%0 Journal Article
%T Marx, financial capitalism and the fractured society: Using Bhaskar¡¯s dialectical critical realism to frame a transformatory sociological programme of action for resistance and change
%A Graham Scambler
%A Sasha Scambler
%J Journal of Classical Sociology
%@ 1741-2897
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/1468795X18810576
%X This article begins by considering the relevance and limitations of Marx¡¯s writings for understanding post-1970s financial capitalism. Two specific propositions are outlined and developed. The first is that twenty-first-century financial capitalism is conspicuously vulnerable to implosion or collapse, notably via a Habermasian ¡®legitimation crisis¡¯. The second traces its progressive ¡®fracturing¡¯, with references to neoliberal austerity and post-welfarism and their deepening impact on the disadvantaged and vulnerable and the sick and disabled. The article then turns to Bhaskar¡¯s dialectical critical realism, suggesting, and attempting to show, that it lends additional philosophical and theoretical weight (¡®deepens¡¯ in Bhaskar¡¯s terms) the reach and range of Marxian analyses. The third part of the article focuses on Bhaskar¡¯s evolving theory of transformative ¨C or emancipatory ¨C action. It is contended that his account grounds and allows for rational and compelling resistance to financial capitalism¡¯s neoliberal status quo. In the concluding section, the affinity between Bhaskar¡¯s (neo-Marxian) theory of transformative action and the present authors¡¯ concept of ¡®action sociology¡¯ is outlined. The article concludes with a manifesto for an action sociology oriented to ¡®absence¡¯, challenging ¡®constraining ills¡¯ and imagining and researching ¡®alternate futures¡¯
%K Bhaskar
%K class/command dynamic
%K contradiction
%K critical realism
%K emancipation
%K foresight and action sociology
%K human flourishing
%K Marx
%K weaponising stigma
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1468795X18810576