Knowledge and Class: A Marxian Critique of Political Economy
Stephen A. Resnick and Richard D. Wolff
This is a highly controversial and innovative work on Marxian theory. The book ranges from subtle theoretical analyses of the epistemological foundation of currently predominant Marxist interpretations, to the theory of the firm, and to a new interpretation of the State in market economies. Resnick and Wolff are rejecting economic determinisms of all kinds. Actually, they are rethinking Marxism.
Claude MenardThis book is remarkable in many ways. Its writing, for example, is remarkably clear, but, more importantly, the argumentation is remarkably liberating in the context of traditional Marxist discourse. Wolff and Resnick successfully undermine Marxist dogmas, expose the rigid ways in which Marxists tend to use concepts such as economic determinism and class, and indicate the possibilities for a new reading of Marx's work. Their book will challenge established Marxist thinking and stimulate a Marxist approach that is 'open' in the sense that it is self-conscious of its own process. The book is important reading for Marxists. The book will also be of interest to critics of conventional economic methodology. I perceive, namely, remarkable similarities with recent work that conceives orthodox economics as a form of rhetoric or as distinctive discursive practices.
Arjo Klamer
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Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff are Professors of Economics at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and authors of numerous articles and books on Marxian theory and economics, including Economics: Marxian versus Neoclassical and (with Harriett Fraad) Bringing It All Back Home: Class, Gender, and Power in the Modern Household .
Knowledge and Class was published in 1987 by the University of Chicago Press.
For more information on this and related works in the overdeterminist tradition of Marxism, visit the Resnick-Wolff web-site: www.umass.edu/~resnick-wolff/
Contents
- A Marxian Theory
- Marxian Epistemology: The Critique of Economic Determinism
- A Marxian Theory of Classes
- Class Analysis: A Marxian Theory of the Enterprise
- Class Analysis: A Marxian Theory of the State
