Within and Beyond Capitalism: A Twofold Transformation

by Dieter Klein

Overview

This book argues for a twofold transformation to mitigate environmental catastrophe, avert war and overcome poverty and authoritarianism: a struggle for democratic, peace-oriented, social and ecological changes within the framework of a post-neoliberal, but still bourgeois-capitalist society, and a drive towards entry-level projects aimed at a great transformation beyond capitalism.

Calling for the embrace of core values and institutions aligned with solidarity as opposed to capitalism, it advances four guiding ideas for the pursuit of such a path: redistribution of life chances and power, socio-ecological restructuring, redesign of democratic institutions, and reversal from confrontation to peace through international cooperation and solidarity.

A presentation of the fundamental elements of a left strategy for socioecological transformation, this volume will appeal to scholars of social, political and economic theory with interests in post-capitalist futures.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032591520
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/06/2025
Series:	Critiques and Alternatives to Capitalism
Pages:	206
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Dieter Klein is a German social scientist and currently Senior Fellow at the Institute for Social Analysis of the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. His work focuses on transformation research, multiple crisis of neoliberal capitalism, and narratives of the modern left. Klein was born in 1931 in Berlin. He studied economics in 1951-1955 at the Humboldt University in Berlin. In 1961 he earned a doctorate on "Integration of Finance Capital in Western Europe". In 1964, he obtained his habilitation on "Planification and Strategic Action in the EEC" and was appointed to the chair of Political Economy of Capitalism. From 1964 to 1977, he was the director of the Institute for Political Economy at the Faculty of Economics of the Humboldt University. In the Institute, the departments of sociology and demography were formed, which were among the nuclei of these disciplines in the GDR. Afterwards, he was prorector for social sciences of the Humboldt University until 1990. From February 1990 to July 1991, he was also the director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Civilization Research, which had emerged from the work of those involved in the critical reform project "Modern Socialism Theory". Since 1990, he held the chair of Economic Foundations of Politics at the Institute of Social Sciences of the Humboldt University until his retirement in 1997, although he continued to give lectures until 1999. Since the early 1990s, he voluntary worked in the later Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and from 2000 to 2012 was a member of its board. He established the Foundation’s Future Commission and managed it until 2008. He is also a member of the Willy Brandt Circle.

Table of Contents

1. The Twofold Transformation – The Challenge 2. Five Possible Futures 3. The Theoretical Foundations of a Twofold Transformation 4. The Outlines of a Twofold Transformation: A Modern Left-Wing Narrative 5. A Strategy of Perseverance 6. Positive Approaches for an Alternative Transformational Prospect 7. Eight Building Blocks of a Left-Wing Strategy on the Path Towards a Solidarity-Based Society