Originally written: 10.02.2022. The ideology and actions of the far right are often portrayed as an anomaly that is the very antithesis of liberal democracy or general nationalist conceptions: in many countries the authorities, political actors and the media claim that these ‘extremists’ have nothing to do with ‘us’, with ‘our’ values, with ‘good’ patriotism […]
Category: Critical Sociology
Totalitarian Violence & Policing: From Counter-Insurgency to “Terror Capitalism”
Originally written: 11.02.2022. In the early hours of November 9, 2020, Austrian police raided the house of Salzburg University scholar Farid Hafez, pointing their guns at him and his family. Their warrant accused him of “terrorist” allegiances, wanting to “destroy Israel” and “establish a worldwide califate”, and supporting the toppling of Egyptian dictator Abdel Fattah […]
Marx’s Conception of Surplus Population and the Lumpenproletariat
Originally written: 27.01.2021. After having reviewed Marx’s conception of the proletariat, the bourgeoisie, the landowning class, and the ‘intermediate classes’ – notably the petty-bourgeoisie and the peasantry, we now come to two last specific categories or concepts that contributed to his understanding of modern capitalist society: the lumpenproletariat and the relative surplus population. Relative Surplus […]
Marx’s Conception of the Middle Class(es), the Petty-Bourgeoisie and the Peasantry
Originally written: 21.01.2021. It is pretty common to hear, when talking about Marx’s conception of classes, that he thought the development of capitalism would simply reduce the social pyramid to a bipolar opposition between, on the one hand, the proletariat, and on the other hand, the bourgeoisie. This is almost always based on a quote […]
Marx’s Conception of the Ruling Class (2/2): The Landowner Class
Originally written: 11.01.2021. Across his political writings, Marx often talks about the ruling class as being composed of both capitalists and landowners. For instance, in Fictitious Splits in the International: Contrary to the sectarian organization, with their vagaries and rivalries, the International is a genuine and militant organization of the proletarian class of all countries, […]
Marx’s Conception of the Proletariat
Originally written: 15.09.2020. Hello everyone, this is part one of a project I have been working on, attempting to understand “how” and “what” Marx thought about class, with the eventual goal of revisiting the class-based analytical categories of materialist theory. The origin of the term “Proletariat” goes back to Ancient Rome (around the sixth century […]
Marx’s Conception of the Ruling Class (1/2): The Bourgeoisie
Originally written: 04.01.2021. For Marx, the ruling class of a given society – in a specific historical context and/or mode of production – is that minority social group which owns the means of social (re)production. This predominant social position also enables them to dominate the ideological-cultural and state-political realms. According to Stefano Petrucciani [1], these […]
(Inter)Nationalism, National Liberation & The Global Border/Nation-State Regime
Initially written: 23.11.2021 (last modification: 17.10.2023) In this post, I want to address a series of interrelated and overlapping topics that are a crucial part of the modern world system. On the one hand, the global border regime is one brutal aspect of the general(ized) system of nation-states – that is, of modern states in […]