Critical Theory and the Critique of Political Economy: On Subversion and Negative Reason [Paperback]

Subversive thought is none other than the cunning of reason when confronted with a social reality in which the poor and miserable are required to sustain the illusion of fictitious wealth. Yet, this subsidy is absolutely necessary in existing society, to prevent its implosion. The critique of political economy is a thoroughly subversive business. It rejects the appearance of economic reality as a natural thing, argues that economy has not independent existence, expounds economy as political economy, and rejects as conformist rebellion those anti-capitalist perspectives that derive their rationality from the existing conceptuality of society. Subversion focuses on human conditions. Its critical subject is society unaware of itself. This book develops Marx's critique of political economy as negative theory of society. It does not conform to the patterns of the world and demands that society rids itself of all the muck of ages and founds itself anew.Werner Bonefeldteaches in the Department of Politics at the University of York, UK. His work contributed to the development of the internationally recognised Open Marxism school.

Bonefeld successfully both reveals the supposedly innate contradictions of a system that is imposed externally on us and succeeds in dissecting the most pivotal contradiction, that is, how our own labor is simultaneously organized as concrete and abstract labor. Critique

Bonefeld's most accomplished work to date, and certainly represents a definitive statement on critique, negative dialectics, and Open Marxism ... a book which sets out his own unique vision of Marxism as Critical Theory that moves in reflexive and dialectical engagement with its definite subject matter: political economy and the inherently antagonistic social constitution of capital ... Critical Theory at its intelligent, robust and challenging bestargumentation this book delivers from cover to cover. Antipode

Exactly the kind of book