Class struggle in times of crisis: conceptualising agency of resistance

Year 2015, Volume: 7 Issue: 1, 19 - 31, 11.05.2015

Andreas Bieler

Abstract

Class struggle in times of crisis: conceptualizing agency of resistance. While movements of
resistance against neo-liberal globalization have increasingly become subject of analysis, there
is little agreement on how to conceptualize such agency. The purpose of this paper is to
contribute to a conceptualization of resistance in order to understand better the possibilities of
success, but also obstacles to more decisive action against global capitalism.

The paper will first discuss why it is important to draw on historical materialism in this respect
in order to comprehend the historical specificity of capitalism. In a second step, it is argued
that divisions along ethnicity and gender can be incorporated into analyses of class struggle,
before suggesting four concrete ways of how to conceptualize expanded forms of class
struggle including (1) Robert Cox’s focus on non-established, informal labor; (2) Harry
Cleaver’s emphasis on the ‘social factory’; (3) Kees van der Pijl’s analysis of the extension of
exploitation into the sphere of social reproduction; and (4) Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s
grounding of analysis in the experience of the most exploited female workers in the Global
South.

Keywords

Historical Materialism, Global Capitalism, Agency of Resistance, Class Struggle

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