Ellen Meiksins Wood Showed Us the Irrationality of the Capitalist Market
Ellen Meiksins Wood was one of the great Marxist thinkers of her age. One of Wood’s most important contributions was to show how the coercive pressure of markets is specific to capitalism and point us toward the necessary socialist alternative.
Ellen Meiksins Wood speaking in Berlin, Germany, May 8, 2012. (Rosa Luxemburg-Stiftung / Wikimedia Commons)
Before her death in 2016, Ellen Meiksins Wood was one of the leading Marxist historians and theorists of our time. She was the author of a sweeping social history of Western political thought and is perhaps most widely known for her work on the origins of capitalism.
However, Wood’s effort to renew historical materialism is just as important in terms of her legacy. It offers key strategic insights for socialist struggles against capitalism and for a truly democratic society.
One of Wood’s most important insights was her insistence that critical thinking must be historical thinking. The critical dimension of Marxism, which stems from Marx’s critique of political economy, lies above all in identifying the historical specificity of capitalism. This implies rooting our struggles in an understanding of capitalism’s unique systemic logic.
This article is for subscribers only. Please login or subscribe to access our full archives and beautiful print and digital magazine starting at just $3 a month.