{"id":177069,"date":"2021-01-18T12:00:09","date_gmt":"2021-01-18T12:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=177069"},"modified":"2025-01-10T15:03:39","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T15:03:39","slug":"between-capitalism-and-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/01\/between-capitalism-and-community\/","title":{"rendered":"Between Capitalism and Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In this book, Michael Lebowitz deepens the arguments he made in his award-winning Beyond Capital<\/em>. Karl Marx, in Capital<\/em>, focused on capital and the capitalist class that is its embodiment. It is the endless accumulation of capital, its causes and consequences, that are central to Marx\u2019s analysis. In taking this approach, Marx tended to obscure not only the centrality of capital\u2019s \u201cimmanent drive\u201d and \u201cconstant tendency\u201d to divide the working class but also the political economy of the working class (\u201csocial production controlled by social foresight\u201d). In Between Capitalism and Community<\/em>, Lebowitz demonstrates that capitalism contains within itself elements of a different society, one of community.<\/p>\n

Whereas Marx\u2019s intellectual construct of capitalism treats it as an organic system that reproduces its premises of capital and wage-labor (including a working class that looks upon the requirements of capital \u201cas self-evident natural laws\u201d), Lebowitz argues that the struggle of workers in common and activities based upon solidarity point in the direction of the organic system of community, an alternative system that produces its own premises, communality, and recognition of the needs of others. If we are to escape the ultimate barbarism portended by the existing crisis of the earth system, the subordination of the system of capitalism by that of community is essential. Since the interregnum in which capitalism and community coexist is marked by the interpenetration and mutual deformation of both sides within this whole, however, the path to community cannot emerge spontaneously but requires a revolutionary party that stresses the development of the capacities of people through their protagonism.<\/p>\n

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This book should be mandatory for all economics, political science, and social philosophy classes. Comrades\u2014especially younger ones\u2014will find it immensely helpful for years to come. The sweep of the work is truly impressive; comprehensive and clear on everything essential for understanding the horrors of capitalism and the paths toward a better world. In this period of political madness, Lebowitz\u2019s message of political hope could not be timelier.<\/p>\n

****************************<\/p>\n

\u2014Tony Smith, Professor of Philosophy and Political Science, Iowa State University; author, Beyond Liberal Egalitarianism: Marx and Normative Social Theory for the Twenty-First Century<\/em><\/p>\n

This book is in the Monthly Review tradition of not only showing with great perspicacity the breadth and depth of Marx\u2019s remarkable examination of capitalist society, but also understanding that radical scholars have an obligation to further deepen and extend Marx\u2019s work. In twelve concisely and clearly written chapters, Lebowitz, among the best radical economists in the world, shows that in Capital<\/em>, Marx failed to fully appreciate that the accumulation of capital results in two products\u2014commodities of all kinds and the workers themselves. The latter, the \u2018second product\u2019 of capitalist production, is shaped by capital so that the working class is both badly divided and not fully cognizant of an all-encompassing alienation. Equally missing from Capital<\/em> is a full grasp of how the collective actions of workers not only improve their life circumstances but also radically change them, preparing them to become society\u2019s eventual protagonists, those who will abolish capitalism and create the collective commonwealth, which alone can overcome the multiple crises that now confront us, especially ecological disaster.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014Michael D. Yates, author, Can the Working Class Change the World?<\/em><\/p>\n

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In this admirable and timely book Michael Lebowitz deepens and extends the understanding of capitalism that he developed in his prize-winning Beyond Capital. He argues persuasively that building critically on Marx\u2019s conceptualisation of capitalism as an organic system is indispensable to diagnosing the ills of the contemporary world\u2014in particular the growing \u2018crisis of the Earth System\u2019 that threatens to overwhelm us. In conclusion Lebowitz draws on his considerable practical experience of contemporary socialist movements to map out the path to Community\u2014the alternative system that represents our sole means of escape from this crisis.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\u2014Alex Callinicos, former Professor of European Studies, King\u2019s College London<\/p>\n

In this insightful contribution Michael Lebowitz continues to rigorously demonstrate the one sidedness of Marx\u2019s understanding of capitalism in Capital<\/em> and shifts Marxism, as a dialectical and systems view of the world, to new ground. A powerful theoretical argument is made for the system of organic community, both as crucial for Marxist thought and as a terrain of struggle to achieve the political economy of the working class. Lebowitz\u2019s contribution is indispensable to the renewal of Marxism and socialism in the 21st century. It is essential reading to understand the importance of solidarity in these times of senile and catastrophic capitalism.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014Vishwas Satgar, Principal Investigator Emancipatory Futures Studies; Editor of the Democratic Marxism series, University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa<\/p>\n

This book is a provocation, as much for traditional Marxists as for the various schools of nontraditional Marxism. It puts the question on the table of whether Marx\u2019s Capital<\/em>\u00a0could be an obstacle for understanding class struggle and revolutionary practice. Michael Lebowitz questions what is taken for granted by the majority of Marxists. He draws conclusions from this critique, which also influences the offered vision of a non-capitalist future. This book, a peak in his series of interconnected books starting in 1992 with his Beyond Capital<\/em>, is extremely important, scientifically as well as politically. It will provoke exactly the deep theoretical struggle that a non-dogmatic, non-authoritarian left needs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014Michael Heinrich, author,\u00a0Karl Marx and the Birth of Modern Society<\/em><\/p>\n

For some time now Michael Lebowitz has been patiently and provocatively remaking our conception of Marx\u2019s Capital and the potentials for human development. In standing against a \u2018one-sided\u2019 reading of Marx for an insistence on seeing workers struggling to make their own world, Lebowitz has pushed to the side stale, top-down theses of social transformation through statist planning set apart from workers\u2019 organization and participation. Indeed, in his essential new book it is the building of workers\u2019 capacities and communities that transforms circumstances and contexts in a process of contested reproduction against capital. This is a directive to think of community not as a romanticized place standing against the storms of an outside world, but community as a process of struggle to meet and self-govern over common needs against the ceaseless demands of accumulation, alienated work, and the vandalism of the earth. Could any text be more important to read, discuss and debate in the harsh times we face today?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014Greg Albo, Professor of Political Economy, York University; coeditor, The Socialist Register 2021: Beyond Digital Capitalism<\/em><\/p>\n

Michael Lebowitz is certainly no faithful disciple of Marx. But he can claim to incarnate the best type of \u2018Marxist\u2019 that we need to break the circle of the capitalist rush to the destruction of the planet and the post-socialist ideological paralysis: resuming the critique of the economy at the point of Ricardo\u2019s default, where Marx himself had backed, and pushing the dialectical idea of \u2018contested reproduction\u2019 to the lively conflict of the two histories that inhabit our world and our lives. A book as clear and straightforward as it is radical.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014Etienne Balibar, coauthor, Reading Capital<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Michael A. Lebowitz<\/span> is professor emeritus of economics at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, and the author of several books including The Socialist Imperative<\/em>, The Contradictions of \u201cReal Socialism\u201d<\/em>, and The Socialist Alternative<\/em>. He was Director, Program in Transformative Practice and Human Development, Centro Internacional Miranda, in Caracas, Venezuela, from 2006-11.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

Michael A. Lebowitz<\/span> is professor emeritus of economics at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, and the author of several books including <\/em>The Socialist Imperative, The Contradictions of \u201cReal Socialism\u201d, and<\/em> The Socialist Alternative. He was Director, Program in Transformative Practice and Human Development, Centro Internacional Miranda, in Caracas, Venezuela, from 2006-11.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – monthlyreview.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this book, Michael Lebowitz deepens the arguments he made in his award-winning Beyond Capital. Karl Marx, in Capital, focused on capital and the capitalist class that is its embodiment. It is the endless accumulation of capital, its causes and consequences, that are central to Marx\u2019s analysis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":177073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[232,907,271,1778,1041,1022,2198,870],"class_list":["post-177069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-capitalism","tag-communism","tag-community","tag-conflict-analysis","tag-karl-marx","tag-marxism","tag-post-capitalism","tag-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284886,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177069\/revisions\/284886"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}