The Provisional Power

A compelling analysis of the different ways in which Karl Marx investigates the political and social phenomenon of power.

As a political militant, as a journalist, as a critic of capitalism and as a revolutionary theorist, Marx continually confronts the ways in which individuals and social classes enter into power relations. For Marx, however, there is no bourgeois power that proletarians can simply conquer and then use to their advantage. Workers’ power is always provisional because it constantly changes the very conditions of its own production.

Publication date: August 12, 2025