Marxism

The life and work of Antonio Gramsci are inseparable. To grasp the coherence and theoretical depth of the Prison Notebooks, one must read them in the context in which they were written.

An Irish landowner, economist, philosopher and defender of women’s rights, William Thompson was one of the greatest Socialist figures before Marx. Nowadays neglected, his thought nevertheless has many echoes with important contemporary debates, from the critique of capitalism to the rise of feminism.

The most influential doctrines (Liberal, Socialist, Marxist) that have competed since the 19^th century to define the future of industrial society are all designed to support a productivist society. This hegemony has marginalised the ecological alternatives. Is their dominance coming to an end?

Using a variety of documents and sources, Louis Pinto traces the genesis of the category of “the consumer” as a central feature of market economy and society. But in doing so, he risks downplaying the insights of critical theory and the opportunities for politicization tied to this distinct form of social participation.

Has the digital economy definitively made the main tools of Marxist analysis obsolete? This is Mariano Zukerfeld’s argument, in a lively essay that suggests rethinking the critique of capitalism around the question of knowledge rather than labour. However, his demonstration lacks a convincing theory of value.

In three essays previously unpublished in French, Max Scheler describes the ethical revolution brought about by the capitalist mentality. Since the 19^th century, consciousness has been shaped by the very idea of work, as embodied by the modern entrepreneur.

For more than thirty years, Joan Scott has been informing and transforming both our history and the way we write history, while encouraging us to question categories and change our modes of thinking. From class struggle to sex differentiation, sexual emancipation and race, she proposes a critical analysis of Republican rhetoric to undermine naturalized forms of inequality.

Is scientific progress necessarily moral? In his history of experiments on human guinea pigs, Grégoire Chamayou attempts to show that modern science, although apparently neutral, has a share in the domination and exploitation of individuals whose existence is deemed insignificant.