Marxisms in the 21st century: Crisis, critique and struggle (Democratic Marxism Series) - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1868147533 ISBN 13: 9781868147533

Publisher: Wits University Press, 2013

Synopsis

This is the first publication in the Democratic Marxism Series, which seeks to elaborate the social theorising and politics of Democratic Marxism. Marx's writings on and ideas about social transformation have figured prominently in the global Left imagination for more than 150 years. At the end of the twentieth century a number of factors seemed to converge to mark the end of Marxism's influence on the world and, as a result, by the late twentieth century the relevance of Marxism was under question by both the Left (including Marxists) and Right. The decline was relatively short-lived, however, as the 2008 economic crisis brought into sharp relief the catastrophic effects of financialised capitalism and the need to (re)find alternatives. In the second decade of the twenty-first century, the revival of Marxism is finding new sources of inspiration that revolve around four primary factors: the importance of democracy for an emancipatory project; the ecological limits of capitalism; the crisis of global capitalism; and learning lessons from the failures of Marxist-inspired experiments. This is not simply a return to nineteenth and twentieth century understandings of Marxism. Rather, the twenty-first century has seen enormous creativity from movements that seek to overcome the weaknesses of the past by forging fundamentally new approaches to politics that draw inspiration from Marxism along with many other anti-capitalist traditions such as feminism, ecology, anarchism and indigenous traditions. The Marxism of many of these movements is not dogmatic or prescriptive, but rather open, searching, dialectical, humanist, utopian and inspirational. This edited volume introduces some contemporary approaches to Marxism and explores some of the ways in which Marxism has been used in Africa.

About this title

Review:

"In the aftermath of the Marikana killings, this is a most welcome book that rejects the glib disdain of Marxism and theological Marxism. More interestingly, it is in search of new ways of theorizing South Africa's contemporary reality and transforming it." --Saleem Badat, vice-chancellor, Rhodes University, and author, Black Student Politics, Higher Education and Apartheid: from SASO to SANSCO 1968-1990

About the Author:

Michelle Williams is an Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Her books include The Roots of Participatory Democracy: Democratic Communists in South Africa and Kerala, India; South Africa and India: Shaping the Global South (co-edited with Isabel Hofmeyr) and Labour in the Global South: Challenges and Alternatives for Workers (co-edited with Sarah Mosoetsa). Vishwas Satgar is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He was the Executive Director of the Cooperative and Policy Alternative Centre (COPAC) for 12 years.He has played a pioneering role in developing the solidarity economy movement in South Africa.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wits University Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1868147533
• ISBN 13: 9781868147533
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: Michelle Williams, Vishwas Satgar