Are the concepts of labor and of production adaptable to a developing industrial society? What is the meaning of "pre-industrial organization"? In attempting to answer these questions, Jean Baudrillard examines the lessons of Marxism, which has created a productivist model and a fetishism of labor. He argues that we must break the mirror of production, which "reflects all of Western metaphysics," and free the Marxist logic from the restrictive context of political economy whence it was born.

The Mirror of Production

Jean Baudrillard

Business & Money

Telos Press Ltd.

From his protest against Bebel's exclusion of the anarchists from the Second International in 1893 until his murder in 1919 by the reactionary troops supppressing the Bavarian revolution, Landauer remained a tireless critic of all forms of bureaucratism and an advocate of a decentralized, libertarian socialism. A friend of Buber, his influence also extended into the anarcho-socialist trends of the early Zionist movement and the development of the Kibbutz. Originally published in 1911, For Socialism is a critique of an official Marxism that had become an obstacle to emancipation. It anticipates much of critical theory's vindication of subjectivity, its critique of scientistic ideology, its rejection of a determinist historiography. For Socialism unites themes from a wide range of radical currents that have been hitherto repressed by the guardians of orthodox Marxism.

For Socialism

Politics & Social Sciences

Gustav Landauer

Politics & Government

Although Mallet was one of the leading left theoreticians in France during the 1960s, his work remains virtually unknown to the English speaking world. His writings reflect his constant concern for understanding the true sources of the rebellion manifesting itself in the French factories and universities, coming to a head in May 1968. But Mallet's concerns are universal, notwithstanding his French orientation. His essays in this volume furnish insight into the nature of the oppression experienced by nearly all workers in advanced capitalist countries.

Essays on the New Working Class

Serge Mallet

Sociology

Political Plays for Children

Children's Books

Arts, Music & Photography

Having been sought in the sphere of economic production for too long, according to Jean Baudrillard, the mainspring of modern society must be located in the sphere of consumption and of the cultural system in general. As with artistic, intellectual, and scientific production, culture is immediately produced as sign and as exchange value. Hence, in modern society consumption defines the stages where the commodity is immediately produced as sign, and signs as commodities. This collection of essays attempts an analysis of the sign form in the same way that Marx's critique of political economy sought an analysis of the commodity form: as the commodity is at the same time both exchange value and use value, the sign is both signifier and signified. Thus, it necessitates an analysis on two levels, with the author confronting all of the conceptual obstacles of semiology in order to provide the same radical critique that Marx developed of classical political economy.

For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign

The Genesis of Capitalism and the Origins of Modernity

Why is it that in the West--and only in the West--there has been a transition from a static to a self-propulsive economy? Through what combination of circumstances has a modern industrial society come into being? What combination of circumstances has made possible the global expansion of Europe? Luciano Pellicani answers these questions by showing first of all the sterile and misleading character of the two main theories which have hiterto dominated the debate concerning the genesis of capitalism: Marx's theory of original accumulation and Weber's theory of the Protestant ethic. Subsequently, using the methods of comparative marcrosociology, Pellicani develops a hypothesis originally entertained by both Marx and Weber, whereby the mystery of capitalist society is solved in terms of collective subjects, structural factors and historical conditions that triggered the mechanisms of a permanent capitalist revolution. The result is a fascinating reconstruction of the extraordinary adventure which led Europe to the Great Transformation and, through it, the construction of a qualitatively new kind of civilization, predicated on ratio, acquisitive-competitive individualism and experimentation in all fields--a civilization exhibiting an extraordinary expansionist power and, because of it, inherently imperialistic, whose driving institution has been, and remains, the market.

Luciano Pellicani

Philosophy

Why is it that in the West--and only in the West--there has been a transition from a static to a self-propulsive economy? Through what combination of circumstances has a modern industrial society come into being? What combination of circumstances has made possible the global expansion of Europe? Luciano Pellicani answers these questions by showing first of all the sterile and misleading character of the two main theories which have hiterto dominated the debate concerning the genesis of capitalism: Marx's theory of original accumulation and Weber's theory of the Protestant ethic. Subsequently, using the methods of comparative marcrosociology, Pellicani develops a hypothesis originally entertained by both Marx and Weber, whereby the mystery of capitalist society is solved in terms of collective subjects, structural factors and historical conditions that triggered the mechanisms of a permanent capitalist revolution. The result is a fascinating reconstruction of the extraordinary adventure which led Europe to the Great Transformation and, through it, the construction of a qualitatively new kind of civilization, predicated on ratio, acquisitive-competitive individualism and experimentation in all fields--a civilization exhibiting an extraordinary expansionist power and, because of it, inherently imperialistic, whose driving institution has been, and remains, the market.

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Books by Telos Press Ltd.

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Telos Press Ltd. publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Mirror of Production

For Socialism

Essays on the New Working Class

Political Plays for Children

For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign

The Genesis of Capitalism and the Origins of Modernity

The Genesis of Capitalism and the Origins of Modernity