Capitalism A Conversation in Critical Theory

A scintillating conversation on capitalism and crisis from two of our most incisive political philosophers

Capitalism, by the twenty-first century, has brought us an era of escalating, overlapping crisis–ecological, political, social–which we may not survive.

In this brilliant, wide-ranging conversation, political philosophers Nancy Fraser and Rahel Jaeggi identify capitalism as the source of the devastation and examine its in-built tendency to crisis. In an exchange that ranges across history, critical theory, ecology, feminism and political theory, Fraser and Jaeggi find that capitalism's tendency to separate what is connected–human from non-human nature, commodity production and social reproduction–is at the heart of its crisis tendency.

These "boundary struggles," Fraser and Jaeggi conclude, constitute capitalism's most destructive power but are also the sites where a fighting left movement might be able to halt the destruction and build the non-capitalist future we so desperately need.

A crucial text for students of political theory, economic theory, and social change, Capitalism offers an invigorated critique of twenty-first century capitalism and an incisive study of our current conjuncture.

Nancy Fraser is Henry A. & Louise Loeb Professor of Political & Social Science at the New School for Social Research, and the author of Fortunes of Feminism and Cannibal Capitalism. Rahel Jaeggi is Professor for Social Philosophy and Director of the Center for Humanities and Social Change at the Humboldt University of Berlin.