G. A. Cohen, Why Not Socialism?

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Nancy Fraser, Fortunes of Feminism: From Women's Liberation to Identity Politics to Anti-Capitalism

Nancy Fraser, Fortunes of Feminism: From Women's Liberation to Identity Politics to Anti-Capitalism

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Nancy Fraser’s major new book traces the feminist movement’s evolution since the 1970s and anticipates a new—radical and egalitarian—phase of feminist thought and action.During the ferment of the New Left, “Second Wave” feminism emerged as a struggle for women’s liberation and took its place alongside other radical movements that were questioning core features of capitalist society. But feminism’s subsequent immersion in identity politics coincided with a decline in its utopian energies and the rise of neoliberalism. Now, foreseeing a revival in the movement, Fraser argues for a reinvigorated feminist radicalism able to address the global economic crisis. Feminism can be a force working in concert with other egalitarian movements in the struggle to bring the economy under democratic control, while building on the visionary potential of the earlier waves of women’s liberation. This powerful new account is set to become a landmark of feminist thought.

Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny, Socialism Betrayed: Behind the Collapse of the Soviet Union

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"A fresh multi-faceted look at the overthrow of the Soviet State, the dismemberment of the Soviet Union, and the campaign to introduce capitalism from above. Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny have given us a clear and powerful Marxist analysis of the momentous events which most directly shaped world politics today, the destruction of the USSR, the 'Superpower' of socialism." 

-Norman Markowitz, author of The Rise and Fall of the People's Century

"I have not read anything else with such detailed and intimate knowledge of what took place. This manuscript is the most important contribution I have read."
-Phillip Bonosky, author of Afghanistan-Washington's Secret War

"A well-researched work containing a great deal of useful historical information. Everyone will benefit greatly from the mass of historical data and the thought-provoking arguments contained in the book." 

-Bahman Azad, author of Heroic Struggle Bitter Defeat: Factors Contributing to the Dismantling of the Socialist State in the USSR"  

Michel Feher, Self-Appreciation; or, The Aspirations of Human Capital (2009)

Michel Feher, Self-Appreciation; or, The Aspirations of Human Capital (2009)

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MUST-READ: As early as the second half of the nineteenth century, socialist movements largely adopted the Marxist critique of the notion of the free laborer, according to which free laborers are alienated in two senses: they are alienated insofar as they do not have control over their life (i.e., they are denied the ability to choose their activity, while both the means of production and the outcome of their labor belong to others), but they are also alienated insofar as liberal law and ideology rob them of the consciousness of their exploitation (since they are invited to consider themselves as owners of their labor power and thus as subjects endowed with a freedom that is equivalent to that of their employer). However, as mentioned above, socialists did not merely recognize and expose the fictitious and ideological character of the freedom granted to the free worker: they also seized on this construct, both in an effort to bolster the price of labor power (through the work of labor unions) and to criticize working conditions (for violating the essential distinction between man and commodity, between the laborer in his or her inalienable dignity and the labor power that he or she owns and rents out).

This dual way of appropriating the figure of the free worker has allowed the labor movement to achieve considerable victories, compounded in the advent and development of the welfare state in its various dimensions. However, in the past three decades, claims based on class interests (e.g., demands for better wages and better job security) or humanist appeals (e.g., “we are not commodities”) have become less and less successful. Though this evolution, which is distinctive of the neoliberal era, can be read in terms of the crisis of the Fordist socioeconomic compact and its impact on the bargaining power of labor vis-à-vis capital, my contention is that it also reflects the decline of the type of free laborer and its gradual replacement by a new form of subjectivity: human capital. Indeed, as I shall argue, the rise of human capital as a dominant subjective form is a defining feature of neoliberalism.

Peter Singer, Marx: A Very Short Introduction

Peter Singer, Marx: A Very Short Introduction

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Peter Singer identifies the central vision that unifies Marx's thought, enabling us to grasp Marx's views as a whole. He sees him as a philosopher primarily concerned with human freedom, rather than as an economist or a social scientist. In plain English, he explains alienation, historical materialism, the economic theory of Capital, and Marx's ideas of communism, and concludes with an assessment of Marx's legacy.

James Erickson: Political Economy Illustrated, 1958

Cartoon/comic Marxist analysis of the critique of political economy during the Mccarthyist area. 

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George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (1938)

George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (1938)

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“Above all, there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine.”

Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism

Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man Under Socialism

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“With the abolition of private property, then, we shall have true, beautiful, healthy Individualism. Nobody will waste his life in accumulating things, and the symbols for things. One will live. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

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Definitely read his review on Jacobin Magazine before reading this!
Excellent Marxist critique of postcolonial theory and the Subaltern Studies!
In addition, read Chibber’s marvelous essay “On The Decline Of Class Analysis In South Asian Studies”
In addition, read Terry Eagleton’s outstanding critique of Spivak’s ‘post-colonial reason’ here.

A provocative intellectual assault on the Subalternists’ foundational work.
Postcolonial theory has become enormously influential as a framework for understanding the Global South. It is also a school of thought popular because of its rejection of the supposedly universalizing categories of the Enlightenment.
In this devastating critique, mounted on behalf of the radical Enlightenment tradition, Vivek Chibber offers the most comprehensive response yet to postcolonial theory. Focusing on the hugely popular Subaltern Studies project, Chibber shows that its foundational arguments are based on a series of analytical and historical misapprehensions. He demonstrates that it is possible to affirm a universalizing theory without succumbing to Eurocentrism or reductionism.
Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital promises to be a historical milestone in contemporary social theory.

Review

“With its focus on cultural identities and mixtures, postcolonial theory ignored the larger context of capitalist relations and thus limited its scope to Western academia where it excelled in the game of growing and profiting from the liberal guilt feeling. Chibber’s book simply sets the record straight, bringing postcolonialism down from cultural heights to where it belongs, into the very heart of global capitalist processes. The book we were all waiting for, a burst of fresh air dispelling the stale aroma of pseudo-radical academic establishment.” (Slavoj Žižek) “In this scrupulous and perceptive analysis, Vivek Chibber successfully shows that the ‘universalizing categories of Enlightenment thought’ emerge unscathed from the criticisms of postcolonial theorists. He shows further that—perhaps ironically—Subaltern Studies greatly underestimates the role of subaltern agency in bringing about the transformations that they attribute to the European bourgeoisie. Chibber’s analysis also provides a very valuable account of the actual historical sociology of modern European development, of Indian peasant mobilization and activism, and much else. It is a very significant contribution.” (Noam Chomsky )
“In this outstanding work—a model of clarity in its architecture and argumentation—key theorists of the ‘Subaltern’ and of postcoloniality have met their most formidable interlocutor and critic yet. Chibber’s critique of postcolonial theory and the historical sociological studies associated with it is, at the same time, a vigorous and welcome defense of the enduring value of certain Enlightenment universals as an analytical framework to both understand and radically change the world we live in” (Achin Vanaik )
“Vivek Chibber has written a stunning critique of postcolonial theory as represented by the Subaltern Studies school. While eschewing all polemics, he shows that their project is undermined by their paradoxical acceptance of an essentially liberal-Whig interpretation of the bourgeois revolutions and capitalist development in the West, which provides the foundation for their fundamental assertion of the difference of the East. Through a series of painstaking empirical and conceptual studies Chibber proceeds to overturn the central pillars of the Subalternists’ framework, while sustaining the credibility of Enlightenment theories. It is a bravura performance that cannot help but shake up our intellectual and political landscape.” (Robert Brenner )
“Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital is a must-read book for students of comparative politics and social theory. Vivek Chibber presents a forceful challenge to the Subaltern Studies school and to postcolonial theory more broadly. Arguing with great clarity, Chibber raises fundamental objections to their ideas about capitalism, power, and agency, and presents an alternative account of these ideas. Most fundamentally, he rejects the fundamental division between ‘East and West’ associated with postcolonial theory and defends the ‘universalizing categories of Enlightenment thought.’ This is a major contribution that is bound to reshape debate on these important issues.” (Joshua Cohen )
“In this book, Vivek Chibber has carried out a thoroughgoing dissection of Subaltern Studies. Like a highly skilled anatomist, he lays bare the skeleton, the nervous system, the arteries and veins of this school … In the process the reader is also exposed to the nitty-gritty of a materialist historiography.” (Amiya Kumar Bagchi )

About the Author

Vivek Chibber is Associate Professor of Sociology at New York University. He has contributed to, among others, the Socialist Register, American Journal of Sociology, Boston Review and New Left Review. His book Locked in Place: State-Building and Late Industrialization in India won the 2005 Barrington Moore Book Award and was one of Choice‘s Outstanding Academic Titles of 2004.

Introduction to this blog

Ebookcollective was a tumblr blog that was designated to distribute free leftist-related ebooks to educate the left in regards to theory. In many cases, the blog ended up helping lower-middle class students, who couldn't afford to buy these books or were afraid of possible malware or viruses when trying to find the book. It was also an intellectual center, a center where people learned about theory and were introduced with books that might enlighten them. Overall, it was a collective area and an example of socialist theory in work. Yes, it might be the internet, but the website was an example of socialism in work—with the end of privatization of leftist literature and a path towards creating class-conscious workers. With the fact that the capitalist atmosphere dominates the Tumblr site and the corporate minds behind the staff, it was deleted for “copyright infringement”, even though most of the published texts were hundred years old (which allows the text to be distributed publicly).

Tumblr staff has a record of not responding to the harassment tumblr users received on a regular basis, but quickly responds to the interest of the corporate welfare or for the bourgeoisie’s interest. It’s logically simple because of their interest in capitalist accumulation.

Even if the founders of the blog were Leninists (Trotskyists), all ebooks—whether it be anarchist to Maoist were allowed. As the blog expanded, other leftists—who were Maoists, anarchists, etc., contributed to the blog. Even if we disagreed vastly with the theories, it was a collective site where people were given the option to uphold whatever they pleased.

But if the founders were Trotskyists, why would they give permission to uphold ebooks that were against the Leninist foundations? It’s not like the founders necessarily agreed with the theories, but rather they remembered what Lenin said in <i>What is to be Done?</i>, “Without any revolutionary theory, there cannot be any revolutionary practice”. Even as Bolshevik-Leninists, we must be enlightened and be well-versed in all theories, so that we can prove continuously for its erroneous mistakes—like what Marx, Engles, Lenin and Trotsky did. Lenin said famously in <em>The Three Sources and Three Components of Marxism</em>, “The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true”. Of course it is! However, as Marxists, we must prove that it is true, and why it is true with dialectical materialist analysis. We can’t arrogantly say that it is true without backing up with a materialist analysis. We wouldn’t be even considered Marxists, but a petty-bourgeois leftist who blabbers more than reads!

We want to create an anti-capitalist atmosphere by giving access to workers free ebooks. In reality, people can’t really afford to buy Das Kapital from their local bookstore or end up receiving a fine from the library for an overdue Das Kapital! We must understand that the bourgeoisie has privatized education as such that it’s only accessible for the bourgeoisie, which leaves the proletariat ignorant, hence adapting the philistine culture of capitalism. Not all workers were born with Engels’ Principles of Communism attached to their backs! Class-consciousness is not something tangible, where it can be inserted in one’s brain, but it’s a self-identity the proletariat must find—reading being one of the options.

This blog is not to create a reflection of the successful attempt to create a centralized location of leftist literature, but to further expand our blog. As of now, there is an Ebookcollective in Farsi and in Bengali—thanks to our Persian and Bengali comrades. By, allowing comrades to participate and contribute, regardless of the theory, is a step forward to a socialist revolution and democratic centralism in praxis.

As for many, Ebookcollective was an attempt in universaling free leftist literature—but don’t give up on the site yet! There are and will be several attempts in creating the new one. As of now, we have moved to blogspot, where we expect not to violate any bourgeois perspective of copyright infringement.

The neoliberal cult that has actively suppressed numerous of sites that have been dedicated to distributing media exemplifies the contradictions of capitalism. Of course, we Marxists are well-versed with the concept of M-C-M’ and how it is being applied to the printing/publishing press; we understand the whole vulgar concept that ‘the authors are workers—rather being mental workers than physical’. But then we must realize that authors are being extracted surplus value for the capitalists to accumulate capital. One of the absurdities of capitalism include the fact that not paying for the commodity (books) but rather than ‘stealing it online’ is a violation. What people neglect is that the writers are being paid less not because it’s free online, but the corporate profit over the surplus value produced in writing it. With the bourgeois democracy in taken, illegitimate laws are formed to defend the corporate—creating the allusion that it’s the author’s rights.

Nevertheless, our struggle to create a centralized location for leftist literature will continue and it will be always on the proletariat side!

If you are interested in contributing to the blog, please email us at <a href="mailto:ebookcollective@gmail.com">ebookcollective@gmail.com</a> as of now. We will soon find an option for open submission. Thank you.