Deep History : A Study in Social Evolution and Human Potential

by Laibman, David

• ISBN13: 9780791469309
• ISBN10: 0791469301
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-01-01
• Publisher: State Univ of New York Pr

Summary

Does history have a direction? Are there principles that unify our experience and show connections among diverse places, times, and cultures? Seeking to answer these questions, Deep History offers a fresh theory of social evolution while thinking grandly about the human condition. With his theory based in the Marxian and historical materialist tradition, David Laibman starts from scratch and utilizes some of the best insights in economics and economic history, sociology, political science, anthropology, history, and philosophy to construct a new framework for understanding the most general aspects of social evolution. He then applies this framework to modern era capitalist societies and, projecting it on a postcapitalist or socialist future, captures an understanding of the core momentum that has characterized our lived experience, a momentum considerate of diversity, contingency, and the role of human consciousness over time. Book jacket.

Author Biography

David Laibman is Professor of Economics at Brooklyn College and The Graduate School, The City University of New York

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
The General Theory of Social Evolution
Agency, Causality, and History	p. 2
Transition to Capitalism: The PF-PR Model and Alternatives	p. 37
Capitalism: Structure, Logic, Stadiality
The Elusive Anatomy of Capitalist Society	p. 66
The Logic of Capitalism: Growth and Crisis	p. 90
A Stadial Model of the Capitalist Era	p. 117
Beyond Capitalism: An Envisioned Future
Socialism: Beyond Capital, Beyond Class	p. 144
The Soviet Experience and the Theory of Full Communism	p. 172
Bibliography	p. 199
Index	p. 211
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