Rethinking Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century: The Tasks of Radical Critique

Abstract

I address the return of Socialist dogma as an element of the “crisis of the crisis-of-capitalism,” and question the ability of progressive social critique’s toolkit to illuminate the sources of social harm in the current historical juncture. To hone its conceptual vigor, radical critique, I suggest, needs to dereify “structure” and shift its focus from structural to systemic dimensions in the operation of capitalism. This will allow us to discern precarity (the social and economic vulnerability related to insecure livelihoods), rather than inequality and exploitation (as produced within a class relation), as the landmark feature of social injustice in the early twenty-first century.