Beyond Capital: Toward a Theory of Transition

By István Mészáros

Book Overview

In Beyond Capital, the internationally esteemed Marxist philosopher Istv n M sz ros provides a major contribution to the task of reassessing the socialist alternative and the conditions for its realization in the light of twentieth-century developments and disappointments. M sz ros brings original Marxist thinking to bear on the most fundamental issue facing the left: how to move theoretically Beyond Capital-beyond the project that Marx began and which he articulated under a specific form of commodity capitalism, as well as beyond the power of capital itself. Steeped in the philosophical roots and revolutionary world outlook of early Marxism, broad in scope and stunning in its erudition, Beyond Capital brilliantly challenges the European-based conceptual framework of socialist theory and begins the urgent task of elaborating a new socialist theory of transition.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0853458812
• ISBN13: 9780853458814
• Release Date: December 2000
• Publisher: Monthly Review Press
• Length: 994 Pages
• Weight: 2.06 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.4" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Difficult, But Worth a Little Struggle

Clarifies the nature of Capital as fundamentally a relationship of subordination of Labour based on the proletariat's real material separation from effective control over the condition and purpose of their work. Explains why the liberatory project of the last century, centered as it was on the political expropriation of the expropriators, could never do more than reproduce that subordination to Capital in a new form. Extensive critique of G. Lukacs as representative of this misconception/misdirection of the Communist movement by one of his few living students.

our instrumentality in the sickness of the totality

If the author isn't a genius, and I'll say he is, he at least has the elements of genius at his disposal. He has read, of both the good and the bad, and this book is an expression of his bioligical and spiritual drive to let us know about the variables we are dealing with in our project to kill pain and feel pleasure, enhance cognition and engage sensuality. Everyone who's brain's structure is remotely similar to mine might want to read this book. Unless you've been lucky enough to be immersed in the depths of the realest and most dream-logical philosophy for your whole life, in which case you could conceivably know the material in Beyond Capital. Even so, reading the book would be a reminder, as if you need reminders.