Historical Actuality of the Socialist Offensive

Historical Actuality of the Socialist Offensive PDF Author: István Mészáros
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781905192618
Category : Parliamentary practice
Languages : en
Pages : 150

Get Book Here

Book Description
The number of people voting in general elections has reached historic lows. This was true even before the revelations of widespread abuse by MPs of their remarkably generous expenses last year. Istvan Meszaros shows that the problem goes far deeper than duck houses, moat cleaning bills and the corruption of individuals or even of whole parties like New Labour. He launches a sustained philosophical attack on the very notion that parliament could ever provide a means of removing capitalism and creating a more just society.

Historical Actuality of the Socialist Offensive

Historical Actuality of the Socialist Offensive PDF Author: István Mészáros
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781905192618
Category : Parliamentary practice
Languages : en
Pages : 150

Get Book Here

Book Description
The number of people voting in general elections has reached historic lows. This was true even before the revelations of widespread abuse by MPs of their remarkably generous expenses last year. Istvan Meszaros shows that the problem goes far deeper than duck houses, moat cleaning bills and the corruption of individuals or even of whole parties like New Labour. He launches a sustained philosophical attack on the very notion that parliament could ever provide a means of removing capitalism and creating a more just society.

Socialism Or Barbarism

Socialism Or Barbarism PDF Author: István Mészáros
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583670521
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 127

Get Book Here

Book Description
"This bold new study analyzes the historical choices facing us at the outset of the new millennium. The author gives new meaning and urgency to the alternatives posed by Rosa Luxemburg at the beginning of the century. His detailed analysis of the roots and development of US global power shows how its supremacy has come at the cost of exhausting the universalising pretensions of capitalism. The destructive tendencies of capitalism are a greater threat today than every before." -- BACK COVER.

Beyond Capital

Beyond Capital PDF Author: István Mészáros
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583677143
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1022

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Not only profound in its analysis, but also so passionately inspired by sympathy for the downtrodden and their struggle for liberation. . ." --Daniel Singer, The Nation "This is an important book, heavy in size and tone. It belongs in every serious library." --Choice

The Structural Crisis of Capital

The Structural Crisis of Capital PDF Author: István Mészáros
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583674969
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 219

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this collection of trenchant essays and interviews, István Mészáros, the world’s preeminent Marxist philosopher and winner of the 2008 Libertador Award for Critical Thought (the Bolivar Prize), lays bare the exploitative structure of modern capitalism. He argues with great power that the world’s economies are on a social and ecological precipice, and that unless we take decisive action to radically transform our societies we will find ourselves thrust headfirst into barbarism and environmental catastrophe. Mészáros, however, is no pessimist. He believes that the multiple crises of world capitalism will encourage the working class to demand center stage in the construction of a new system of production and distribution designed to meet human needs rather than serve the relentless pursuit of profit—a struggle which is already underway in places such as Venezuela. As John Bellamy Foster says in the foreword to this indispensable book, “Today the structural crisis of capital provides the historical setting for a new revolutionary movement for social emancipation in which developments normally taking centuries would flit by like phantoms in decades or even years. But the force for such necessary, vital change, remains with the people themselves, and rests on humanity’s willingness to constitute itself as both subject and object of history, through the collective struggle to create a just and sustainable world. This, Mészáros insists, constitutes the unprecedented challenge and burden of our historical time.”

Beyond Leviathan

Beyond Leviathan PDF Author: István Mészáros
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583679510
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 483

Get Book Here

Book Description
A field-defining masterwork, this posthumous publication maps the evolution of the idea of the state from ancient Greece to today István Mészáros was one of the greatest political theorists of the twentieth century. Left unfinished at the time of his death, Beyond Leviathan is written on the magisterial scale of his previous book, Beyond Capital, and meant to complement that work. It focuses on the transcendence of the state, along with the transcendence of capital and alienated labor, while traversing the history of political theory from Plato to the present. Aristotle, More, Machiavelli, and Vico are only a few of the thinkers discussed in depth. The larger objective of this work is no less than to develop a full-edged critique of the state, in the Marxian tradition, and set against the critique of capital. Not only does it provide, for the first time, an all-embracing Marxian theory of the state, it gives new political meaning to the notion of “the withering away of the state.” In his definitive, seminal work, Mészáros seeks to illuminate the political preconditions for a society of substantive equality and substantive democracy.

The Stalinist Era

The Stalinist Era PDF Author: David L. Hoffmann
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107007089
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 217

Get Book Here

Book Description
Placing Stalinism in its international context, The Stalinist Era explains the origins and consequences of Soviet state intervention and violence.

The Necessity of Social Control

The Necessity of Social Control PDF Author: István Mészáros
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583675396
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 326

Get Book Here

Book Description
As John Bellamy Foster writes in his foreword to the present book, “István Mészáros is one of the greatest philosophers that the historical materialist tradition has yet produced. His work stands practically alone today in the depth of its analysis of Marx’s theory of alienation, the structural crisis of capital, the demise of Soviet-style post-revolutionary societies, and the necessary conditions of the transition to socialism. His dialectical inquiry into social structure and forms of consciousness—a systematic critique of the prevailing forms of thought—is unequaled in our time.” Mészáros is the author of magisterial works like Beyond Capital and Social Structures of Forms of Consciousness, but his work can seem daunting to those unacquainted with his thought. Here, for the first time, is a concise and accessible overview of Mészáros’s ideas, designed by the author himself and covering the broad scope of his work, from the shortcomings of bourgeois economics to the degeneration of the capital system to the transition to socialism.

The Challenge and Burden of Historical Time

The Challenge and Burden of Historical Time PDF Author: István Mészáros
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 484

Get Book Here

Book Description
A leading Marxian philosopher and the author of 'Beyond Capital', Mészáros here defines the challenges and burdens facing those committed to a more rational, egalitarian future. At the heart of the book is an examination of Latin America's Bolivarian journey.

The British State

The British State PDF Author: Chris Nineham
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1789043301
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 136

Get Book Here

Book Description
What happens if a radical government gets elected in Britain? How will the banks, the civil servants, the media and the military react? Is the idea of a British coup far-fetched? How can the left prepare? Chris Nineham addresses these questions by looking behind the myths at the reality of two hundred years of British state rule. He brings us a warning from history. Don’t be fooled again, read this book.

Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness, Volume 1

Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness, Volume 1 PDF Author: István Mészáros
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1583672044
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 463

Get Book Here

Book Description
This new work (the first in a two-volume series) by the leading Marxian philosopher of our day is a milestone in human self-understanding. It focuses on the location where action emerges from freedom and necessity, thefoundation of all social science. Today, as never before, the investigation of the close relationship between social structure—defined by Marx as "arising from the life-process of definite individuals"—and the various forms of consciousness is particularly important. We can only perceive what is possible by first identifying the historical process that constrains consciousness itself and therefore social action. The relationship between social structure and forms of consciousness discussed in this volume is multifaceted and profoundly dialectical. It requires the presentation of a great wealth of historical material and the assessment of the relevant philosophical literature, from Descartes through Hegel and the Liberal tradition to the present, together with their connections with political economy and political theory. István Mészáros moves beyond both abstract solutions to the surveyed methodological questions and one-sided structuralist evaluation of the important substantive issues, bringing the process of our understanding of social structure and consciousness to a level not previously attained. Above all, in the spirit of the Marxian approach, even the most complicated problems are always analyzed in relation to the major practical concerns of our time. The primary aim of this work is to outline the dialectical intelligibility of historical development toward a viable societal reproductive order. Social Structures and Forms of Consciousness is of the highest importance as both a political and philosophical work, illuminating the place from where we must act, today.