anyone since, predicting as he did the dramatic technological innovations that have fundamentally changed how we communicate. The Gutenberg Galaxy foresaw the networked, compressed ‘global ...

For over forty years, David Harvey has been one of the world's most trenchant and critical analysts of capitalist development. In The Enigma of Capital, he delivers an impassioned account of how unchecked neoliberalism produced the system-wide crisis that now engulfs the world. Beginning in the 1970s, profitability pressures led the capitalist class in advanced countries to shift away from investment in industrial production at home toward the higher returns that financial products promise...

Philosophy for busy people. Read a succinct account of the philosophy of J.S. Mill in just one hour.John Stuart Mill is remembered today as the leading exponent of Utilitarianism, arguing that our aim in life must be the attainment of pleasure and the minimizing of pain for the majority of people. The principle that lies at the heart of Utilitarianism is ‘the greatest benefit of the greatest number’ – an idea that perhaps seems self-evident today but one that was seen as radical wi...