1st Edition

The Sociology of Postmarxism

By Richard Howson Copyright 2017
160 Pages
by Routledge

160 Pages
by Routledge

160 Pages
by Routledge

Postmarxism is often depicted as a point of intersection for a set of inter-disciplinary theories that are in themselves complex and dense. Bringing the postmarxist theory of Ernesto Laclau into the field of political sociology through a close reading and analysis of postmarxism and its relationship to ‘the social’, A Sociology of Postmarxism develops key postmarxist arguments in an engaging... Read more

Table of Contents



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Chapter One: Introduction



Why The Social?



Why Postmarxism?



Why Postmarxism and Social capital



Chapter Two: From the Social to the Political



Introduction



The Social in Historical Materialism



Setting out a Post- Terrain



Sociology and The Social in Postmarxism



Counter-Positions of The Social



Chapter Three: Classical Approaches to The Social



Introduction



The Sociological project and the Emergence of Positivism



Karl Marx: Logic to Contradiction to Mediation



Emile Durkheim: Moral Positivism and Mediation



Max Weber: From Rationality to Irrationality as Social Mediation



Chapter Four: Establishing a Basis for Postmarxism



Introduction



The New Priority



The Social as ‘Sedimentation’ and The Political as ‘Reactivation’



Chapter Five: From Antagonism to Equivalence



Introduction



Antagonism as the Limit of Social Objectivity



"You Can Only Free Somethings …": Hegemony and The Political



Hegemony and the Constitution of Equivalence



Chapter Six: Finding The Political in Social Capital



Introduction



What is Social Capital?



Forms of Social Capital



Social Capital and The Political



Chapter Seven: Desert - Migration as Social Dislocation



Introduction



Quantity and Composition of Global Migration



Migration and (Post)Industrialisation



Foundational Approaches to Migration



Definitional Problematics



Causation Theories



Continuation Theories



Postmarxism and Migration



Chapter Eight: Aspiration – Hegemonic Masculinity as Emptiness



Introduction



Gender Antagonism in the Modernity-Postmodernity Tens

Biography



Richard Howson is Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Wollongong

 The Sociology of Postmarxism is a pleasure to read, at least for this reader. It combines careful, concise and generic analysis of the relations of marxism, materialism and discourse with an opening up of specific avenues, such as, social capital, migration, and men and masculinities, to the insights of postmarxist approaches in sociology. In so doing, it delivers a profound critique and challenge to Sociology itself, both mainstream and critical, and its mystifications of "society".

Jeff Hearn, Örebro University, Sweden; Hanken School of Economics, Finland; University of Huddersfield, UK