Rational Choice Marxism

Rational choice Marxism began with promises of clarity and rigour in the construction of historical explanations and social theories. Later it took a 'political turn' in addressing issues of class and production, and the prospects for electoral socialism.

Rational Choice Marxism moves from founding classics -Erik Olin Wright's 'What is Analytical Marxism?' and Alan Carling's spirited challenge to the Marxist establishment — to the critical responses detailed by Ellen Meiksins Weod and Michael Burawoy in previously uncollected debates from New Left Review and Socialist Review. In 'Class, Production and Politics' Adam Przeworski puts rational choice methodology to work on the problem of contemporary electoral socialism. The collection contains critical response's to this from Desmond King and Mark Wickham-Jones (‘Social Democracy and Rational Choic~ Marxism'), and Michael Goldfield and Alan Gilbert ('The Limits of Rational Choice Theory'). Mark Warren writes definitively about 'Marx and Methodological Individualism', and Alan Carling tries to put rational choice Marxism and postmodern feminism into 'A More Meaningful Incomprehension'.

In their introduction the editors argue that the clarity and rigour originally promised by the rational choice Marxists were never in fact achieved, but that rational choice Marxism has considerably enhanced the theoretical treatment of class and production in a world of commodification and difference.