The catastrophic economic, social and political crisis of our time calls for a new and original critique of political economy - a rethinking of Marx's project in the very different conditions of twenty-first century capitalism. Stiegler argues that today the proletarian must be reconceptualized as the economic agent whose knowledge and memory are confiscated by machines. This new sense of the term ‘proletarian' is best understood by reference to Plato's critique of exteriorized memory. By bringing together Plato and Marx, Stiegler can show how a generalized proletarianization now encompasses not only the muscular system, as Marx saw it, but also the nervous system of the so-called creative workers in the information industries. The proletarians of the former are deprived of their practical know-how, whereas the latter are shorn of their theoretical practice, and both suffer from a confiscation of the very possibility of a genuine art of living. But the mechanisms at work in this new and accentuated form of proletarianization are the very mechanisms that may spur a reversal of the process. Such a reversal would imply a crucial distinction between one's life work, originating in otium (leisure devoted to the techniques of the self), and the job, consisting in a negotium (the negotiation and calculation, increasingly restricted to short-term expectations), leading to the necessity of a new conception of economic value. This short text offers an excellent introduction to Stiegler's work while at the same time representing a political call to arms in the face of a deepening economic and social crisis.

The proletariat never existed—but it had a profound effect on modern German culture and society. As the most radicalized part of the industrial working class, the proletariat embodied the critique of capitalism and the promise of socialism. But as a collective imaginary, the proletariat also inspired the fantasies, desires, and attachments necessary for transforming the working class into a historical subject and an emotional community. This book reconstructs this complicated and contradictory process through the countless treatises, essays, memoirs, novels, poems, songs, plays, paintings, photographs, and films produced in the name of the proletariat. The Proletarian Dream reads these forgotten archives as part of an elusive collective imaginary that modeled what it meant—and even more important, how it felt—to claim the name "proletarian" with pride, hope, and conviction. By emphasizing the formative role of the aesthetic, the eighteen case studies offer a new perspective on working-class culture as a oppositional culture. Such a new perspective is bound to shed new light on the politics of emotion during the main years of working-class mobilizations and as part of more recent populist movements and cultures of resentment. Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Studies in Germanic Languages and Literatures 2018

Offers an analysis of Marx's controversial theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, arguing that it can no longer be displaced or ignored as the viable democratic centre of Marxist political thought. The book traces the development of the theory from the early work of Marx and Engels to 1924.

In 2021, the Chinese Communist Party celebrated a century of existence. Since the Party's humble beginnings in the Marxist groups of the Republican era to its current global ambitions, one thing has not changed for China's leaders: their claim to represent the vanguard of the Chinese working class. Spanning from the night classes for workers organised by student activists in Beijing in the 1910s to the labour struggles during the 1920s and 1930s; from the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution to the social convulsions of the reform era to China's global push today, this book reconstructs the contentious history of labour in China from the early twentieth century to this day (and beyond). This will be achieved through a series of essays penned by scholars in the field of Chinese society, politics, and culture, each one of which will revolve around a specific historical event, in a mosaic of different voices, perspectives, and interpretations of what constituted the experience of being a worker in China in the past century. Contributors: Corey Byrnes, Craig A. Smith, Xu Guoqi, Zhou Ruixue, Lin Chun, Elizabeth J. Perry, Tony Saich, Wang Kan, Gail Hershatter, Apo Leong, S.A. Smith, Alexander F. Day, Yige Dong, Seung-Joon Lee, Lu Yan, Joshua Howard, Bo renlund Srensen, Brian DeMare, Emily Honig, Po-chien Chen, Yi-hung Liu, Jake Werner, Malcolm Thompson, Robert Cliver, Mark W. Frazier, John Williams, Christian Sorace, Zhu Ruiyi, Ivan Franceschini, Chen Feng, Ben Kindler, Jane Hayward, Tim Wright, Koji Hirata, Jacob Eyferth, Aminda Smith, Fabio Lanza, Ralph Litzinger, Jonathan Unger, Covell F. Meyskens, Maggie Clinton, Patricia M. Thornton, Ray Yep, Andrea Piazzaroli Longobardi, Joel Andreas, Matt Galway, Michel Bonnin, A.C. Baecker, Mary Ann O'Donnell, Tiantian Zheng, Jeanne L. Wilson, Ming-sho Ho, Yueran Zhang, Anita Chan, Sarah Biddulph, Jude Howell, William Hurst, Dorothy J. Solinger, Ching Kwan Lee, Chlo Froissart, Mary Gallagher, Eric Florence, Junxi Qian, Chris King-chi Chan, Elaine Sio-Ieng Hui, Jenny Chan, Eli Friedman, Aaron Halegua, Wanning Sun, Marc Blecher, Huang Yu, Manfred Elfstrom, Darren Byler, Carlos Rojas, Chen Qiufan.

Inspired by Mao's Little Red Book, the new Expanded Edition of The Proletarian's Pocketbook comes full of quotes to inspire and teach the science of revolution to the oppressed and working people of the world, building a path towards liberation, socialism and justice. With teachings from more than 100 oppressed, colonized, exploited, successful and working revolutionaries from around our Earth, the Expanded Edition is bound to inspire the revolutionary spirit inside you and your comrades to educate, organize, and build the revolution! This new edition comes with even more quotes, more revolutionaries cited, a reading recommendation page, and a handful of posters and charts. All Power to the People, We've Got a World to Win! Full list of authors: Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin Mumia Abu-Jamal Sundiata Acoli John Africa Samir Amin Kuwasi Balagoon James Baldwin Toni Cade Bambara Willie Baptist Amiri Baraka Maurice Bishop James and Grace Lee Boggs Bertolt Brecht Safiya Bukhari Amilcar Cabral Berta Caceres Fidel Castro Aimé Césaire Combahee River Collective Angela Davis Dialego Dimitrov DMX Frederick Douglass W.E.B. Du Bois Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Friedrich Engels Zhou Enlai Frantz Fanon Kiran Fatima Silvia Federici Les Feinberg Clara Fraser Paulo Freire Anuradha Ghandy Nikki Giovanni Antonio Gramsci Che Guevara Fred Hampton Kathleen Hanna Harry Haywood Ho Chi Min bell hooks Enver Hoxha Dolores Ibarruri Kim Il-Sung George Jackson Jonathan Jackson Marsha P. Johnson Claudia Jones Frida Kahlo Ghasson Kanafani Leila Khaled Martin Luther King, Jr. Alexandra Kollantai L.A. Research Group Vladimir Lenin Audre Lorde Rosa Luxemburg Nelson Mandela Mao Tse-Tung Manning Marable Sub Marcos José Mariátegui Carlos Marighella Bob Marley Karl Marx Charu Mazumdar Chico Mendes Evo Morales Toni Morrison Fred Moten Huey P. Newton Kwame Nkrumah Julius Nyerere Nyurba Lola Olufemi Michael Parenti Leonard Peltier Rashid The Red Nation Paul Robeson Walter Rodney Arundhati Roy J. Sakai Thomas Sankara Lucia Sánchez Saornil Bobby Seale Chief Seattle Assata Shakur Tupac Shakur Nina Simone Bhagat Singh Joseph Stalin Sukarno Doris Tijeriino Sèkou Tourè Kwame Ture Dhoruba Bin Wahad Harsha Walia Lilla Watson Malcolm X Xi Jinping Malala Yousafzai