John Roemer – författare

This is a study of the choices faced by socialist movements as they developed within capitalist societies. Professor Przeworski examines the three principal choices confronted by socialism: whether to work through elections; whether to rely exclusively on the working class; and whether to try to reform or abolish capitalism. He brings to his analysis a number of abstract models of political and economic structure, and illustrates the issues in the context of historical events, tracing the development of socialist strategies since the mid-nineteenth century. Several of the conclusions are novel and provocative. Professor Przeworski argues that economic issues cannot justify a socialist programme, and that the workers had good reasons to struggle for the improvement of capitalism. Therefore, the project of a socialist transformation, and the fight for economic advancement, were separate historical phenomena.

As John Roemer says in his introduction to this volume, 'During the past decade, what now appears as a new species in social theory has been forming: analytically sophisticated Marxism. Its practitioners are largely inspired by Marxian questions which they pursue with contemporary tools of logic, mathematics, and model building ... These writers are, self-consciously, products of both the Marxian and non-Marxian traditions.' This volume assembles substantial and original essays, both published and unpublished, by some of the leading practitioners of 'analytical Marxism'. The essays discuss a number of the fundamental issues of Marxian thought as well as questions that conventional Marxists see no need to raise. They exemplify the ways in which analytical Marxists are beginning to reinvigorate the Marxian tradition and, in doing so, to break down the barriers that have divided it from other forms of social theory. The volume will make an excellent textbook and an ideal introduction to this new approach.

This textbook provides students with a lively and penetrating exploration of the concept of class and its relevance for understanding a wide range of issues in contemporary society. Erik Olin Wright treats class as a common explanatory factor and examines three broad themes: class structure, class and gender, and class consciousness. Specific empirical studies include such diverse topics as class variations in the gender division of labour in housework; friendship networks across class boundaries; the American class structure since 1960; and cross-national variations in class consciousness. The author evaluates these studies in the light of expectations within the Marxist tradition of class analysis. This Student Edition of Class Counts thus combines Wright's sophisticated account of central and enduring questions in social theory with practical analyses of detailed social problems.