Free Event Tonight! Understanding the Conjuncture: Political Capitalism, Class Dealignment & Strategies for the Left
With Dylan Riley, Matt Karp and James Foley
How should we understand the moment in history we are living through? Is neoliberalism mutating into something new? Have electoral coalitions been reshaped forever? And how should the left respond to this?
Dylan Riley, internationally renowned sociologist and Marxist theorist, has sparked a heated debate with a series of provocative essays in New Left Review that have attempted to retheorize capitalism and contemporary politics.
In seven telegraphic theses, Riley (and Robert Brenner) argue that politics has undergone a tectonic shift over the past twenty years, closely tied to transformations in the “regime of accumulation.” This new structure, which he terms "political capitalism," has redefined how power operates in the world today.
Join us for an exciting discussion between Dylan Riley, Matt Karp and James Foley, as they analyze the deep-seated changes that have reshaped politics, and the strategic dilemmas faced by the contemporary left internationally.
This event promises to be a must-attend for anyone interested in contemporary debates on the left internationally.
Event Details:
Date: Wednesday 18th October
Time: 6pm (UK time)
Location: Online
You can read Dylan Riley and Robert Brenner’s article here:
You can read Matt Karp’s reply to Riley and Brenner here:
You can get James Foley’s book, in which he analyzes arguments about political capitalism and class dealignment in the UK context, here:
About the speakers
Dylan Riley
Dylan Riley is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He recently authored two influential essays analyzing the conjuncture in American politics in New Left Review: "Faultlines," and "Seven Theses on American Politics" (with Robert Brenner).
Dylan is the author of The Civic Foundations of Fascism in Europe: Italy, Spain, and Romania 1870-1945 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010, Verso, 2019). He has published articles in the American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Catalyst, Comparative Sociology, Contemporary Sociology, The Socio Economic Review, Jacobin and the New Left Review (of which he is a member of the editorial committee). His work has been translated into German, Russian, and Spanish.
Matt Karp
Matthew Karp is a historian at Princeton University. He recently wrote "Party and Class in American Politics", a reply to Dylan Riley and Robert Brenner's "Seven Theses on American Politics" in New Left Review.
Karp is now at work on two books. The first, Millions of Abolitionists: The Republican Party and the Political War on Slavery, considers the emergence of American antislavery mass politics. The second book, a meditation on the politics of U.S. history, explores the ways that narratives of the American experience both serve and shape different ideological ends — in the nineteenth century, the twentieth century, and today.
James Foley
James Foley is a lecturer in Political Science at Glasgow Caledonian University. His research engages questions of capitalist crisis and class dealignment from a European perspective.
James is the author of The Scottish Economy and Nationalism (Routledge, 2023), Scotland After Britain (Verso, 2022) and is the editor of Contesting Cosmopolitan Europe (Amsterdam University Press, 2022). He is a member of the editorial board of Conter, and has written for a variety of publications including The Guardian, Open Democracy and The Socialist Register.