Synopsis "Neocapitalism According to Michel Clouscard"
In this short chapbook-style text, Aymeric Monville provides organizers and students with a concise and insightful overview of the work of a major French Marxist: Michel Clouscard. Unfortunately, Clouscard's writings have been, for the most part, completely unknown in the Anglosphere. Due to a series of factors, some of which Clouscard himself deftly diagnosed, the global theory industry has promoted anti-communist French theory-as well as forms of Marxism opposed to actually existing socialism-at the expense of thinkers like Clouscard and Monville. This is a direct consequence of U.S. cultural and intellectual imperialism, which has been the driving force behind the phenomenon known as French Theory. As Monville is a major intellectual, editor, and activist in his own right, this newtranslation has the advantage of spotlighting the research of two major Francophone Marxists. Moreover, Monville is in many ways the ideal guide to Clouscard's expansive body of writings, which he has worked through assiduously. Although there are many major insights to be found in them, Clouscard's writings are often more suggestive and provocative than demonstrative and pedagogical. Monville's framing and presentation of his work thereby brings clarity and precision to his project.For the first time in the English language, Iskra Books is happy to make available Aymeric Monville's foundational essay on Clouscard, Neocapitalism According to Michel Clouscard, translated by Philip Gendrault, and with a foreword by acclaimed theorist Gabriel Rockhill.
