This book develops a critique of utopianism through a provocative comparison of the works of Karl Marx and F. A. Hayek, thus engaging two vastly different traditions in critical dialogue. By emphasizing the methodological and substantive similarities between Marxian and Hayekian perspectives, it challenges each tradition's most precious assumptions about the other. Through this comparative analysis, the book articulates the crucial distinctions between utopian and radical theorizing. Sciabarra examines the dialectical method of social inquiry common to both Marxian and Hayekian thought and argues that both Marx and Hayek rejected utopian theorizing because it internalizes an abstract, ahistorical, exaggerated sense of human possibility. The chief disagreement between Marx and Hayek, he shows, is not political but epistemological, reflecting their differing assumptions about the limits of reason.

Develops a critique of utopianism through a comparison of the works of Karl Marx and F. A. Hayek, challenging conventional views of both Marxian and Hayekian thought.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall we have been told that no alternative to Western capitalism is possible or desirable. This book challenges this view with two arguments. First, the above premise ignores the enormous variety within capitalism itself. Second, there are enormous forces of transformation within contemporary capitalisms, associated with moves towards a more knowledge-intensive economy. These forces challenge the traditional bases of contract and employment, and could lead to a quite different socio-economic system. Without proposing a static blueprint, this book explores this possible scenario.

The aim of the book is to stimulate the realignment of political, theoretical and philosophical thinking that is now beginning in response to global warming. The author provides an examination of the theories of the most prominent social philosophers of the 19th and 20th centuries - Karl Marx and Friedrich Hayek. He does so in the belief that the work of these two thinkers, in their commonalities and differences, successes and failures, contain important indicators of the content of a social philosophy suited to today's conditions. The book proceeds in the context of the failure of the attempts by followers of Marx, having achieved political power, to realise the objectives they took to issue from his theories, on the one hand, and of the earlier successes, but now emerging failures of the neo-liberal philosophy of Hayek to cope with the with the environmental outcomes of those very successes, on the other. In doing so, the book will incidentally critique postmodernism, because of its claim to be 'Theory' as such, which for a generation impeded genuine theoretical and philosophical work.

This title was first published in 2000: This engaging book suggests that Marx was right to reject 'utopian socialism' on the grounds that it undermined the principles of proletarian self-emancipation and self-determination. As a theoretician of the proletarian class, Marx sought to capture the spirit of revolution in a manner which precluded the need for utopian philanthropy and the messianic elitism which invariably accompanied it. In a powerful and original central argument, the book suggests that the categories which together define Marx’s own 'utopia' were nothing more than theoretical by-products of the models employed by Marx in order to supersede the need for utopianism. As such, Marx was an 'accidental' utopian. Rather than legitimating utopianism, however, the author argues that this conclusion reinforces the need to develop Marx’s anti-utopian project further. Emphasising the contemporary relevance of Marx’s original critique, the conclusion suggests that the future of socialism lies in its ability to harness, not the spirit of utopia, but the spirit of adventure.

The author provides a thorough examination of the theories of Marx and Hayek in the belief that the work of these two thinkers, in their commonalities and differences, successes and failures, contain important indicators of the content of a social philosophy suited to today’s conditions.