Moishe Postone

Below you will find download links for several of the works of the historian and Marxist theorist Moishe Postone.  Postone offers a very original (and some might say heterodox) reading of Marx’s more mature social theory, from the Grundrisse up through all three volumes of Capital.  His most influential work in this regard is his excellent Time, Labor, and Social Domination, in which he elaborates a critical theory founded upon Marx’s theory of society, building upon the Frankfurt School tradition of Georg Lukács , Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, and Jürgen Habermas as well as engaging the French structuralist school Louis Althusser and Étienne Balibar.  His other works focus on the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu as well as on the nature of antisemitism and its relation to certain characteristics of capitalism.

I was fortunate enough to be able to take two courses with Professor Postone, in his close reading of Capital.  He was both brilliant and thorough throughout.  It was a pleasure studying under him, and I consider my own work to be deeply influenced by him, albeit critically.  And so I heartily recommend checking out all of the following works:

1. Moishe Postone – Time, Labor, and Social Domination
2. Moishe Postone – History and Heteronomy – Critical Essays
3. Moishe Postone – Theorizing the Contemporary World – Brenner, Arrighi, Harvey
4. Moishe Postone – Anti-Semitism and National Socialism – Notes on the German Reaction to “Holocaust”
5. Moishe Postone – Critical Social Theory and the Contemporary World
6. Moishe Postone – Critical Pessimism and the Limits of Traditional Marxism