Marx and the Politics of Need

Overview & Synopsis

Marx and the Politics of Need challenges one of the most pervasive habits in contemporary political theory and practice: treating needs as moral facts that sit outside of our politics, and which can be used to judge it. Against this depoliticising impulse, George Boss offers a provocative re-reading of Marx’s writings on need, interpreting them not as didactic statements of an abstract philosophy, but as subversive interventions and provocations inseparable from his radical political activism. Re-read in this way, those writings take on new, hitherto unexplored dimensions. Building on them, Boss develops a distinctive Marxian framework that recasts needs as constitutively political, exposing the conflicts, stakes, and possibilities that shape how needs are defined, contested, and met. The result is a fresh, deeply political perspective on human need at a time when the politics of need is both increasingly urgent and increasingly unruly. Opening up what had become ossified and closed down in contemporary social thought, the book thus fashions new opportunities for radical political agency and portends new social possibilities. As such, it will appeal to scholars of politics, sociology, and philosophy exploring Marxist thought, economic justice, and the political dimensions of human need.