BRICS is a grouping of the five major emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Volume five in the Democratic Marxism series, BRICS and the New American Imperialism challenges the mainstream understanding of BRICS and US dominance to situate the new global rivalries engulfing capitalism. It offers novel analyses of BRICS in the context of increasing US induced imperial chaos, deepening environmental crisis tendencies (such as climate change and water scarcity), contradictory dynamics inside BRICS countries and growing subaltern resistance. The authors revisit contemporary thinking on imperialism and anti-imperialism, drawing on the work of Rosa Luxemburg, one of the leading theorists after Marx, who attempted to understand the expansionary nature of capitalism from the heartlands to the peripheries. The richness of Luxemburg's pioneering work inspires most of the volume's contributors in their analyses of the dangerous contradictions of the contemporary world as well as forms of democratic agency advancing resistance. While various forms of resistance are highlighted, among them water protests, mass worker strikes, anti-corporate campaigning and forms of cultural critique, this volume grapples with the challenge of renewing anti-imperialism beyond the NGO-driven World Social Forum and considers the prospects of a new horizontal political vessel to build global convergence. It also explores the prospects of a Fifth International of Peoples and Workers.

In The Thatcherite Offensive, Alexander Gallas provides a class-centred political analysis of Thatcherism. Drawing upon Greek state theorist Nicos Poulantzas, he challenges both mainstream and critical accounts of British politics in the 1980s and 90s. He shows that Thatcherism's success and novelty, indeed its unity as a political project, lay in the fact that the Thatcher governments profoundly shifted class relations in Britain in favour of capital and restructured the institutions underpinning class domination.

Economic inequality has recently gained considerable academic attention. However, two important aspects of inequality have not been discussed systematically: its multidimensional nature and the question of what can be done to reverse it. This book offers insights from scholars representing the Global Labour University, which operates in Brazil, Germany, India, South Africa and the US. They analyse the various drivers of inequality, assess policy responses, and discuss counterstrategies. The main findings of this book are that rising levels of inequality cannot be addressed only with the standard policies responses, namely education, redistribution and 'green growth'. In addition, the way markets currently function needs to be corrected. The chapters in this volume focus on specific fields of contemporary capitalism where important drivers of inequality are located, for example, the labour market; the financial system; the tax system; multi-national corporations; and gender relations. Other chapters discuss in detail where political opportunities for change lie. They critically assess existing countermeasures; the idea of a 'green economy' and its implications for inequality; and existing campaigns by trade unions and new social movements against inequality. In line with the global nature of the problem, this book contains case studies on countries both from the north and south with considerable economic and political weight. This book provides academics, political practitioners and civil society activists with a range of ideas on how to drive back inequality. It will be of interest to those who study political economy, development economy and labour economics.

Economic inequality has recently gained considerable academic attention. However, two important aspects of inequality have not been discussed systematically: its multidimensional nature and the question of what can be done to reverse it. This book offers insights from scholars representing the Global Labour University, which operates in Brazil, Germany, India, South Africa and the US. They analyse the various drivers of inequality, assess policy responses, and discuss counterstrategies. The main findings of this book are that rising levels of inequality cannot be addressed only with the standard policies responses, namely education, redistribution and 'green growth'. In addition, the way markets currently function needs to be corrected. The chapters in this volume focus on specific fields of contemporary capitalism where important drivers of inequality are located, for example, the labour market; the financial system; the tax system; multi-national corporations; and gender relations. Other chapters discuss in detail where political opportunities for change lie. They critically assess existing countermeasures; the idea of a 'green economy' and its implications for inequality; and existing campaigns by trade unions and new social movements against inequality. In line with the global nature of the problem, this book contains case studies on countries both from the north and south with considerable economic and political weight. This book provides academics, political practitioners and civil society activists with a range of ideas on how to drive back inequality. It will be of interest to those who study political economy, development economy and labour economics.

In this important book, Gallas asks what strikes in non-industrial sectors mean for class formation, a critical question which has been largely unaddressed by the current literature on global labour unrest. A mapping of strikes around the world and case studies from Germany, Britain and Spain cast new light on class relations, struggles around waged and unwaged work and labour movements in contemporary capitalism to brings class theory back to labour studies. This is a valuable resource for academics and students of employment relations, sociology and politics.

The author establishes how different variants of Marxism conceptualise the structure-agency relation. He distinguishes three groups of theories: First, there are the dichotomous approaches of Marxism-Leninism and Guevarism. They undercut any meaningful determination of the social because they rely exclusively on one side of the relation in question. Second, there is the dualism of the Althusser School and Open Marxism respectively. Both approaches conceive of the structure-agency relation as a causal one and bracket one of its poles, thereby misjudging the stability of capitalism. Third, there is Marx's Critique of Political Economy and, drawing upon it, the Strategic Relational Approach. These approaches provide consistent conceptualisations. They are best described with the notion of duality because they emphasise that the social is constituted by both structure and agency. The author discusses what this means for our understanding of capitalism, and spells out the political implications of his findings.

The Greek Marxist and political sociologist Nicos Poulantzas is one of the most influential postwar European left thinkers. Although he died more than 30 years ago, this discourse argues that Poulantzas's political impulses and studies are more topical than ever. Offering valuable insight, the book maps controversies and reflects upon the differing views regarding how Poulantzas's work should be continued and surpassed. Four major themes are explored: the economy and the state in the capitalist mode of production; power and domination; space and statehood; and crisis, transformation and political strategies.