Studies in Critical Social Sciences

5 primary works • 7 total works

Labour Regime Change in the Twenty-First Century

by Tom Brass

Published 1 January 2011

The object is to assess the validity, in the light of current economic development, of the epistemology structuring different historical interpretations linking capitalism, unfreedom and primitive accumulation. Conventional wisdom is that - regarding the incompatibility between capitalism and unfreedom -an unbroken continuity links Marxism to Adam Smith, Malthus, Mill and Max Weber. Challenging this, it is argued Marxism accepts that, where class struggle is global, capitalist producers employ workers who are unfree. The reasons are traced to the conceptualization by Smith of labour as value, by Hegel of labour as property, and by Marx of labour-power as commodity that can be bought/sold. From this stems the free/unfree distinction informing the process of becoming, being, remaining, and acting as a proletariat.

Labour Markets, Identities, Controversies

by Tom Brass

Published 5 January 2017

Debates about labour markets and the identity of those who, in an economic sense, circulate within them, together with the controversies such issues generate, have in the past been confined by development studies to the Third World. Now these same concerns have shifted, as the study of development has turned its attention to how these same phenomena affect metropolitan capitalist nations. For this reason, the book does not restrict the analysis of issues such as the free/unfree labour distinction and non-class identity to Third World contexts. The reviews, review essays and essays collected here also examine similar issues now evident in metropolitan capitalism, together with their political and ideological effects and implications.

Revolution and Its Alternatives

by Tom Brass

Published 6 December 2018

Against the usual argument heard most frequently on the left, that there is no subject for a radical politics together with its form of political mobilization, Tom Brass asserts that there is - but in the absence of a radical leftist project, this subject has in the past transferred, and in many instances is still transferring, his/her support to the radical politics on offer from the other end of the ideological spectrum. The combination of, on the one hand, a globally expanding industrial reserve army, generating ever more intense competition in the labour markets of capitalism, and, on the other, the endorsement by many on the left not of class but rather of non-class identities espoused by the 'new' populist postmodernism, has fuelled what can only be described as a perfect political storm.

Marxism Missing, Missing Marxism

by Tom Brass

Published 15 February 2021

Examining how Marxist theory is missing but necessary, this book traces the theoretical maze in which Marxism currently finds itself, and from which it is trying to exit whilst at the same time remaining epistemologically intact. When stripped of any or all of its core elements - such as class formation/consciousness/struggle, and a socialist transition - it ceases to be what historically Marxists have claimed it is. Consequently, the book constitutes an attempt by Marxist political economy to extricate itself from mistaken attempts to conflate it with the cultural turn, identity politics, bourgeois economics, or varieties of populism and nationalism, together with the danger of not doing so.

Transitions: Methods, Theory, Politics

by Tom Brass

Published 20 October 2022

The focus of this volume is on political discourse about the pattern and desirability of economic development, and how/why historical interpretations of social phenomena connected to this systemic process alter. It is a trajectory pursued here with reference to the materialism of Marxism, via the mid-nineteenth century ideas about race, through the development decade, the ‘cultural turn’, debates about modes of production and their respective labour regimes, culminating in the role played by immigration before and after the Brexit referendum. Also examined is the trajectory followed by travel writing, and how many of its core assumptions overlap with those made in the social sciences and development studies. The object is to account for the way concepts informing these trajectories do or do not alter.

Labor Regime Change In The Twenty-first Century: Unfreedom, Captalism And Primitive Accumulation

by Tom Brass

Published 23 February 2013

With so many political establishments and economic institutions undergoing enormous changes, many economic theories are being called into question. The legitimacy of capitalism is being considered by socialist economists the world over, and critiques of Marxism are attempting to put the school of thought into a more modern context. Labor Regime Change in the Twenty-First Century calls into question the validity of various historical interpretations of capitalism, unfreedom and primitive accumulation based on current economic developments.

Class, Culture and the Agrarian Myth

by Tom Brass

Published 1 January 2014

Using examples from different historical contexts, Class, Culture and the Agrarian Myth examines the relationship between class, nationalism, modernity and the agrarian myth. Essentialising rural identity, traditional culture and quotidian resistance, both aristocratic / plebeian and pastoral / Darwinian forms of agrarian myth discourse inform struggles waged 'from above' and 'from below', surfacing in peasant movements, film and travel writing.