Critiques and Alternatives to Capitalism
About the Book Series
The peer-reviewed series Critiques and Alternatives to Capitalism (edited by Marcello Musto) publishes scholarly works works on critiques and alternatives to capitalism, spanning a number of subject matters, political perspectives and geographical areas. It welcomes monographs and edited volumes in the fields of sociology, social and political theory and heterodox political economy, whose main areas of focus are the problems of capitalist society and its mode of production; alternatives to capitalism that address contemporary social issues; and 19th and 20th centuries anti-capitalist ideas and practical experiments.
Welcoming new perspectives on a wide range of themes, it seeks to explore alternative social-economic systems, critical theories of capitalism, social classes and inequality, public/private ownership and new contours of ‘the commons’, economic and financial crises, ecology, globalization, migration and citizenship, gender oppression, alienation, and cultural critique. The result is an eclectic, but focused and informative, series that provides original investigations, inspires significant conversations for today, and appeals to a diverse international audience.
Marx versus Big Tech: Alienated Labour in the Digital Age
1st Edition
By Stéphanie Roza
June 12, 2026
This book asks whether Marx's concepts can still be useful to those seeking emancipation in the time of platform capitalism. Offering a pointed discussion of what emancipation in the workplace would mean, it explores the potential of Humanist Marxism to address this possibility. Humanist Marxism, ...
Humanist Socialism and the Religion of Socialism: Red Faith II
1st Edition
By Stefan Arvidsson
March 11, 2026
This book explores the historical relationships between socialist ideologies and religious or secular beliefs and cultures that shape the modern socialist. Portraying the cultural preferences and existential attitudes of leading Marxists, exploring the British tradition of "the religion of ...
Trade Fetishism: Magical and Materialist Thinking in Global Political Economy
1st Edition
By Gavin Fridell, Patrick Clark
March 04, 2026
Trade Fetishism argues that “trade” not only meets material goals, but also simultaneously works as a fantasy that seeks to satisfy and soothe our unconscious desires and anxieties. Countering the idea that trade is driven ultimately by rational economic, political, and strategic logics, it ...
Marx and the Politics of Need
1st Edition
By George Boss
February 17, 2026
Marx and the Politics of Need challenges one of the most pervasive habits in contemporary political theory and practice: treating needs as moral facts that sit outside of our politics, and which can be used to judge it. Against this depoliticising impulse, George Boss offers a provocative ...
Ten Essays for a 21st Century Socialism
1st Edition
By Tony Andréani
January 30, 2026
This book explores possible and realistic alternatives to a capitalism that is no longer sustainable, whether economically, socially, or for a habitable planet. Arguing that these alternatives can only be of socialist orientation, the author moves from a discussion of works that attempted to ...
The City as the Southern Question: Alternative Histories of Urbanisation After Gramsci
1st Edition
Edited
By Ranabir Samaddar, Enrica Morlicchio, Sandro Mezzadra
December 31, 2025
This innovative edited volume places global urbanism in the context of the phenomenal growth of cities of the South, investigating their colonial contentiousness and asking how their history plays out in the twenty-first-century phenomenon of urbanisation. Inspired by Antonio Gramsci’s reflections ...
Life Imaginaries, Environmental Rationality, and Dialogue of Savoirs: The Sustainability of Life
1st Edition
By Enrique Leff
November 28, 2025
Shifting from the idea that our current ‘environmental question’ arises from the history of metaphysics and its focus on ‘Being’ over ‘Life’—and the attendant explorations of the thought of Heidegger and Heraclitus—this book unfolds a philosophical and sociological proposal for transitioning toward...
Renewing Urban Critical Theories: Rediscovering Thinkers, Reimagining Texts, and Reframing Questions
1st Edition
Edited
By Francesco Biagi
November 28, 2025
This book presents an interdisciplinary and international reevaluation of urban critical theories, bringing together key perspectives from around the world on contemporary urban studies. Engaging with a wide range of issues related to the urban question – including urban sprawl, housing, and the ...
The Making of Council Democracy: State Transformation and Radical Possibilities
1st Edition
By Babak Amini
November 28, 2025
“Council democracy” is a particular form of democratic socialism that strives towards democratic self-governance on the basis of active, free, and associated individuals working cooperatively within a federated council system. Both in political practice and in social theory, “council democracy” has...
Welfare Racism: The Discursive Dimension
1st Edition
Edited
By Fabio Perocco
October 16, 2025
Welfare racism is a combination of racial discrimination in the welfare system and racist discourses used in the name of the welfare state. Presenting a global overview of discourses of welfare racism across the world by institutional actors, public figures, political parties, and mass media, this ...
Capitalist Dispossessions: Redistribution and Capital Expansion in Contemporary Brazil
1st Edition
By Daniel Bin
September 29, 2025
This book analyzes contemporary dispossessions in Brazil, drawing on the Marxian concept of primitive accumulation to show how processes of proletarianization, capitalization, and commodification each relate in distinct ways to capitalist accumulation. With an emphasis on the processes by which ...
Beyond Liberalism and Communism: Socialist Theory and the Chinese Case
1st Edition
By Michael Brie
August 29, 2025
Beyond Liberalism and Communism: Socialist Theory and the Chinese Case presents a new conceptual framework of socialism and applies it to the study of socialist development in China, shedding new light on modern China and signposting novel directions in socialist thought. Based on a ...