Marx's inferno : the political theory of capital / William Clare Roberts.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Roberts, William Clare, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321. Inferno.

Marx, Karl, 1818-1883. Kapital.

Capitalism--Political aspects.

Capitalism.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (299 pages)

Place of Publication:

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, [2016]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Marx's Inferno reconstructs the major arguments of Karl Marx's Capital and inaugurates a completely new reading of a seminal classic. Rather than simply a critique of classical political economy, William Roberts argues that Capital was primarily a careful engagement with the motives and aims of the workers' movement. Understood in this light, Capital emerges as a profound work of political theory. Placing Marx against the background of nineteenth-century socialism, Roberts shows how Capital was ingeniously modeled on Dante's Inferno, and how Marx, playing the role of Virgil for the proletariat, introduced partisans of workers' emancipation to the secret depths of the modern "social Hell." In this manner, Marx revised republican ideas of freedom in response to the rise of capitalism.Combining research on Marx's interlocutors, textual scholarship, and forays into recent debates, Roberts traces the continuities linking Marx's theory of capitalism to the tradition of republican political thought. He immerses the reader in socialist debates about the nature of commerce, the experience of labor, the power of bosses and managers, and the possibilities of political organization. Roberts rescues those debates from the past, and shows how they speak to ever-renewed concerns about political life in today's world.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

A Note on References and Translations

1. Introduction: Rereading Capital

2. Taenarus: The Road to Hell

3. Styx: The Anarchy of the Market

4. Dis: Capitalist Exploitation as Force Contrary to Nature

5. Malebolge: The Capitalist Mode of Production as Fraud

6. Cocytus: Treachery and the Necessity of Expropriation

7. Conclusion: Purgatory, or the Social Republic

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Previously issued in print: 2018.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 259-276) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Mai 2019)

ISBN:

9780691180816

0691180814

OCLC:

1011017802