“Class Struggle is Not a Game”: Daniel Bensaïd’s Relational Conception of Class.

Authors

  • Cinzia Arruzza The New School for Social Research (NSSR).
  • Patrick King University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5902/2236672548530

Keywords:

Class theory, Marxism, Class formation, Strategy, Exploitation.

Abstract

While Daniel Bensaïd’s writings on Marxism, socialist strategy, and historical temporality have gained increased attention in the years since his passing, there remain relatively few accounts of his thinking on class. This article seeks to correct that gap by situating Bensaïd’s various texts on class theory in relation to other key reconceptualizations of class in the Marxist tradition that sought to avoid sociological determinism: E. P. Thompson’s lens of class formation and the Italian Workerists’ methodology of class composition. In tracing these connections, we argue that Bensaïd’s conception of class is at once historically grounded and attuned to the open-ended conflictuality and multiple terrains of class struggle. 

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Author Biographies

Cinzia Arruzza, The New School for Social Research (NSSR).

Associate Professor of Philosophy at The New School for Social Research. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Rome Tor Vergata and subsequently studied at the universities of Fribourg (Switzerland), and Bonn (Germany), where she was the recipient of an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellowship. Her research interests include ancient metaphysics and political thought, Plato, Aristotle, Neoplatonism, feminist theory and Marxism. She is currently working on two projects: (1) a monograph on tyranny and the tyrant in Plato's Republic and (2) a research project on gender, capitalism, social reproduction, and Marx's critique of political economy.

Patrick King, University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC)

Doctorat student in the History of Consciousness Department, University of California, Santa Cruz.

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Published

2020-10-15

How to Cite

Arruzza, C., & King, P. (2020). “Class Struggle is Not a Game”: Daniel Bensaïd’s Relational Conception of Class. Século XXI: Journal of Social Sciences, 10(1), 21–44. https://doi.org/10.5902/2236672548530