Reflections on the Human Material Condition

Real structural interconnection exists in our economic lives. Theory may be called critical only if it penetrates beneath empirical economic facts and discerns generative economic, social, and cultural structres that are neither obvious nor apparent. A central focus of this volume is building an emancipatory vision for labor, including academic labor. The recent global economic dislocations demand a re-thinking of the material human condition with greater attention to issues of our...
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Real structural interconnection exists in our economic lives. Theory may be called critical only if it penetrates beneath empirical economic facts and discerns generative economic, social, and cultural structres that are neither obvious nor apparent. A central focus of this volume is building an emancipatory vision for labor, including academic labor. The recent global economic dislocations demand a re-thinking of the material human condition with greater attention to issues of our economic alienation and dehumanization, the powers of our common work and common wealth, and the rehumanization of global social realities.The co-authors of this volume are dedicated to intellectual debate and discussion concerning the material human condition. As campus colleagues we have spent countless hours in conversation learning from one another. This collective discourse also led to our frequent involvement in teaching together as a team.This collection of essays brings together research and writing that we have undertaken independently while being also aware of the contributions of others. Much of our work has been previously published in a wide range of academic and scholar/activist venues.A common thread in the studies we present here is our desire to improve human living conditions. We highlight objective economic and social potentials which make greater equality, justice, and abundance attainable, though they are now held back by entrenched political forces.Our joint emphasis is also on the roles of theory, critique, and evaluation. We are attempting to address what we see as a current crisis in economic theorizing and in sociological theory more generally. We see this crisis as rooted in philosophy. Therefore we shall frequently examine here the relationship between knowledge claims and the ontological claims that condition them.