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The Defetishized Society

New Economic Democracy as a Libertarian Alternative to Capitalism

The Defetishized Society cover

The Defetishized Society

New Economic Democracy as a Libertarian Alternative to Capitalism

Description

New Economic Democracy establishes a self-governing civil society, unifying the private sphere of production and the public sphere of citizenship within a non-statist scheme of communal ownership. It provides the premises to seeking a solution to Marx's fetishism of commodities. Only a thorough restructuring of the economic and political institutions can provide the social climate in which the phenomenon of fetishism can be transcended. Defetishizing the commodity implies reversing the concealment of the social relations through which commodities are produced and preventing the tendency to bestow magical characteristics to commodities. The key imperative to the defetishized society is a system of genuinely democratic institutions. iprovides this necessary corrective and also challenges the prediction that politico-economic organizations, like worker cooperatives, are destined to be dominated by the dictates of oligarchs.

The explanatory approach of Marx's concepts combined with an original argument will make the book a valuable research tools to students and researchers in political theory, democratic theory, and political economy.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Section I. Commodity Fetishism, Anti-fetishism and New Economic Democracy
1. The Fetish Character of the Commodity Form and Defetishisation
2. Radical Political Economy and the Constitution of New Economic Democracy

Section II. Defetishisation in the Economy of New Economic Democracy
3. Superseding Alienation
4. Towards a New Economic Democracy Critique of Oligarchy
5. The Theories of Transaction Costs and Membership Lethargy
6. The Theory of Elite Control
7. Conclusion

Bibliography
Index

Product details

Published 29 Sep 2011
Format Ebook (Epub & Mobi)
Edition 1st
Extent 256
ISBN 9781441147028
Imprint Continuum
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

Chris Wyatt

Chris Wyatt is lecturer in Social Theory and Socio…

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