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This essay examines how two Marxist anti-colonial intellectuals from Portuguese India and French India – Aquino de Bragança and V Subbiah – differentially theorized movements for independence from colonial rule. Through the analysis of primary source documents in French, Portuguese, Italian and English, I compare V Subbiah's Dalit, anti-fascist anti-colonial Marxism to Aquino de Bragança's internationalist anti-colonial Marxism. Both theorists' approaches have similarities in (1) theorizing the relationship between fascism and colonialism given that the Portuguese Empire was administered by Salazar's Estado Novo and the French Empire was under Vichy rule, (2) rethinking Marxism to better fit the Global South context and (3) intellectual and political connections to Algeria were critically important for theory and praxis. Despite the distinct geographic and social spaces in which they lived and worked, both produced remarkably similar theories of anti-imperialism.

In this introduction to the special issue, ‘Marxist Thought in South Asia’, we detail the long history of Marxist politics and theorizing in South Asia and highlight the unique contributions and perspectives of South Asian Marxists to global Marxism. Three contributions we find particularly significant are (1) South Asian Marxists' approach to thinking about questions of capitalism, colonialism and imperialism, (2) the treatment of agrarian and feudal continuities in Marxist theories from South Asia and (3) unique South Asian contributions to theorizing caste from a Marxist perspective.

Pakistan had never been a place of serious and nuanced debate and contestation of politics of postcolonial critique, that is, the continuity of economic, political, and cultural dependency of newly independent countries (NICs) on ex-colonizers as pointed out by neocolonialism, dependency theory, and postcolonial theory, respectively. Instead, Pakistan is presented by extant liberal academic literature as a “failed nation” and a state dominated by the military and plagued by religious extremism. As opposed to this, through the literary and activists writings of Aziz-ul-Haq, this chapter will try to illustrate how cultural contestation of the nation-building project postindependence from British rule was a lot more complex and interesting in Pakistan. This was so because the nation-building project of Pakistan was, on the one hand, an amalgamation of Indo-Persian, Arab, Indian, and Western colonial and civilizational influences and, on the other hand, entailed suppression of resilient local and national cultures of its constituent nationalities developed over centuries. This was later expressed in ethno-nationalist politics. However, when it came to the politics of the marginalized in the late 1960s, there were important political, theoretical, and literary insights which caused a change in the direction of political practice in Pakistan, which paralleled the politics expressed by writers like Fanon and early Subaltern Studies influenced by the Naxal Movement in India. The contestation and confusion arising from this dialectic also entered Pakistan's literary and cultural sphere. This chapter not only tries to give a different postcolonial critique of the failure of nation-building project in Pakistan but, though at a preliminary level, is an attempt to separate the original postcolonial theory in its radical tradition from contemporary postmodern/poststructuralist postcolonial theory marked with pessimism and resignation.

Since the 1990s, the German current of Value Criticism has been proposing to rework a critique of capitalism based on the mature works of Marx. Starting from the primary categories of capital – value, abstract labor, commodity fetishism – they intend to overcome the traditional contradictions of Marxism, capital/labor, proletariat/bourgeoisie, etc. The Canadian thinker Moishe Postone has, independently of value criticism, developed a thought that is close to the German current while distinguishing itself on certain important points. However, it is appropriate to question these new readings of Marx which, if they can be fruitful, pose many problems, both philosophical and political.

This chapter offers an introduction to two leading Sri Lankan Marxist political economists, S. B. D. de Silva and G. V. S. de Silva. By surveying their most influential writings – the 645-page book The Political Economy of Underdevelopment by S. B. D. de Silva and the pungent essays ‘Heretical Thoughts' and ‘Social Change’ by G. V. S. de Silva – -it traces the distinctive and provocative qualities of these two thinkers, especially concerning problems of development and underdevelopment. In doing so, it is argued that S. B. D. de Silva is best understood as a leading anti-imperialist political economist alongside Samir Amin, Immanuel Wallerstein and Giovanni Arrighi, distinguished by a classical Marxist focus on class struggle and relations of production in his narration of the ‘colonial mode of production’ in Sri Lanka. As for G. V. S. de Silva's erudite reflections on the trajectories of transition to capitalism and socialism as well as the prospects of social and economic development in countries emerging from pre-capitalist social formations in the wake of colonization, his remarkable attention to spatial questions at multiple scales – between country and city, colony and metropole – receives special attention. The conclusion underlines the sustained relevance of both de Silvas to making sense of the origins of the present crisis in Sri Lanka.

The socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics is a systematic economic discipline, which theoretically summarises the socialist economic system and the path of economic development with Chinese characteristics. It is a systematic economic theory of adapting Marxism to the Chinese context. The theoretical system construction for the discipline of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics is currently a major task.

From the perspective of disciplinary cognition, the theoretical system of the discipline of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics includes the disciplinary attributes and connotations, theoretical basis, the origin of thoughts, major principles, logical starting point, main logic and problem-based study of major theoretical and practical issues.

Developing the discipline and building the theoretical system of the socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics, several major principles should be adhered to, including building the socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics on the basis of historical materialism; building the theoretical paradigm of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics around the analysis of production relations; adhering to the people-centred principle; taking common prosperity as the main logic of the socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics; studying the major theoretical and practical issues of building the socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era based on problems; and reflecting the innovative development of the discipline in the textbook, The Socialist Political Economy with Chinese Characteristics.

Disciplinary cognition involves the connotations, attributes, mission and development path of the discipline, which is related to how to construct the discipline system and is a significant part of the disciplinary construction.

This study aims to help develop “business principles for stakeholder capitalism” in two steps. First, the study defines internal logic of three theories of capitalism and two variants within each theory. Second, it examines approaches to integration into modern democratic capitalism. Treating the three theories as substitutes identifies relative strengths and weaknesses; complementarity and partial overlap approaches to integration study the institutional settings within which stakeholder capitalism operates. Empirical outcomes reflect competition between market and stakeholder businesses for participants, with institutional conditions determining the scope of collective action.

The approach aligns three typologies in a unique conceptual arrangement defining the three theories of capitalism: forms of capitalism, potential failures of each form and associated types of goods. The first method examines the internal logic of each theory of capitalism. The second draws on traditional narrative review of references documenting each theory of capitalism and variants together with modern Marxist anti-capitalism.

Three typologies align uniquely with the theories of capitalism, each having two variants. Both variants of stakeholder capitalism are compatible with compassionate capitalism, constitutional government or polycentric governance but not with self-interest capitalism, dictatorship or Marxism. A theory of modern democratic capitalism allocates roles for private, club and social goods with empirically variable mixes occurring across countries. Competition among different types of enterprises provides an empirical test for comparative advantages of stakeholder capitalism. Future research should consider approaches for testing the proposed conceptual scheme in practice concerning capacity to deal with grand challenges, wicked problems and black swan events.

Research approach is limited to logical examination of theories and literature documentation without direct empirical confirmation. The study does not address practical implications for managers and public officials or social implications concerning private incentives, stakeholder cooperation or collective action.

Originality lies in shifting terms of debate about stakeholder capitalism from advocacy of substitute theories to understanding of its relationship to market capitalism and collective action capitalism. Value lies in explaining desirability of theoretical integration of three types of capitalism into a comprehensive framework for modern democratic capitalism.

This essay charts an intellectual journey. Geoffrey M. Hodgson became an institutional economist in the 1980s. He explains how he discovered institutional economics and what strains of institutional thought were attractive for him. Another issue raised in this essay is how institutional researchers organize and move forward. Hodgson argues for an interdisciplinary approach, but this is not without its problems.

In the new development stage of comprehensively building a socialist modern state, it is imperative to adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, comprehensively summarize China's practical experiences in economic development, strengthen research on capital issues, construct theories of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics regarding capital and provide scientific theoretical guidance for further promoting the positive role of various types of capital while preventing and overcoming their negative effects, which is a major theoretical issue and a glorious task for the theoretical and economic circles in China.

From the perspective of Marx's theory on capital and historical development, modern capital represents the organizational mode of socialized mass production and market economy. It serves as both the economic foundation of bourgeois society and a tool for socialist economic development.

The market economy represents an inevitable historical stage and form of socialist economic development, necessitating the adoption of capital as an organizational form within socialist economies.

The utilization of capital to advance a socialist economy is a remarkable achievement by the CPC and Chinese people, representing a significant innovation in both theory and practice. The role of capital is inherently dual under any social condition. In the context of a socialist system, capital can play a positive role effectively, and its behavior can be guided and regulated correctly to curb its negative or even destructive impact.

This paper presents an historical reconstruction of the radicalisation of Alan Fox, the industrial sociologist and a detailed analysis of his early historical and sociological writing in the classical pluralist phase.

An intellectual history, including detailed discussion of key Fox texts, supported by interviews with Fox and other Biographical sources.

Fox’s radicalisation was incomplete, as he carried over from his industrial relations (IR) pluralist mentors, Allan Flanders and Hugh Clegg, a suspicion of political Marxism, a sense of historical contingency and an awareness of the fragmented nature of industrial conflict.

Recent academic attention has centred on Fox’s later radical pluralism with its “structural” approach to the employment relationship. This paper revisits his early, neglected classical pluralist writing. It also illuminates his transition from institutional IR to a broader sociology of work, influenced by AH Halsey, John Goldthorpe and others and the complex nature of his radicalisation.