Socialism And Modernity

This first collection of Peter Beilharzs highly influential thought tracesthe themes and problems manifestations and trajectories of socialism andmodernity as t... » 

This first collection of Peter Beilharzs highly influential thought tracesthe themes and problems manifestations and trajectories of socialism andmodernity as they connect and shift over a twentyyear period. Woven throughoutBeilharzs analysis is the urgent question of modern utopia how do we imaginefreedom and equality in modernity?The essays in this volume explore therelationship between socialism and modernity across the United States Europeand Australia from the mid1980s to the turn of the twentyfirst century atime that witnessed the global triumph of capitalism and the dramatic turn awayfrom Marxism and socialism to modernity as the dominant perspective. Accordingto Beilharz we have seen the expansion of a kind of Weberian Marxism with theconcept of revolution giving way to the idea of pluralized forms of power andthe idea of rupture giving way to the postmodern sense of difference. Thesechanges come together with the discourse of modernism both aesthetic andtechnological.Socialism and modernity Beilharz argues are fundamentallyinterrelated. In correcting the conflation of Marxism Bolshevism andsocialism that occludes contemporary political thinking he reopens a space fordiscussion of what socialist politics might look like nowin the postcommunistpostcolonialpostmodern moment. «