Globalization or Hyper-Alienation? Critiques of Traditional Marxism as Arguments for Basic income

Abstract

For sociological perspectives on globalization to do justice to its many facets, they must be informed by an understanding of modern societies as simultaneously complex, contingent, and contradictory – as modern capitalist societies. As is becoming ever more apparent, such an understanding of modern societies is the necessary precondition for identifying the defining features of globalization. Yet, for the most part, the history of the social sciences did not produce research agendas, theories, and methods designed to grasp complexity, contingency, and contradiction as core dimensions of modern social life that continually reinforce each other. The social sciences did not evolve as ongoing efforts to grasp the gravity each dimension exerts on concrete forms of political, economic and cultural life, and how the force of each depends on the constant exchange of energy with the other two. To the extent that scrutinizing the impact of globalization on the future – and possible futures – of human civilization is the primary challenge for social scientists to confront today, the current condition presents a unique, and perhaps most unusual opportunity to conceive anew the promise of each and all the social sciences, as elucidating how the complex, contingent, and contradictory nature of modern societies, in the name of advancing social justice, has engendered a regime of managing “social problems.”

Citation

Dahms, H.F. (2005), "Globalization or Hyper-Alienation? Critiques of Traditional Marxism as Arguments for Basic income", Lehmann, J.M. (Ed.) Social Theory as Politics in Knowledge (Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 23), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 205-276. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0278-1204(05)23004-9