The Power of Marxist Thought

A compelling demonstration of the intellectual power of Marxist thought.

From the vantage point of multiple fields and disciplines, the authors compare Marxist and non-Marxist approaches regarding a wide range of issues and articulate how being informed by a Marxist approach can produce a unique, essential and comprehensive analysis of pressing political, social, economic and ecological issues. The series of volumes of which this is the first suggests that Marxism is an important step in the development of human knowledge overall and encourages non-Marxists to view Marxism as a contribution that needs to be engaged.

David Fasenfest, Associate Professor of Sociology and Urban Affairs, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Wayne State University, is an economist and sociologist who has written numerous articles on regional and urban economic development, labor market analysis and work force development, and income inequality. His work has appeared in Economic Development Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, International Journal of Urban and Regional Review, and International Journal of Sociology. He is the editor of Community Economic Development: Policy Formation in the U.S. and U.K., Critical Perspectives on Local Development Policy Evaluation, and Social Change, Resistance and Social Practice. In addition, he edits the journal Critical Sociology and is the editor of the book series Studies in Critical Social Science published by Brill Academic Press.

Publication date: January 29, 2027

List of Figures
Notes on Contributors

1 Power of Marxist Thought in the World of Ideas: an Introduction
 Raju J Das, Robert Latham and David Fasenfest

part 1

2 Reason, Faith and Morality: Marxism versus Bourgeois Dualism
 Murray E.G. Smith and Tim Hayslip

3 Is Marx at Home in Ancient Rome? Or Is the Eternal City the Locus of an Eternal Capitalism?
 Tom Brass

part 2

4 Political Economy in Geographic Research: Institutionalist versus Marxist Approaches
 Ilia Farahani, Mads Barbesgaard and Jostein Jakobsen

5 Land Rent and Unequal Development: Non-Marxist Views and the Marxist Alternative
 Patrick Galba de Paula

6 A Marxist Critique of Informality and the Informal Economy Paradigm: the Reality of Unprotected, Irregular Labor and the New Peripheral Capitalism
 Joshua Lew McDermott

7 The Globalization of the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex: Transnational Capital and Empire in the EU, Asia and the Persian Gulf
 Ronald W. Cox

part 3

8 Environmental Sociology and Ecological Marxism
 Tarique Niazi

9 It Took 175 Years, but Marxist Insights into the Health Effects of Capitalism are Entering Mainstream Public Health Discourse
 Dennis Raphael and Toba Bryant

10 Back to Class/Back to Marx: an Alternative Perspective on Social Reproduction
 Martha E. Gimenez

11 Marxist and Non-Marxist Approaches to Black Liberation
 Joe Pateman

12 The Political Economy of Neoliberal Fascism
 Alfredo Saad-Filho

Index