Rupturing the Dialectic: The Struggle against Work, Money, and Financialization

"Rupturing the Dialectic rejects the quietism inherent in all economistic approaches to the current crises within capitalism, and furnishes working people with a clear, concrete, sensible program for how to move forward. This is a fine book, and it is one from which activists will greatly benefit." —David Sherman, author of Sartre and Adorno

"Cleaver's theory of the value of labor to capital, explanation of money as a critical mediator of class conflicts, and discussion of strategies for resistance and transformation are remarkable. Rupturing the Dialectic offers emancipating ways to understand everyday life and financial crises in capitalism today." —Anitra Nelson, author of Marx's Concept of Money

"Rupturing the Dialectic shows us how we may use Marx's labor theory of value to resist the subordination of our lives to labor. Cleaver's incisive analysis offers the prospect of getting beyond the capitalist dialectic, rather than merely idealizing it." —Brett Caraway, professor, the University of Toronto

Since his groundbreaking Reading Capital Politically was first published in 1979, Harry Cleaver has been a central figure for autonomist Marxists seeking practical, political strategies within Marx's work—as opposed to abstraction and historical inevitability. His work since has shown not only how capitalism seeks to structure every aspect of our lives through and around work but also how we endlessly fight back in ways that reshape capitalism itself. Rupturing the Dialectic brings this project up to the present by interpreting capitalism's most recent crises, tracing their causes, and demonstrating how ordinary people can, and do, rupture the smooth functioning of the system that exploits them.

Harry Cleaver was a university professor for three decades, before retiring in 2012. His book Reading Capital Politically has been republished in seven languages and ten countries.

Harry Cleaver: Harry Cleaver has been an activist since the Civil Rights Movement, and was a university professor for three decades, until he retired in 2012. His book Reading Capital Politically has been translated and republished in seven languages and ten countries.