An analysis of Marxist conceptions of the good and the beautiful and their relationship to alienation, “Ugly and Monstrous” argues that Marxism was ultimately a set of aesthetic beliefs, one that paradoxically called for the temporary cessation of all attempts to create beautiful artwork. Marx understood beauty as Kant had – that it is the result of the harmonization of the faculties that occur...

In this chapter we will explore the logic of two broad strategies for constructing the foundations of a theory of emancipatory social alternatives. The first is the theory elaborated first by Karl Marx, historically by far the most important approach to this problem. Even though Marxist perspectives on social change have lost favor among critics of capitalism, the Marxist tradition offers the m...

In this chapter we will explore the logic of two broad strategies for constructing the foundations of a theory of emancipatory social alternatives. The first is the theory elaborated first by Karl Marx, historically by far the most important approach to this problem. Even though Marxist perspectives on social change have lost favor among critics of capitalism, the Marxist tradition offers the m...

There has been a curious gap between theoretical debate and quantitative research on social inequality throughout the history of sociology. The theoretical debates on inequality have above all revolved around the concept of class, and in particular around the adequacy of the Marxist theory of class. From Weber, to Parsons, to Dahrendorf and Giddens, the point of departure of theorizing the natu...

I will elaborate this contribution by briefly distinguishing three general perspectives on economic inequality, which I will refer to as the individual-centered, exclusionary, and exploitation approaches to inequality. Stratification research in American Sociology is most closely associated with the first of these; Weber-inspired approaches to class and inequality with the second; and Marxist c...

T he relationship between shifts in the world market and ideas on economic development in Latin America contrasted sharply with that in Romania before the First World War. In the latter country, market failure, social upheaval, and access to the continuing Russian debate led to new theoretical responses, in both Marxist and non-Marxist discourses; in Latin America, the perceived success of the ...

In the last decades a number of archaeologists have stressed the politically laden nature of creating archaeological knowledge. If this is the case, then in the modern “globalized” Europe any attempt to resurrect the ghost of Marx in any field of scholarship may appear at a first sight unnecessary if not offensive or harmful. Yet, almost twenty years after the fall of the Berlin wall, the time ...

Most population health researchers conceptualize social class as a set of attributes and material conditions of life of individuals. The empiricist tradition of 'class as an individual attribute' equates class to an 'observation', precluding the investigation of unobservable social mechanisms. Another consequence of this view of social class is that it cannot be conceptualized, measured, or int...