Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe: Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (1985–) [EN, ES, DE, CN, TR, IT]

“Now is the present crisis of left-wing thought to be understood? To what extent does it call into the question the idea of social totality that underpinned Marxism and many other socialist theories? Does the concept of hegemony imply a new logic that goes beyond the essentialism of classical Marxist thought?

These are some of the questions that this now seminal book attempts to answer. It traces the genealogy of the present crisis, from the late nineteenth-century debates on working-class unity through to the contemporary emergence of new forms of struggle, making it a classic text both for understanding the concept of hegemony and for focusing on present social struggles and their significance for democratic theory.”

Publisher Verso, London, 1985
ISBN 086091769X, 9780860917694
197 pages

Second edition
Publisher Verso, London, 2001
ISBN 1859843301, 9781859843307
198 pages

Keywords and phrases
Social Democracy, relations of production, proletariat, Rosa Luxemburg, Austro-Marxism, democratic, overdetermination, Austro-Marxist, social agents, planism, Gramscian, essentialist, trade union, dualism, capitalist, sutured, Lenin, feminism, radical democracy, social relations

Reviews: David Forgacs (Marxism Today, 1985), Stanley Aronowitz (Social Text, 1986), Alastair Davidson (Thesis Eleven, 1987), Saul Newman (Australian Rev Public Affairs, 2002), Brian Precious (Spectrezine, c.2002), John P. Clark (Social Anarchism, 2004).

Critique: Normas Geras (New Left Review, 1987, Laclau & Mouffe’s response, Geras’s response)

Wikipedia
Publisher

Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (English, 1985, added on 2017-10-16)
Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (English, 2nd ed., 2001, HTML, PDF, updated on 2020-10-26)
Hegemonía y estrategia socialista (Spanish, 1987, added on 2017-10-16)
Hegemonie und radikale Demokratie (German, trans. Michael Hintz and Gerd Vorwallner, 2nd ed., 1991/2000, added on 2020-10-23)
Wen hua ba quan he she hui zhu yi de zhan lue (Chinese, 1994, 22 MB, added on 2020-10-23)
Hegemonya ve Sosyalist Strateji (Turkish, trans. Ahmet Kardam, 2008, added on 2020-10-23)
Egemonia e strategia socialista (Italian, trans. Fortunato Cacciatore and Michele Filippini, 2011, added on 2020-10-23)

David M. Berry: Copy, Rip, Burn: The Politics of Copyleft and Open Source (2008)

Open source technology, like Linux, has revolutionized the world of copyright and expanded the technological potentials of digital media. From downloading music and movies to accessing free software, digital media is forcing us to rethink the very idea of intellectual property. While big companies complain about lost profits, the individual has never enjoyed such freedom and autonomy in the market.

Berry explores this debate in a clear and concise way, offering an ideal introduction for anyone not versed in the legalistic terminology that up until now has dominated coverage of this issue. Looking at the historical development of the free software and the open source movement he examines its growth, politics, and potential impact, showing how the ideas that inspired the movement have now begun to influence wider cultural and political transformations. He explores whether free software and open source offer the potential for rethinking our relationship with technology in the information society.

This is a key text for students of media studies, politics, journalism, and anyone interested in new opportunities for creating a truly independent and democratic media.

Publisher Pluto Press, 2008
ISBN 0745324150, 9780745324159
Length 272 pages

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Charlotte Hess, Elinor Ostrom (eds.): Understanding Knowledge as a Commons: From Theory to Practice (2006)

“Knowledge in digital form offers unprecedented access to information through the Internet but at the same time is subject to ever-greater restrictions through intellectual property legislation, overpatenting, licensing, overpricing, and lack of preservation. Looking at knowledge as a commons—as a shared resource—allows us to understand both its limitless possibilities and what threatens it. In Understanding Knowledge as a Commons, experts from a range of disciplines discuss the knowledge commons in the digital era—how to conceptualize it, protect it, and build it.

Contributors consider the concept of the commons historically and offer an analytical framework for understanding knowledge as a shared social-ecological system. They look at ways to guard against enclosure of the knowledge commons, considering, among other topics, the role of research libraries, the advantages of making scholarly material available outside the academy, and the problem of disappearing Web pages. They discuss the role of intellectual property in a new knowledge commons, the open access movement (including possible funding models for scholarly publications), the development of associational commons, the application of a free/open source framework to scientific knowledge, and the effect on scholarly communication of collaborative communities within academia, and offer a case study of EconPort, an open access, open source digital library for students and researchers in microeconomics. The essays clarify critical issues that arise within these new types of commons—and offer guideposts for future theory and practice.”

Contributors: David Bollier, James Boyle, James C. Cox, Shubha Ghosh, Charlotte Hess, Nancy Kranich, Peter Levine, Wendy Pradt Lougee, Elinor Ostrom, Charles Schweik, Peter Suber, J. Todd Swarthout, Donald Waters

Publisher MIT Press, 2006
ISBN 0262083574, 9780262083577
367 pages

Publisher

PDF, PDF (updated on 2013-5-14)