Contents

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[Last edited April 22]

Part I: Background

Chapter One. The Age of Mass and Maneuver (epub)
I. A Conflict of Visions
II. The Triumph of Mass in the Old Left
III. The Assault on Working Class Agency
IV. Workerism/Laborism

Chapter Two. The Transition (epub)
I. Drastic Reductions in Necessary Outlays for the Means of Production
II. The Network Revolution and the Imploding Cost of Coordination
III. The impotence of enforcement, and the primacy of circumvention over resistance
IV. Superior General Efficiency and Low Overhead
V. Conclusion

Part II: The Age of Exodus

Chapter Three. Horizontalism and Self-Activity over Vanguard Institutions (epub)
I. The New Left
II. Autonomism
III. The 1968 Movements and the Transition to Horizontalist Praxis
IV. The Post-1994 Horizontalist Movements

Chapter Four. The Abandonment of Workerism (epub)
I. The Limited Relevance of Proletarianism in the Mass Production Age
II. Technology and the Declining Relevance of Proletarianism
III. Abandonment of Proletarianism by the New Leftist Movements
IV. The Abandonment of Workerism in Praxis

Chapter Five. Evolutionary Transitional Models (epub)
I. Comparison to Previous Systemic Transitions
II. The Nature of Postcapitalist Transition

Chapter Six. Interstitial Development and Exodus over Insurrection (epub)
Introduction
I. The Split Within Autonomism
II. The Shift From the Factory to Society as the Main Locus of Productivity
III. Negri et al vs. the Commons
IV. Theoretical Implications
V. The Vulnerability of the Social Factory
VII. The Vulnerability of the Social Factory to the “Outside.”
VIII. Note on Synthesis.

Chapter Seven. Interstitial Development: Practical (epub)
I. Post-1968 (-1994?) Movements
II. Strategy

Chapter Eight. Interstitial Development: On Engagement With the State (epub)

Part III: Seeds Beneath the Snow

Chapter Nine. The Commons Sector and the Theory of Municipalism (epub)
Introduction
I. The Growth of the Commons Sector as a Lifeline
II. Municipalism: The City as Commons and Platform

Chapter Ten. Local Municipalist Case Studies (epub)
I. Local Case Studies: North America
II. Local Case Studies: Europe

Chapter Eleven. Building Blocks (epub)

Chapter Twelve. Global South and Federation (epub)
Introduction
I. Commons-Based Economies in  the Global South
II. Federation

Bibliography (epub)

17 thoughts on “Contents”

  3. There is an error/typo in your reference to the commons circuit from Massimo de Angelis’ ‘Omnia Sunt Communia’.
    The formula he uses for “the commons circuit” is Cs-cm-Cs, and not C-M-C. He says that the C-M-C circuit is just a sequence within the larger “the commons circuit”, not that it’s the commons circuit.

    I refer you to Figure 5.4 “the circuit of the commons”, on page 193.

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    1. De Angelis really likes diagrams for some reason.
      Another autonomist within the same lineage as de Angelis and Federici that you might find useful would be their philosopher friend George Caffentzis. Some of his essays are on libcom:

      https://libcom.org/library/george-caffentzis-letters-blood-fire

      His book on Locke might interest you given your past debates with right-libertarians.

      For the “practical” part of chapter 6, I think you should look at Raúl Zibechi’s work, he really fits well with all of this. As does the historian Marcus Rediker (he does ‘history from below’), his books on pirates alone are a gold mine. There’s also the anthropologists Eric Wolf (especially his book ‘Europe and the People Without History’) and Pierre Clastres (his book ‘Society Against the State’) who were both big influences on James C. Scott, whose book ‘Weapons of the Weak’ is also very close to the spirit of this project/book.

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    1. I saw that you were looking for a “black book of capitalism”. Have you read Late Victorian Holocausts by Mike Davis? That book pretty much fits that description. Also, given your very recent paper on degrowth vs. ecomdernism, I was wondering if you were familiar with Andreas Malm’s wonderful book Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming?

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  6. Hi Kevin, I just read your Hayek paper and was wondering if you were planning on writing more political economy stuff after this book? A follow up to your first book maybe?

    I was curious if you had read Piero Sraffa or Joan Robinson? Sraffa is relevant as he wrote a critique of Hayek that was so devastating that Hayek had to abandon economics and go into political theory/philosophy (Keynes asked him to write a review of hayek’s work, I think).

    Joan Robinson is famous for her critiques of marginalism and the famous Cambridge capital controversy (I recommend G. C Harcourt’s “Whatever Happened to the Cambridge Capital Theory Controversies”), her latter books are a joy to read.

    I also wanted to bring your attention this quote by Hayek:

    “This is not a dispute about whether planning is to be done or not. It is a dispute as to whether planning is to be done centrally, by one authority for the whole economic system, or is to be divided among many individuals. Planning in the specific sense in which the term is used in contemporary controversy necessarily means central planning—direction of the whole economic system according to one unified plan. Competition, on the other hand, means decentralized planning by many separate persons.” (from his “The Use of Knowledge in Society”)

    He acknowledges that markets themselves are a form of planning (or rather are planned into existence), he also says in of his Law book he wrote near the end of his life (if my memory is correct), that entrepreneurship is just planning but that the market reveals who the good planners are.

    The annoying bit is that he assumes away all other forms of decentralized economic “planning”: gift economy, sharing, pooling…etc which still exists and are widespread even in capitalist societies (for more on the gift, which I have yet to see in your work I recommend: “The World of the Gift” by Jacques T. Godbout and Alain C. Caille and the work of anthropologist Stephen Gudeman, Gudeman worked with JK Gibson-Graham, who you mentioned here).

    Also real world capitalist markets do not work the way he thinks they do (refer you to Gardiner Means and Frederic s Lee on administered prices).

    For a critique of Austrian economic assumptions in general I recommend the classic paper “The Economics of ignorance or Ignorance of Economics?” by Paul Davidson (Philip Mirowski’s “The Knowledge We Have Lost in Information” and Naomi Beck’s “Hayek and the Evolution of Capitalism” which focus on Hayek’s import and give an internal critique).

    Isaak Illich Rubin and Nikolai Bukharin also wrote lengthy critiques of early marginalism (Böhm-Bawerk and Menger), I was surprised not to see them in your in your first book. Clarence Edwin Ayres and John R. Commons would have really helped along the general argument.

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  7. I doubt I’ll write another book on value theory of other issues of general economics, but I am writing another paper that will more or less fit with the ones on capitalist nursery fables and on Hayek. It’s revisiting the Methodenstreit in view of Institutionalist concepts and a lot of the problems with marginalism (specifically how it uses income distribution by “marginal productivity” to obscure power relationships and define exploitation out of existence). I’m reading Commons right now as part of the research.

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    1. You might find this paper ‘The Philosophical Bases of Institutionalist Economics” by Philip Mirowski useful:

      https://www.academia.edu/35881549/The_Philosophical_Bases_of_Institutionalist_Economics

      The paper “The Economics of ignorance or Ignorance of Economics?” by Paul Davidson that I mentioned also deals with Austrian thought.

      You might find some of Warren Samuels’ books and articles useful as he was last true “institutionalist” and he has written a lot on his predecessors. Clarence Edwin Ayres (student Veblen) and Gardiner Means, who I mentioned earlier, are also lesser known institutionalists.

      You might also want consult Joan Robinson’s “Economic Philosophy: An Essay on the Progress of Economic Thought” and the whole cambridge capital controversy (as recounted by G. C Harcourt), as that was one of the biggest blows dealt to marginalism.

      Robinson herself apparently said that Veblen made the same arguments as her and Sraffa years before they did (I think I read this in E. K. Hunt’s book on the history of economic thought).

      Among the marxists, other than Isaak Illich Rubin and Nikolai Bukharin, there’s also Simon Clarke’s “Marx, Marginalism, and Modern Sociology: From Adam Smith to Max Weber” which is on libcom, I think. Economic anthropologists like Christopher A. Gregory and Stephen Gudeman also have their own very interesting critiques of marginalism.

      I hope you find these helpful, I’m excited to see the final result of your research.

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    2. A book that similar in politics and tone to Dobb’s but covers way more stuff (both the marginalists and their critics, and more recent stuff) is “History Of Modern Non Marxian Economics: From Marginalist Revolution Through The Keynesian Revolution To Contemporary Monetarist Counter Revolution” by Antal Matyas.

      Another book I think you’d especially love is Bernard Harcourt’s “The Illusion of Free Markets: Punishment and the Myth of Natural Order” (a title you might expect from one of your papers/articles, but the content is surprising).

      These anthro books debunk many capitalist fables and might be of help to your research: “The Western Illusion of Human Nature: With Reflections on the Long History of Hierarchy, Equality and the Sublimation of Anarchy in the West” by Marshall Sahlins (David Graeber’s mentor) and “Limited Wants, Unlimited Means: A Reader On Hunter-Gatherer Economics And The Environment” by John Gowdy.

      I’m sorry if I’m being too much, but anyways love work and hope to see more of it.

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    3. Congrats on finishing this one. Will your new book on state theory deal with the Neo-Marxist and Neo-Gramscian state theories of people like Mark Neocleous, Werner Bonefeld, Bob Jessop and Adam David Morton? By the way there’s a new anarcho-book on state theory that just came out, it’s ‘The Operating System’ by Eric Laursen, I think.

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      2. Mark Neocleous is the most libertarian out of the bunch. I think Charles Tilly’s famous work on state formation and Perry Anderson’s ‘Lineages of the Absolutist State’ would also be helpful to you, Mahmood Mamdani’s new book ‘Neither Settler nor Native’ (which has already become a classic/reference in the field) is also very good.

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