Reading the Planetary Class Struggle - (Class Compositions) by George Caffentzis (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A profound class struggle account of the historic and ongoing crises of capitalism from the preeminent anticapitalist philosopher George Caffentzis.

George Caffentzis has been the leading philosopher of the anticapitalist movements for over a half-century. With unrivaled clarity and political sharpness, his "reading of the struggles" offer anticapitalist movements worldwide a way of thinking and speaking about capitalism that points to the autonomy and resistance driving its crises, and the points of connection between different sectors of the planetary struggles that result in greater class power in their resistance to capital and in their creation of post-capitalist worlds in common.

More than an explanation of historical events or an interpretation of the present crises, wars, and devastations wrought by capitalist accumulation, these writings are weapons meant to advance the political thinking, strategies and actions of those who struggle to defend their livelihoods, dignity, and autonomy from capital's exploitation and its destruction.

Organized around key themes of his life's work, this collection brings the militant writings and scholarship of the planetary class struggle's most profound thinker together for the first time.

Review Quotes

"George Caffentzis has been the philosopher of the anticapitalist movement from the American civil rights movement of the 1960s to the European autonomists of the 1970s, from the Nigerian workers of the oil boom of the 1980s to the encuentros of the Zapatistas in the 1990s, from the feminists of wages-for-housework to the struggle of the precariat for the commons. A historian of our own times, he carries the political wisdom of the twentieth century into the twenty-first. Here is capitalist critique and proletarian reasoning fit for our time." --Peter Linebaugh, author of The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons for All

"George Caffentzis's essays in this timely collection offer a sharply uncompromising analysis of the transmutations of capital over the last three decades and a rereading of the classic texts in light of our own times. They teach us the constant alertness that we must embrace at the frontline of value struggle."--Massimo De Angelis, author of The Beginning of History: Value Struggles and Global Capital

"These essays reveal not only the blood and fire of twenty-first-century primitive accumulation but also the inescapable linkage of this savage and ongoing process to new forms of futuristic dispossession inscribed with robot ichor, silicon chips, and genomic code. George Caffentzis has for decades been creating a contemporary Marxism that is profoundly theorized, deeply historical, utterly original, compulsively readable, and always connected to the fighting fronts of an ever-changing class struggle. Today his writings are integral to, and indispensable for an understanding of, the uprisings of a global proletariat that has again exploded across the planet." --Nick Dyer-Witheford, author of Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High-Technology Capitalism

About the Author

George Caffentzis is a leading thinker in the development of autonomist thought who has been engaged in varied movements during the past half-century, from civil rights sit-ins and antinuclear efforts to alter-globalization and pro-commons activities. He is cofounder of the Midnight Notes Collective and coordinator of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa (CAFA). Caffentzis was a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern Maine for over thirty years before retirement. Among his many books and articles--covering topics such as the death penalty, peak oil, and the philosophy of money--is In Letters of Blood and Fire: Work, Machines, and the Crisis of Capitalism; Clipped Coins, Abused Words, and Civil Government John Locke's Philosophy of Money; and Civilizing Money: Hume, his Monetary Project, and the Scottish Enlightenment.

Silvia Federici is a feminist writer, teacher, and militant. In 1972 she was cofounder of the International Feminist Collective that launched the Wages for Housework campaign. Her books include Caliban and the Witch; Re-enchanting the World; Beyond the Periphery of the Skin; and Witches, Witch Hunting, and Women. She is a professor emerita at Hofstra University, where she taught in the social sciences. She worked as a teacher in Nigeria for many years and was also the cofounder of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa.