Cops, Crime and Capitalism

The Law and Order Agenda in Canada

Todd Gordon

Framed within a Marxist class analysis that highlights the way in which state power and capitalist social relations are racialized and gendered, Gordon’s study locates law and order policing as a central moment of capitalist state power. He argues that, as with policing historically, crime-fighting is not the principal aim of contemporary law and order policing—rather the aim is the production of a new social order based on the severely diminished expectations of working people. Crime… (more information)

Feminist Frameworks

Building Theory on Violence Against Women

Lisa Price

This text offers a wide-ranging review of feminist understandings of violence against women. It is founded on a bedrock of radical feminism, which offers the most comprehensive analysis of the nature and meanings of men’s violence against women and children. The book examines feminist analyses in a number of broad areas, including debates around the definition and origins of male violence, critiques of sex and sexuality, the intersection of racism and sexism in some forms of sexualized violence… (more information)

Language and Hegemony in Gramsci

Peter Ives

Language and Hegemony in Gramsci demonstrates how Gramsci’s writings on language illuminate his entire social and political thought. It documents Gramsci’s concern with language from his university studies in linguistics, where he initially derived his famous concept of hegemony, to his last prison notebook. Hegemony has been seen as Gramsci’s most important contribution, but without knowledge of its linguistic roots, it is often misunderstood. It is only from the vantage point… (more information)

Renewing Socialism

Transforming Democracy, Strategy and Imagination, New edition

Leo Panitch

This new edition adds an in-depth interview to seven key essays. The interview asks: What impact is American imperialism having on left strategies in various parts of the world today? What common interests work for solidarity and against divisions of race, gender and class? As Green parties turn towards market socialism, what space is left for a red-green anti-capitalist coalition? Can new socialist parties avoid mistakes of communist and social democratic parties in the twentieth century? The… (more information)

Star Wars in Canadian Sociology

Exploring the Social Construction of Knowledge

David A. Nock

“David Nock looks at the theories of prominant sociologists and presents a thoroughly grounded discussion of how this unique brand of sociology has been socially constructed. It is a pleasant, interesting, and informative reader which makes all these topics look just a little bit different than they did before.”–Rich Ogmundson, University of Victoria (more information)

The Anti-Capitalist Dictionary

Movements, Histories and Motivations

David E. Lowes

This dictionary is an alternative and a counter-balance to the many political dictionaries that ignore or marginalize the history and influence of anti-capitalist movements. It paints a rich picture of the ideas and issues that inform today’s anti-capitalist activity. Anti-capitalism has existed in many forms and with a variety of names since the advent of capitalism. But this kind of oppositional force has often been ignored, misrepresented or trivialized by many in the media and academia… (more information)

The Impasse of Modernity

Debating the Future of the Global Market Economy

Christian Comeliau

There is a deep unease is growing over the direction of modern society. Christian Comeliau, a well-known French economist, argues that understanding the historical logic of modernity must start with the economy, but that constructive discussion of the future must look at economics within the framework of society’s goals and the limits of Nature. Comeliau critiques the dominant position of market economics in our social system–whose core social value has become the maximization of profit… (more information)

The State in Capitalist Society

Ralph Miliband

Almost as soon as The State in Capitalist Society was published in 1969, it was recognized as one of the most important books in political science and sociology to have appeared since the Second World War. Four decades later, and in the wake of a neoliberal era almost universally characterized in terms of the re-treat of the state, “the massive scale of state intervention today makes the re-publication of Ralph Miliband’s classic study extremely timely. Its famous opening sentences… (more information)

Transforming or Reforming Capitalism

Towards a Theory of Community Economic Development

Edited by John Loxley

Growing worldwide interest in community economic development has led to a blossoming of “how to” manuals,as well as analyses of co-operatives, development corporations, gender, financing, etc. Yet in all this discussion very little is said about the basic objective of CED: Is it designed to fill holes left by capitalism or is it intended to replace it? There is equally little on a theory of CED. This book draws on several disciplines—particularly economics, sociology and political… (more information)