The History of Class Struggle: From Original Accumulation to Neoliberalism

Abstract

It has become conventional, even on the left, to believe that the days of class struggle are over. That conviction has, of course, been strengthened by the demise of the Soviet bloc, which capped a protracted defeat of left-wing forces the world over. The idea that there could still emerge a collective subject striving for socialism is rejected in the face of advancing individualization and fragmentation, the contradictory but "successful" functioning of capitalism (the "market economy"), and the apparent exhaustion of all alternatives to it.

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