Kirjahaku

This book rethinks Marx's sociology as a form of realist social theory, extending Roy Bhaskar's philosophical realism into the social sciences. By constructing historical materialism as realist social theory, it becomes possible to resolve many long standing dilemmas in Marxist discourse, such as voluntarism versus determinism and humanism versus economism.

In tackling emergentist Marxism in depth, this well-written volume demonstrates that critical realism and materialist dialectics are indispensable to theorizing the functioning of complex social and physical systems. Author Sean Creaven investigates Marx’s dialectics of being and consciousness, forces and relations of production, base and superstructure, class structure and class conflict, and demonstrates how they allow the social analyst to conceptualize geo-history as embodying a tendential evolutionary directionality, rather than as simply random or indeterminate in terms of its outcomes. For those interested in social and political theory, Marxism and communism and contemporary social theory, this outstanding volume is an in important read and a valuable resource.

This book rethinks Marx's sociology as a form of realist social theory, extending Roy Bhaskar's philosophical realism into the social sciences. By constructing historical materialism as realist social theory, it becomes possible to resolve many long standing dilemmas in Marxist discourse, such as voluntarism versus determinism and humanism versus economism.

The argument presented in this book is that the recent ‘spiritual’ trajectory of Roy Bhaskar’s work, upon which he first embarked with the publication of his From East to West, undermines the fundamental achievements of his earlier work. The problem with Bhaskar’s new philosophical system (Transcendental Dialectical Critical Realism or simply Meta-Reality), from the critical-realist Marxist perspective endorsed here, is that it marks both a departure from and a negation of the earlier concerns of Bhaskar to develop a realist philosophy of science and under-labour for an emancipatory materialist socio-historical science. The end-result is a meta-philosophy which is irrealist, speculative, under-theorized, internally self-contradictory, and which cannot provide philosophical guidance to liberatory social practices. In opposition to theist ontological logics more generally (including the rather more rational theism presented by Margaret Archer, Andrew Collier and Doug Porpora), the argument of this book is that the earth-bound materialist dialectics of the classical Marxist tradition, and the naturalistic humanism these dialectics under-labour on the terrain of socio-historical being, offer a much more promising way forward for critical realist theory and for liberatory politics and ethics.

The argument presented in this book is that the recent ‘spiritual’ trajectory of Roy Bhaskar’s work, upon which he first embarked with the publication of his From East to West, undermines the fundamental achievements of his earlier work. The problem with Bhaskar’s new philosophical system (Transcendental Dialectical Critical Realism or simply Meta-Reality), from the critical-realist Marxist perspective endorsed here, is that it marks both a departure from and a negation of the earlier concerns of Bhaskar to develop a realist philosophy of science and under-labour for an emancipatory materialist socio-historical science. The end-result is a meta-philosophy which is irrealist, speculative, under-theorized, internally self-contradictory, and which cannot provide philosophical guidance to liberatory social practices. In opposition to theist ontological logics more generally (including the rather more rational theism presented by Margaret Archer, Andrew Collier and Doug Porpora), the argument of this book is that the earth-bound materialist dialectics of the classical Marxist tradition, and the naturalistic humanism these dialectics under-labour on the terrain of socio-historical being, offer a much more promising way forward for critical realist theory and for liberatory politics and ethics.

In tackling emergentist Marxism in depth, this well-written volume demonstrates that critical realism and materialist dialectics are indispensable to theorizing the functioning of complex social and physical systems. Author Sean Creaven investigates Marx’s dialectics of being and consciousness, forces and relations of production, base and superstructure, class structure and class conflict, and demonstrates how they allow the social analyst to conceptualize geo-history as embodying a tendential evolutionary directionality, rather than as simply random or indeterminate in terms of its outcomes. For those interested in social and political theory, Marxism and communism and contemporary social theory, this outstanding volume is an in important read and a valuable resource.

This book offers a political analysis and sociological critique of the UK government’s response to the novel coronavirus outbreak, interpreting the inadequacies of government policy with regard to COVID-19 as the results of neoliberal ideology, the protection of corporate interests, Brexit nationalism, and the peculiarities of a British model of capitalism based on international trade and labour market precarity. Arguing that institutionalized corporate-capitalist control of state and science generates new and growing public health risks, and that consumer-driven individualism has eroded community life and the protections this might offer against pandemics, the author contends that the UK government’s catastrophic response to the COVID-19 pandemic was the result of peculiarly British socioeconomic and political phenomena.The Pandemic in Britain will appeal to scholars of sociology, philosophy and politics with interests in the COVID-19 pandemic as well as neoliberal ideology and its manifestation in political life.

This book offers a political analysis and sociological critique of the UK government’s response to the novel coronavirus outbreak, interpreting the inadequacies of government policy with regard to COVID-19 as the results of neoliberal ideology, the protection of corporate interests, Brexit nationalism, and the peculiarities of a British model of capitalism based on international trade and labour market precarity. Arguing that institutionalized corporate-capitalist control of state and science generates new and growing public health risks, and that consumer-driven individualism has eroded community life and the protections this might offer against pandemics, the author contends that the UK government’s catastrophic response to the COVID-19 pandemic was the result of peculiarly British socioeconomic and political phenomena.The Pandemic in Britain will appeal to scholars of sociology, philosophy and politics with interests in the COVID-19 pandemic as well as neoliberal ideology and its manifestation in political life.

Modernity and the Pandemic: Decivilization, Imperialism, and COVID-19 applies the tools of critical social theory to make sense of the COVID-19 crisis and presents a critical sociological analysis of aspects of the political and community response to the pandemic. The book focuses on key themes integral to a sociology of pandemics in the “global” age. Firstly, Creaven argues that cultures of individualism and consumerism, and of pervasive and deeply entrenched social inequalities (that is, decivilization), significantly weaken the cause of public health by weakening the compliance of people with state-mandated non-pharmaceutical interventions (including and especially physical distancing rules) and encouraging vaccine hesitancy. Secondly, Creaven examines how interstate competition and imperial politics have undermined an effective global policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Policy failure with regard to the management of the pandemic is interpreted as being rooted in the dominance of neoliberal ideology and governance in the politics of international relations, particularly in the politics of the leading state actors, by protecting corporate interests at the expense of public health, and in the constraints imposed on state actors by the competitive dynamic of multinational capitalism in the “global” age. Modernity and the Pandemic will appeal to scholars in the humanities and social sciences with interests in neoliberalism and its social, cultural, and epidemiological impacts.

Modernity and the Pandemic: Decivilization, Imperialism, and COVID-19 applies the tools of critical social theory to make sense of the COVID-19 crisis and presents a critical sociological analysis of aspects of the political and community response to the pandemic. The book focuses on key themes integral to a sociology of pandemics in the “global” age. Firstly, Creaven argues that cultures of individualism and consumerism, and of pervasive and deeply entrenched social inequalities (that is, decivilization), significantly weaken the cause of public health by weakening the compliance of people with state-mandated non-pharmaceutical interventions (including and especially physical distancing rules) and encouraging vaccine hesitancy. Secondly, Creaven examines how interstate competition and imperial politics have undermined an effective global policy response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Policy failure with regard to the management of the pandemic is interpreted as being rooted in the dominance of neoliberal ideology and governance in the politics of international relations, particularly in the politics of the leading state actors, by protecting corporate interests at the expense of public health, and in the constraints imposed on state actors by the competitive dynamic of multinational capitalism in the “global” age. Modernity and the Pandemic will appeal to scholars in the humanities and social sciences with interests in neoliberalism and its social, cultural, and epidemiological impacts.

Contagion Capitalism situates the COVID-19 pandemic within the systems of global political economy and their attendant cultural modes and theorizes that these systems act as facilitators and drivers of global pandemic risk.Contagion Capitalism therefore critiques the institutionalized corporate-capitalist control of the economy, the state, and science, and the grave consequences this has on global public health policy, the ecological crisis of sustainability, and zoonotic pandemic events such as COVID-19. In doing so, this book addresses the failings of what may be termed as “state science” or “establishment science” in managing the pandemic, as personified especially by those elements of the scientific elite placed in the service of the neoliberal state. This book also explores the limitations of corporate pharmacological technoscience in safeguarding public health, arguing that “Big Pharma” offers only partial remedies for problems of human illness and well-being, poses its own dangers to public health, and obfuscates the social bases of public ill-health and of pandemic risk. Contagion Capitalism further argues that COVID-19 will not be the last or even the most dangerous such epidemiological event. This is because the social production and global dissemination of zoonotic diseases is integral to contemporary capitalism, by virtue of its instrumental mode of science, its central dynamic of production for the sake of accumulation, and the consumer mode this sustains as its own condition of existence. These are the drivers of what may be termed as zoonotic accelerationism.Contagion Capitalism will appeal to scholars in the humanities and social sciences with interests in neoliberal ideology and global political economy, and their impact upon social, political and cultural life.

Contagion Capitalism situates the COVID-19 pandemic within the systems of global political economy and their attendant cultural modes and theorizes that these systems act as facilitators and drivers of global pandemic risk.Contagion Capitalism therefore critiques the institutionalized corporate-capitalist control of the economy, the state, and science, and the grave consequences this has on global public health policy, the ecological crisis of sustainability, and zoonotic pandemic events such as COVID-19. In doing so, this book addresses the failings of what may be termed as “state science” or “establishment science” in managing the pandemic, as personified especially by those elements of the scientific elite placed in the service of the neoliberal state. This book also explores the limitations of corporate pharmacological technoscience in safeguarding public health, arguing that “Big Pharma” offers only partial remedies for problems of human illness and well-being, poses its own dangers to public health, and obfuscates the social bases of public ill-health and of pandemic risk. Contagion Capitalism further argues that COVID-19 will not be the last or even the most dangerous such epidemiological event. This is because the social production and global dissemination of zoonotic diseases is integral to contemporary capitalism, by virtue of its instrumental mode of science, its central dynamic of production for the sake of accumulation, and the consumer mode this sustains as its own condition of existence. These are the drivers of what may be termed as zoonotic accelerationism.Contagion Capitalism will appeal to scholars in the humanities and social sciences with interests in neoliberal ideology and global political economy, and their impact upon social, political and cultural life.

Drawing upon a range of resources of critique (including critical realist social theory, realist international relations theory, the sociology of globalization, the Marxist critique of imperialism, and dependency theory), this book is an essential contribution to the critical understanding of nationalism and imperialism in the global age. It conducts a sustained and in-depth analysis of the relations between the asymmetry in the distribution of economic resources and powers of command, and the recent play of political events involving imperialist wars, including the Russo-Ukrainian and Israeli-Hamas wars. Crucially, the author argues that establishing these connections requires theorizing political economy in the so-called global age as comprised of neoimperial and neoliberal orders. As such, the book offers a new interpretation of the relations between neoliberalism and neoimperialism, and between modes of organizing social relations and resulting global disorders and instabilities. This will therefore be of interest to researchers, scholars, and students working at the intersection of global political economy, international relations, and the sociology of globalization.

The failure of social philosophers to make sense of an object of knowledge that embodies real divisions and polarities has generated a fundamental problem of social theory: the fallacy of reductive-conflationary analytical and explanatory models in sociological research. This book seeks to define the problem of sociology as one of developing appropriate theoretical and methodological tools for describing and analysing a multi-faceted social reality. Through an extensive critical review of the major traditions of social theory from the perspective of social realism, this book develops the argument that social theory to date has been hamstrung by its resort to conflationary-reductive analytical modes. Part I presents a realist critique of the traditional rivals of holism and individualism while Part II offers a realist critique of the major paradigms of sociological elisionism. In Part III the author builds on these critiques by exploring how the ontology of social realism can sustain a robust social theory that resolves the traditional dilemmas and antinomies. Deploying this social realism as a tool of explanatory critique of influential sociological theories of contemporary society, such as risk, liquid modernity, reflexive modernity, and postmodernity, this book is essential reading for students and scholars of critical theory, critical realism, philosophy and sociology.

Critical Realism and Criminological Theory represents an attempt to revitalise the project of The New Criminology, accomplished by means of a critical review of key theoretical perspectives in criminology, and the attempt to synthesise the usable and valuable elements of these into a fully integrated social theory. Criminological theories are not necessarily mutually incompatible competitors, but offer partial insights into a multi-faceted social world. The problem of each tends to be that of over-generalisation. This critical review will be based on and informed by the social ontology of Critical Realism, a new perspective in the philosophy of social science. This is necessary because CR provides a coherent account of how to reconcile the positivist (causal) and interpretivist (voluntary and meaningful) dimensions of social life within a sociological theory of contemporary society. This book will be of great interest to academics and students of critial realism as well as those researching criminological theory.