Rupturing the Dialectic: The Struggle against Work, Money, and Financialization

"Rupturing the Dialectic rejects the quietism inherent in all economistic approaches to the current crises within capitalism, and furnishes working people with a clear, concrete, sensible program for how to move forward. This is a fine book, and it is one from which activists will greatly benefit." —David Sherman, author of Sartre and Adorno

"Cleaver's theory of the value of labor to capital, explanation of money as a critical mediator of class conflicts, and discussion of strategies for resistance and transformation are remarkable. Rupturing the Dialectic offers emancipating ways to understand everyday life and financial crises in capitalism today." —Anitra Nelson, author of Marx's Concept of Money

"Rupturing the Dialectic shows us how we may use Marx's labor theory of value to resist the subordination of our lives to labor. Cleaver's incisive analysis offers the prospect of getting beyond the capitalist dialectic, rather than merely idealizing it." —Brett Caraway, professor, the University of Toronto

Harry Cleaver's pioneering Reading Capital Politically showed not only how capitalism seeks to structure every aspect of our lives through and around work but also how we endlessly fight back in ways that reshape capitalism itself. Rupturing the Dialectic skillfully brings this project up to date, interpreting capitalism's most recent crises and demonstrating how ordinary people can, and do, rupture the smooth functioning of the system that exploits them.

Harry Cleaver was a university professor for three decades, before retiring in 2012. His book Reading Capital Politically has been republished in seven languages and ten countries.