Open Marxism: Critical Theory as Militant Enlightenment

by Christos Memos, Chris O'Kane (Editor), Werner Bonefeld (Editor)

Overview

Bringing together the various heterodox traditions, groups and scholars that came under the heading of Open Marxism for the first time, this book assesses the evolution of Open Marxism from the initial usage of the term by Kostas Axelos in France in the 1950s and the journal, Arguments, principally the 'anarchist Marx' of Maximilien Rubel and the 'Libertarian Marxism' of Daniel Guérin, through Open Marxism as it was developed in Eastern Europe, especially in the scholarly work of Karel Kosik in Czechoslovakia, the work of the Polish Open Marxists and the Praxis group in Yugoslavia, to Johannes Agnoli's work in post-1968 (West) Germany, and finally to the work developed by Bonefeld, Clarke, Gunn and Holloway within the framework of the Conference of Socialist Economists (CSE) in Britain since the 1980s.

Its comprehensive study of the historical development of Open Marxism in all its various guises and forms reasserts the rich insights of its devastating critique of social democracy, Leninism-Stalinism and the Althusserian structuralist paradigm. It introduces a new readership to Open Marxism's negative, fundamental, and destructive critique of capitalism and examines the practical relevance of its subversive thinking to the contemporary struggle for a free and open socialist society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350527218
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	08/20/2026
Series:	Critical Theory and the Critique of Society
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Christos Memos is Lecturer of Sociology at Abertay University, UK. His research interests include critical social and political theory, political sociology, and economic sociology/critical political economy. He is the author of Castoriadis and Critical Theory: Crisis, Critique and Radical Alternatives (2014) and Global Economic Crisis as Social Hieroglyphic: Genesis, Constitution, and Regressive Progress (2021).

Chris O'Kane is Assistant Professor of Political Science at University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, USA.

Werner Bonefeld teaches in the Department of Politics at the University of York, UK. Before coming to York he taught at the Universities of Frankfurt and Edinburgh. He has conducted post-graduate seminars on critical theory at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, the Benemerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla, adn at Universidad de Buenos Aires (2008). His work contributed to the development of the internationally recognised Open Marxism school.

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Marxian Theory as an Open-ended Project

2. 'Marx was not an Orthodox Marxist': The Critique of Institutional Marxism

3. 'Working and Struggling with Marx': Critique, Social Form and Praxis

4. Dispelling the Statist Myth of Socialism: On Party and State Forms

5. A Critical Theory of Class, Labour, and Economics

6. Open Marxism as Critical Social Theory and the Struggle for a New Global Human Condition

Bibliography
Index