Reviews of scholarly works on the history of labor, workers, and workers’ rights.
Drucilla Cornell, “Can There Be a People’s Commons?”
Cornell, Drucilla. “Can There Be a People’s Commons?: The Significance of Rosa Luxemburg’s Accumulation of Capital,” in The Intellectual Origins of the Global Financial Crisis, edited by Roger Berkowitz and... View Article
March 5, 2018
Friedrich Engels, Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State
Engels, Friedrich. Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State. 1884. Review by Hayyim Rothman Domestic labor has been a central concern to Marxist theorists since the nineteenth century.... View Article
March 5, 2018
Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch
Federici, Silvia. Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation. New York: Autonomedia, 2004. Review by Hayyim Rothman In Caliban and the Witch, Silvia Federici tells the sweeping story... View Article
March 5, 2018
Karl Marx, Das Kapital
Marx, Karl. Das Kapital: A Critique of Political Economy. Volume One. 1867. Review by Genevieve Carlton Nineteenth-century economist and political revolutionary Karl Marx spent three decades writing the first volume... View Article
April 16, 2018
Ivan Illich, The Right to Useful Unemployment
Illich, Ivan. The Right to Useful Unemployment. London: Marion Boyars, 1978. Review by Hayyim Rothman Philosopher Ivan Illich presents a theory of non-work very distinct from that of Mario Tronti.... View Article
March 20, 2018
Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation
Polanyi, Karl. The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time. 1944. Review by Genevieve Carlton In the debate between free markets and a state-controlled economy, Karl Polanyi... View Article
May 17, 2018
Mario Tronti, “The Struggle Against Labor”
Tronti, Mario. “The Struggle Against Labor,” in Operai e Capitale (“Workers and Capital”), Einaudi, Turin, 1966. Review by Hayyim Rothman Italian philosopher Mario Tronti wrote an influential book called Operai e... View Article
April 2, 2018
Mario Tronti, “The Strategy of Refusal”
Tronti, Mario. “The Strategy of Refusal,” in Operai e Capitale (“Workers and Capital”), Einaudi, Turin, 1966, pp. 234-252. Review by Hayyim Rothman Italian philosopher Mario Tronti wrote an influential book... View Article
April 2, 2018
Mario Tronti, “Workerism and Politics”
Tronti, Mario. “Workerism and Politics,” Historical Materialism 18 (2010) 186–189. Review by Hayyim Rothman In 2006, Italian philosopher Mario Tronti gave a lecture on the theory of workerism, or operaismo,... View Article
April 2, 2018
Silvia Federici, Wages Against Housework
Federici, Silvia. Wages Against Housework. Bristol: Falling Wall Press and the Power of Women Collective. 1975. Review by Hayyim Rothman In 1975, scholar and activist Silvia Federici published a short... View Article
April 6, 2018