This volume offers the essential theoretical thought of the Austro-Marxist thinkers Otto Bauer, Max Adler, Karl Renner, Friedrich Adler, Rudolf Hilferding, and Otto Neurath over the span of their Austrian Social-Democratic careers, from the decades before World War I until the mid-1930s. Austro-Marxist theoretical perspectives were conceived as social scientific tools for the issues that faced the development of socialism in their time. The relevance of their thought for the contemporary world inheres in this understanding.
Austro-Marxism: The Ideology of Unity documents the theoretical and political legacy of one of Europe's most influential intellectual currents in the first half of the twentieth century.
This edited volume is focused on Hilferding's major work, Finance Capital. In revisiting this influential book from a methodological point of view, both historical and intellectual, this book affirms Hilferding's place in the Marxist tradition. Hilferding's ideas are used to criticise incumbent approaches in economics and enrich existing discussions and debates about the nature of modern capitalism. In doing so, this book highlights the importance of Hilferding's work in analysing and understanding modern capitalism and corporate developments. The volume has contributions from a range of expert scholars addressing various aspects of Hilferding’s arguments. It elaborates on Hilferding’s central idea on the political economy, as well as its historical context, and its relation to Marx. Contributors move on to criticize Hilferding’s views on the political economy and politics in general. This book is relevant to those interested in the political economy, the history of economic thought, and European politics.
Support for a radical politics and its form of political mobilization exists, but in the absence of a revolutionary leftist project, this support has in the past, and is currently, been transferred to the counter-revolutionary politics on offer from the other end of the ideological spectrum.
In Polish Marxism after Luxemburg, Jan Toporowski and leading experts offer a unique and insightful overview of Polish political economic ideas since the early 20th century, building an introduction to some key themes and figurehead political economists.
For most economists, ‘Austrian economics’ refers to a distinct school of thought, originating with Mises and Hayek and characterised by a strong commitment to free-market liberalism. This innovative book explores an alternative Austrian tradition in economics. Demonstrating how the debate on the economics of socialism began in Austria long before the 1930s, it analyses the work and impact of many leading Austrian economists through a century of Austrian socialist economics.
For years, intellectuals have argued that, with the triumph of capitalist, liberal democracy, the Western World has reached “the end of history.” Recently, however, there has been a rise of authoritarian politics in many countries. Concepts of post-democracy, anti-politics, and the like are gaining currency in theoretical and political debate. Now that capitalist democracies are facing seismic and systemic challenges, it becomes increasingly important to investigate not only the inherent antagonism between liberalism and the democratic process, but also socialism. Is socialism an enemy of democracy? Could socialism develop, expand, even enhance democracy? While this volume seeks a reappraisal of existing liberal democracy today, its main goal is to help lay the foundation for new visions and practices in developing a real socialist democracy. Amid the contradictions of neoliberal capitalism today, the responsibility to sort out the relationship between socialism and democracy has never been greater. No revival of socialist politics in the twenty-first century can occur without founding new democratic institutions and practices.
An indispensable and exemplary reference work, this Encyclopedia adeptly navigates the multidisciplinary field of critical political science, providing a comprehensive overview of the methods, approaches, concepts, scholars and journals that have come to influence the disciplineÕs development over the last six decades.