The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx

First Edition

Edited by Matt Vidal, Tony Smith, Tomás Rotta, and Paul Prew

Oxford Handbooks

Coverage is more comprehensive than previous volumes on Marx both in foundational concepts and in state-of-the-art empirical research on contemporary social problems.
The handbook is interdisciplinary, providing equal space to sociologists, economists and political scientists, with substantial contributions from philosophers and historians.
Essays explore how Marxist theory is still effectively used in current research to understand the world around us.

The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx

First Edition

Edited by Matt Vidal, Tony Smith, Tomás Rotta, and Paul Prew

Description

Karl Marx is one of the most influential writers in history. Despite repeated obituaries proclaiming the death of Marxism, in the 21st century Marx's ideas and theories continue to guide vibrant research traditions in sociology, economics, political science, philosophy, history, anthropology, management, economic geography, ecology, literary criticism, and media studies.

Due to the exceptionally wide influence and reach of Marxist theory, including over 150 years of historical debates and traditions within Marxism, finding a point of entry can be daunting. The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx provides an entry point for those new to Marxism. At the same time, its chapters, written by leading Marxist scholars, advance Marxist theory and research. Its coverage is more comprehensive than previous volumes on Marx in terms of both foundational concepts and state-of-the-art empirical research on contemporary social problems. It is also provides equal space to sociologists, economists, and political scientists, with substantial contributions from philosophers, historians, and geographers.

The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx consists of six sections. The first section, Foundations, includes chapters that cover the foundational concepts and theories that constitute the core of Marx's theories of history, society, and political economy. This section demonstrates that the core elements of Marx's political economy of capitalism continue to be defended, elaborated, and applied to empirical social science and covers historical materialism, class, capital, labor, value, crisis, ideology, and alienation. Additional sections include Labor, Class, and Social Divisions; Capitalist States and Spaces; Accumulation, Crisis, and Class Struggle in the Core Countries; Accumulation, Crisis, and Class Struggle in the Peripheral and Semi-Peripheral Countries; and Alternatives to Capitalism.

The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx

First Edition

Edited by Matt Vidal, Tony Smith, Tomás Rotta, and Paul Prew

Oxford Handbooks

Introduction
1. The Enduring Relevance of Karl Marx
Paul Prew, Tomas Rotta, Tony Smith, and Matt Vidal

Part I. Foundations
2. Historical Materialism
Paul Blackledge
3. Class and Class Struggle
Henry Heller
4. Forces of Production and Relations of Production
David Laibman
5. The Eight Steps in Marx's Dialectical Method
Bertell Ollman
6. Ideology as Alienated Socialization
Jan Rehmann
7. Marx's Conceptualization of Value in Capital
Geert Reuten
8. Value and Class
Alan Freeman
9. Money
Leda Maria Paulani
10. Capital
Andrew Kliman
11. Capital: A Revolutionary Social Form
Patrick Murray
12. The Grammar of Capital: Wealth in-against-and-beyond Value
John Holloway
13. Work and Exploitation in Capitalism: The Labor Process and the Valorization Process
Matt Vidal
14. Capital in General and Competition: The Production and Distribution of Surplus-Value
Fred Moseley
15. Reproduction and Crisis in Capitalist Economies
Deepankar Basu
16. The Capitalist State and State Power
Bob Jessop
17. Capitalist Social Reproduction: The Contradiction between Production and Social Reproduction under Capitalism
Martha E. Gimenez
18. Marx, Technology, and the Pathological Future of Capitalism
Tony Smith
19. Alienation, or Why Capitalism Is Bad for Us
Dan Swain
20. The Commodification of Knowledge and Information
Tomás Rotta and Rodrigo Teixeira

Part II. Labor, Class, and Social Divisions
21. Labor Unions and Movements
Barry Eidlin
22. Migration and the Mobility of Labor
Nicholas De Genova
23. Race, Class, and Revolution in the Twenty-First Century: Lessons from the League of Revolutionary Black Workers
Walda Katz-Fishman and Jerome Scott
24. Nationalism, Class, and Revolution
Kevin B. Anderson
25. Hegemony: A Theory of National-Popular Class Politics
Mark McNally

Part III. Capitalist States and Spaces
26. Capitalist Crises and the State
Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin
27. European Magnus Ryner
28. The Urbanization of Capital and the Production of Capitalist Natures
Erik Swyngedouw

Part IV. Accumulation, Crisis, and Class Struggle in the Core Countries
29. Stages of Capitalism and Social Structures of Accumulation: A Long View
Terrence McDonough
30. Geriatric Capitalism: Stagnation and Crisis in the Atlantic Postfordist Accumulation Regime
Matt Vidal
31. Sociopoiesis: Understanding Crisis in the Capitalist World-System through Complexity Sciences
Paul Prew
32. Towards a Marxist Theory of Financialized Capitalism
Jeff Powell
33. Metabolic Rifts and the Ecological Crisis
Brett Clark, John Bellamy Foster, and Stefano B. Longo

Part V. Accumulation, Crisis, and Class Struggle in the Peripheral and Semi-Peripheral Countries
34. Global Capital Accumulation and the Specificity of Latin America
Guido Starosta
35. The Unresolved Agrarian Question in South Asia
Debarshi Das
36. Asia and the Shift in Marx's Conception of Revolution and History
Chun Lin
37. Analyzing the Middle East
Gilbert Achcar
38. Primitive Accumulation in Post-Soviet Russia
David Mandel

Part VI. Alternatives to Capitalism
39. Marx's Concept of Socialism
Peter Hudis
40. Democratic Socialist Planning
Pat Devine
41. The Continuing Relevance of the Marxist Tradition for Transcending Capitalism
Erik Olin Wright

The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx

First Edition

Edited by Matt Vidal, Tony Smith, Tomás Rotta, and Paul Prew

Oxford Handbooks

Author Information

Matt Vidal is Reader in Sociology and Political Economy, Loughborough University London, Institute of International Management. His work has been published in Contexts, Critical Sociology, Organization Studies, Socio-Economic Review, Work, Employment & Society, and others. He is author (with David Kusnet) of Organizing Prosperity (EPI) and editor (with Marco Hauptmeier) of Comparative Political Economy of Work (Palgrave). Matt is working on a book, under contract with Oxford University Press: Management Divided: Contradictions of labor management in American capitalism. He is editor-in-chief of "Work in Progress," a public sociology blog of the American Sociological Association on the economy, work and inequality.

Tony Smith is the author of 6 books and over eighty articles on Marx, the critical theory of technology, and issues in normative social theory. His works include The Logic of Marx's Capital: Replies to Hegelian Criticisms; Globalisation: A Systematic Marxian Account; and Beyond Liberal Egalitarianism: Marxism and Normative Social Theory in the Twenty-First Century.

Tomás Rotta is Senior Lecturer in Economics in the International Business & Economics department at the University of Greenwich in London, UK, and member of the Greenwich Political Economy Research Center (GPERC). He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA, an MS in Economic Development and a BA in Business Management from the University of São Paulo, Brazil. He specializes in Political Economy.

Paul Prew specializes in Marxist theory and environmental sociology. He has forthcoming chapters summarizing the work of Karl Marx in Reaktion and Routledge Presses and prior publications include the topics of critical pedagogy, perceptions of police misconduct, and the effect of the world-economy on carbon-dioxide emissions. At Minnesota State University, Mankato, he teaches courses in graduate and undergraduate theory, indigeneity and environment, globalization, and introduction to sociology. Dr. Prew is also the treasurer for the Marxist section of the American Sociological Association as well as the local non-profit, Mankato Area Fair Trade Town Association. At his university, he has received the Global Citizen, Diversity Champion, and the Kessel Peacemaker Awards.

Contributors:

Gilbert Achcar, SOAS University of London
Kevin B. Anderson, University of California, Santa Barbara
Deepankar Basu, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Paul Blackledge, London South Bank University
Lin Chun, London School of Economics
Brett Clark, University of Utah
Debarshi Das, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati
Nicholas De Genova, King's College London
Pat Devine, University of Manchester
Barry Eidlin, McGill University
John Bellamy Foster, University of Oregon
Alan Freeman, Geopolitical Economy Research Group
Martha E. Gimenez, University of Colorado Boulder
Sam Gindin, York University
Henry Heller, University of Manitoba
John Holloway, Autonomous University of Puebla
Peter Hudis, Oakton Community College
Bob Jessop, Lancaster University
Walda Katz-Fishman, Howard University
Andrew Kliman, Pace University
David Laibman, Brooklyn College
Stefano B. Longo, North Carolina State University
David Mandel, Université du Québec à Montréal
Terrence McDonough, National University of Ireland, Galway
Mark McNally, University of the West of Scotland
Fred Moseley, Mount Holyoke College
Patrick Murray, Creighton University
Bertell Ollman, New York University
Leo Panitch, York University
Leda Maria Paulani, University of São Paulo
Jeff Powell, University of Greenwich
Paul Prew, Minnesota State University - Mankato, USA
Jan Rehmann, Union Theological Seminary
Geert Reuten, University of Amsterdam
Tomás Rotta, University of Greenwich
Magnus Ryner, King's College London
Jerome Scott, Project South: Institute for the Elimination of Poverty & Genocide
Tony Smith, Iowa State University
Guido Starosta, Universidad Nacional de Quilmes
Dan Swain, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague
Erik Swyngedouw, University of Manchester
Rodrigo Teixeira, Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo
Matt Vidal, Loughborough University London
Erik Olin Wright, University of Wisconsin-Madison

The Oxford Handbook of Karl Marx

First Edition

Edited by Matt Vidal, Tony Smith, Tomás Rotta, and Paul Prew

Oxford Handbooks

Reviews and Awards

"This Oxford handbook serves its stated purpose of providing an entry point into Marxist theory. While the book aims to be accessible to beginners, readers will benefit from prior understanding of economic theories. This collection of empirical research is divided into seven sections that can be read independently. Some of the sections include essay collections such as "Labor, Class, and Social Divisions," "Capitalist States and Spaces," and "Alternatives to Capitalism." The handbook has various points of entry beginning with the table of contents, which receives a detailed walk-through in the introductory chapter. The index is also detailed and thorough (as one would expect from Oxford's authoritative series). If the researching mind finds itself stimulated, each chapter contains extensive citations. This detailed volume provides enough information for readers to make their own decision on whether Marxism still lives." -- R. I. Saltz, Independent scholar, CHOICE