David Harvey examines the foundational contradictions of capital, and reveals the fatal contradictions that are now inexorably leading to its end

This edited collection examines the relationship between three central terms—capitalism, feminism, and critique—while critically celebrating the work and life of a thinker who has done the most to address this nexus: Nancy Fraser. In honor of her seventieth birthday, and in the spirit of her work in the tradition of critical theory, this collection brings together scholars from different disciplines and theoretical approaches to address this conjunction and evaluate Fraser’s lifelong contributions to theorizing it. Scholars from philosophy, political science, sociology, gender studies, race theory and economics come together to think through the vicissitudes of capitalism and feminism while also responding to different elements of Nancy Fraser’s work, which weaves together a strong feminist standpoint with a vibrant and complex critique of capitalism. Going beyond conventional disciplinary distinctions and narrow debates, all the contributors to this project share a commitment to critically understanding the connection between capitalism, exploitation, and the viable roads for emancipation. They recover insights provided by classical traditions of political and social thought, but they also open new research directions adapted to the global challenges of our time.

Since the late-1990s much of Latin America has experienced an uneven and contradictory turn to the Left in the electoral arena. At the same time, there has been a rejuvenation of Marxist critiques of political economy. Drawing on the expertise of Latin American, North American, and European scholars, this volume offers cutting-edge theoretical explorations of trends in the region, as well as in-depth case studies of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Venezuela. Essays in the volume focus on changes to class formation in Latin America and offer new insights into the state-form, exploring the complex relationship between state and market in contexts of late capitalist development, particularly in countries endowed with incredible natural resource wealth. Contributors are: Dario Azzellini, Emilia Castorina, Mariano Féliz, Juan Grigera, Nicolas Grinberg, Gabriel Hetland, Claudio Katz, Thomas Purcell, Ben Selwyn, Susan J. Spronk, Guido Starosta, Leandro Vergara-Camus, and Jeffery R. Webber.

In The Principal Contradiction, Torkil Lauesen introduces readers to the philosophy of dialectical materialism as a tool for changing the world. Dialectical materialism allows us to understand the dynamics of world history and to draw practical conclusions, with the concept of contradiction building a bridge between theory and practice. This is not just a valuable tool with which to analyze complex relationships: it also tells us how to intervene.Lauesen explores the historical origins of dialectical materialism, focusing at first on the European context in which Hegel was famously turned on his head, then introducing the subsequent contributions made by Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao. Drawing on his own decades of experience as an anti-imperialist, Lauesen shows how dialectical materialism can be employed as a method to understand the past five hundred years of capitalist history, how contradictions internal to European capitalism led to colonialism and genocide in Asia, Africa, and the Americas, as all humanity was brought into a single exploitative world system. The historical record is used to show how contradictions interact with one another and how a correct understanding of the principal contradiction is critical to formulating a correct strategy.

A new book from one of the most cited authors in the humanities and social sciences

Climate Change Solutions represents an application of critical theory to examine proposed solutions to climate change. Drawing from Marx’s negative conception of ideology, the authors illustrate how ideology continues to conceal the capital-climate contradiction or the fundamental incompatibility between growth-dependent capitalism and effectively and justly mitigating climate change. Dominant solutions to climate change that offer minor changes to the current system fail to address this contradiction. However, alternatives like degrowth involve a shift in priorities and power relations and can offer new systemic arrangements that confront and move beyond the capital-climate contradiction. While there are clear barriers to a systemic transition that prioritizes social and ecological well-being, such a transition is possible and desirable.

The Socialist Register has consistently focused on the processes driving globalization, as well as its costs-from our much-cited 1994 volume, Between Globalism and Nationalism, to our 1999 volume, Global Capitalism versus Democracy. In the present volume we have sought to take this a step further. The task of resubordinating the market forces that now control the world depends not only on understanding them, but on understanding them in their contradictoriness: seeing how they depend on structural relationships that produce problems and vulnerabilities, incoherence and conflict. The energy and commitment that brought so many tens of thousands of people to Seattle and Quebec City-not to mention the thousands of movements evolving in every city and many rural areas of the world, from Soweto to Chiapas-need to be backed by careful analysis of the way that capitalism's contradictions are now manifested on a global terrain. This task is the primary focus of the 38th annual volume of the Register now in your hands. Our concept of contradiction has not been mechanical or theological. We were not looking for 'primary contradictions', let alone the primary contradiction. Still less do we mean to suggest that there are contradictions that will bring down capitalism of their own accord. On the other hand, we have been concerned with systemic contradictions as opposed to just tensions, conflicts, mere paradoxes, 'ironies' and the like; i.e., our focus is on structural relations inherent in capitalism which at the same time constitute or give rise to obstacles to its smooth or even continued expansion, and which offer opportunities for effective socialist practice.