Beyond Leviathan: Critique of the State

by István Mészáros, John Bellamy Foster (Editor)

Overview

A field-defining masterwork, this posthumous publication maps the evolution of the idea of the state from ancient Greece to today

István Mészáros was one of the greatest political theorists of the twentieth century. Left unfinished at the time of his death, Beyond Leviathan is written on the magisterial scale of his previous book, Beyond Capital, and meant to complement that work. It focuses on the transcendence of the state, along with the transcendence of capital and alienated labor, while traversing the history of political theory from Plato to the present. Aristotle, More, Machiavelli, and Vico are only a few of the thinkers discussed in depth. The larger objective of this work is no less than to develop a full-edged critique of the state, in the Marxian tradition, and set against the critique of capital. Not only does it provide, for the first time, an all-embracing Marxian theory of the state, it gives new political meaning to the notion of “the withering away of the state.” In his definitive, seminal work, Mészáros seeks to illuminate the political preconditions for a society of substantive equality and substantive democracy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781583679517
Publisher:	Monthly Review Press
Publication date:	02/22/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

István Mészáros (Author)
István Mészáros was a professor emeritus at the University of Sussex and a world renown philosopher and critic. He authored Marx’s Theory of Alienation, Beyond Capital, and over a dozen other titles.

John Bellamy Foster (Editor)
John Bellamy Foster is a Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Oregon and editor of Monthly Review. He has written many books including The Robbery of Nature (with Brett Clark) and The Return of Nature, which won the Deutscher Memorial Prize.

Table of Contents

Introduction John Bellamy Foster 7

Preface 41

Part 1 From Relative to Absolute Limits: Historical Anachronism of the State 55

1 The Historic Anachronism and Necessary Suppression of the State 57

2 Freedom Is Parasitic on Equality 86

3 From Primitive to Substantive Equality-via Slavery 95

4 Capital's Deepening Structural Crisis and the State 124

5 The Historic Circle Is Closing 141

Part 2 The Mountain We Must Conquer: Reflections on the State 165

6 The Mountainous State 167

7 The End of Liberal-Democratic Politics 182

8 The "Withering Away" of the State? 189

9 The Wishful Limitations of State Power 195

10 The Assertion of Might-as-Right 200

11 Eternalizing Assumptions of Liberal State Theory 212

12 Hegel's Unintended Swan Song and the Nation-State 223

13 Capital's Social Metabolic Order and the Failing State 238

14 Himalayan Obstacle: Conclusion to Part Two 259

Part 3 Ancient and Modern Utopias 261

15 From Plato's Cave to the Sombre Light of The Laws 263

16 Equality in the Broken Minor of Justice: The Meaning of Aristotelian Politea 298

17 Primitive Accumulation of Capital and the World of More's Utopia 317

18 Machiavelli and Campanella on the Road to Giambattista Vico 334

19 From Bacon and Harrington to Thomas Paine and Robert Owen 349

20 Thomasius and Bloch's Principle of Hope 361

Appendices 369

1 Original Plan for Beyond Leviathan 371

2 Historical Boundaries of the Legal and Political Superstructure 373

3 Substantive Equality and Substantive Democracy 386

4 How Could the State "Wither Away"? 392

Notes 438

Index 476

Editorial Reviews

"The pathfinder of socialism."

former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez

"The pathfinder of socialism."

former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez