Телеграм канал «Политическая теория и философия (Political theory and philosophy)»

David Harvey - The Story of Capital: What Everyone Should Know About How Capital Works. Verso Books, London, 2026

Reviewed by Matt McManus

Harvey’s recent book, The Story of Capital, reads very much like a coda to his reconstruction, what he calls the ‘Marx project’ in the preface (ix). Where the earlier companions dive deep into specific books, the goal of The Story of Capital is summative. Harvey argues that ‘capital’s totality is an organic system in perpetual evolution.’ (3) The goal is to understand this totality in all its moving and changing parts, and above all else the relations between them. This is a key point Harvey has been stressing since at least Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. He points out that Marx, following Hegel, doesn’t understand social causality the way a bourgeois philosopher might. It’s not the case that A causes B which in turn leads to C. This aligns with a natural and social ontology that starts from perceiving the world as a collection of separate individuals and then describes social laws as an emergent feature. By contrast, Marx’s view of causality is relational and mutual. A effects B and is recursively effected in turn. Consider an extending root structure which draws nutrients from the earth and air, while in turn reshaping the soil structure and atmosphere as it grows into a tree. It is a holistic ontology.  Moreover, over time this relationship itself can become independently impactful through alienation, which leads to reification.

https://marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviews/22705_the-story-of-capital-what-everyone-should-know-about-how-capital-works-by-david-harvey-reviewed-by-matt-mcmanus/

К. Митрошенков - Не совсем бессмысленный и не вполне беспощадный

О книге Кирилла Осповата «Пугачевщина»

Восстание Пугачева с давних пор описывается в историографии как хаотическое народное движение, лишенное артикулированных целей и неразборчивое в средствах. В новой книге Кирилла Осповата предпринимается попытка ревизовать этот подход и переписать историю пугачевщины с точки зрения ее непосредственных участников, а не просвещенных элит, подавлявших бунт

https://gorky.media/reviews/ne-sovsem-bessmyslennyi-i-ne-vpolne-besposhchadnyi

Denis Vyaznikov - The paradox of fanaticism: Hegemony beyond dangerous victory

This paper re-evaluates fanaticism as a distinct logic of political articulation within post-foundational political thought. Often dismissed as irrational zeal and overlooked in political theory compared to populism, fanaticism is here defined through its differentiation from populism. Both share an antagonistic understanding of the political, but differ significantly: while populism risks losing concrete content in its pursuit of hegemony, fanaticism centres a pure, concrete signifier, sustained by radical commitment and immediate utopian aims. This distinction avoids what Ernesto Laclau terms the ‘dangerous victory’. The paper proposes a concept of fanaticism that is operationalisable for empirical research, applicable not only to historical contexts but also to contemporary radical social movements, such as The Last Generation (Die Letzte Generation). This approach refrains from confining such movements to specific ideological or cultural content, providing a framework for analysing their organizational structures and mobilisation strategies.

George Steinmetz - Regulating the Social. The Welfare State & Local Politics in Imperial Germany

Why does the welfare state develop so unevenly across countries, regions and localities? What accounts for the exclusions and disciplinary features of social programmes? How are elite and popular conceptions of social reality related to welfare policies? George Steinmetz approaches these and other issues by exploring the complex origins and development of local and national social policies in 19th-century Germany. Generally regarded as the birthplace of the modern welfare state, Germany experimented with a wide variety of social programmes before 1914, including the national social insurance legislation of the 1880s, the "Elberfeld" system of poor relief, and modern forms of social work. Looking at changes in welfare policy over the course of the 19th century, differences between state and municipal interventions, and variations in policy, Steinmetz develops an account that focuses on the specific constraints on local and national policy-makers. Whereas certain aspects of the pre-1914 welfare state reinforced social divisions and even foreshadowed aspects of the Nazi regime, other dimensions actually helped to relieve sickness, poverty and unemployment. Steinmetz explores the conditions that led to both the positive and the objectionable features of social policy.