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In The Dialectic of Structure and History, Volume Two of Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness, István Mészáros brings the comprehension of our condition and the possibility of emancipatory social action beyond the highest point reached to date. Building on the indicatory flashes of conceptual lightning in the Grundrisse and other works of Karl Marx, Mészáros sets out the relations of structure and agency, individual and society, base and superstructure, nature and history, in a dialectical totality open to the future. The project is brought to its conclusion by means of critique, an a

This new work by the leading Marxian philosopher of our day is a milestone in human self-understanding. It focuses on the location where action emerges from freedom and necessity, the foundation of all social science. Today, as never before, the investigation of the close relationship between social structure -- defined by Marx as arising from the life-process of definite individuals -- and the various forms of consciousness is particularly important. We can only perceive what is possible by first identifying the historical process that constrains consciousness itself, and therefore social action. The relationship between social structure and forms of consciousness discussed in this volume is multifaceted and profoundly dialectical. It requires the presentation of a great wealth of historical material and the assessment of the relevant philosophical literature, from Descartes through Hegel and the Liberal tradition to the present, together with their connections with political economy and political theory. István Mészáros moves beyond both abstract solutions to the surveyed methodological questions and one-sided structuralist evaluation of the important substantive issues, bringing the process of our understanding of social structure and consciousness to a level not previously attained. Above all, in the spirit of the Marxian approach, even the most complicated problems are analyzed in relation to the major practical concerns of our time. The primary aim of this work is to outline the dialectical intelligibility of historical development toward a viable societal reproductve order. Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness is of the highest importance as both a political and philosophical work, illuminating the place from where we must act, today. Publisher's note.

Cover -- Social Structure and Forms of Consciousness VOLUME 1 THE SOCIAL DETERMINATION OF METHOD -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Dedication -- INTRODUCTION -- 1. THE PROGRAMMATIC ORIENTATION TOWARD SCIENCE -- 1.1 "The Mastery of Man over Nature" -- 1.2 Behaviuorists and Weberians -- 1.3 Mannheim's "Scientific Sociology of Culture" -- 1.4 The Structural Links of Science-Oriented Ideology -- 2. THE GENERAL TENDENCY TO FORMALISM -- 2.1 Formalism and Conflictuality -- 2.2 The Structural Affinity of Practical and Intellectual Inversions -- 2.3 Reconciliation of Irrational Forms -- 2.4 Formal/Reductive Homogenization and Universal Value-Equation -- 2.5 The Social Substance of Operational Rationality -- 2.6 The Concept of Nature as a Dehistoricized Formal Abstraction -- 2.7 "Formal Rationality" and Substantive Irrationality -- 3. THE STANDPOINT OF ISOLATED INDIVIDUALITY -- 3.1 Individualistic Conceptions of Conflict and Human Nature -- 3.2 The Elevation of Particularity to the Status of Universality -- 3.3 The Inversion of Objective Structural Relationships -- 4. NEGATIVE DETERMINATION OF PHILOSOPHY AND SOCIAL THEORY -- 4.1 Substance, Subjectivity, and Freedom -- 4.2 The Positive Aspect of Critical Negation -- 4.3 The Quantification of Quality and the Law of Measure -- 4.4 Second Order "Mediations of the Mediation" and the Triumph of Negativity -- 4.5 Reconciliatory Function of "Negativity as Self-Transcending Contradiction" -- 4.6 Negativity in Sartre and Marcuse: Dependency on the Ideologically Dominant Discourse -- 5. THE RISE AND FALL OF HISTORICAL TEMPORALITY -- 5.1 Historical Explanation in Ancient Greece and in the Middle Ages -- 5.2 "Divine Providence" in Bourgeois Philosophies of History -- 5.3 Vico's Conception of Civil Society and History -- 5.4 Organic Models as Substitutes for Historical Explanation.

In this collection of trenchant essays and interviews, István Mészáros, the world's preeminent Marxist philosopher and winner of the 2008 Libertador Award for Critical Thought (the Bolivar Prize), lays bare the exploitative structure of modern capitalism. He argues with great power that the world's economies are on a social and ecological precipice, and that unless we take decisive action to radically transform our societies we will find ourselves thrust headfirst into barbarism and environmental catastrophe. Mészáros, however, is no pessimist. He believes that the multiple crises of world cap

Introduction -- The tyranny of capital's time imperative -- The time of the individuals and the time of humanity -- Human beings reduced to "time's carcase" -- The loss of historical time consciousness -- Free time and emancipation -- The uncontrollability and destructiveness of globalizing capital -- The extraction of surplus labour -- In capital's "organic system" -- Unreformability, uncontrollability and destructiveness -- The system's threefold internal fracture -- Capital's failure to create its global state formation -- Chronic insufficiency of "extraneous help" by the state -- Marxism, the capital system and social revolution -- The global view of capital -- Historical limits of the labour theory of value -- Ongoing proletarianization and its wishful denials -- The necessary renewal of Marxian conceptions -- The objective possibility of socialism? -- Political and social revolution -- Downward equalization of the differential rate of exploitation -- Socialism or barbarism: -- From the "American century" to the crossroads -- Foreword -- Capital - the living contradiction -- The potentially deadliest phase of imperialism -- Historical challenges facing the socialist movement -- Conclusion -- Postscript: militarism and the coming wars -- Unemployment and "flexible casualization" -- The globalization of unemployment -- The myth of flexibility and the reality of precarization -- From the tyranny of necessary labour time to emancipation through disposable time -- Economic theory and politics-beyond capital -- Alternative economic approaches -- The need for comprehensive planning -- Capital's hierarchical command structure -- From predictions based on "economic laws working behind the backs of the individuals" to anticipations of a controllable future -- Objective preconditions for the creation of non-deterministic economic theory -- Socialist accountancy and emancipatory politics -- The challenge of sustainable development and the culture of substantive equality -- Farewell to "liberty-fraternity-equality" -- The failure of "modernization and development" -- Structural domination and the culture of substantive inequality -- Education-beyond capital -- The incorrigibility of capital's logic and its impact on education -- Remedies cannot be just formal; they must be essential -- "Learning is our very life, from youth to old age" -- Education as the "positive transcendence of labour's self-alienation" -- Socialism in the twenty-first century -- Irreversibility: the imperative of a sustainable alternative order -- Participation: the progressive transfer of decision-making to the associated producers -- Substantive equality: the absolute condition of sustainability -- Planning: the necessity to overcome capital's abuse of time -- Qualitative growth in utilization: The only viable economy -- The national and the international: Their dialectical complementarity in our time -- Alternative to parliamentarism: unifying the material reproductive and the political sphere -- Education: the ongoing development of socialist consciousness -- Why socialism? Historical time -- And the actuality of radical change -- Conflicting determinations of time -- Why capitalist globalization cannot work? -- The structural crisis of politics -- New challenges on our horizon and the urgency of time -- Notes -- Index