Description: Does class determine economic options, or is class in our heads--a matter of interpreting symbols and meanings? Cultural theorists have made the second claim, sidelining materialism. Now, amid deepening inequality, Vivek Chibber defends materialist analysis of class power, while arguing that we still have something to learn from cultural frameworks.
Brief description: Vivek Chibber is Professor of Sociology at New York University and the author of Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital and Locked in Place: State-Building and Late Industrialization in India. He is a contributor to the Socialist Register, American Journal of Sociology, Boston Review, and New Left Review.
Review Quotes: A quite thorough and impressive work, not only a compelling defense of materialism but also a fair-minded if highly critical engagement with cultural theory. It isn't clear how culturalists--especially the anti-Marxist ones--can effectively respond to this broadside, tightly and cogently argued as it is.--Chris Wright "CounterPunch" (6/5/2022 12:00:00 AM)