Introduction to New Departures in Marxian Theory

“. . . As earlier anti-slavery movements eventually went beyond reformist demands for slaves to be treated better to arrive at the fundamental demand to abolish slavery per se, so Marxists go beyond the reformist critics of capitalism to demand its abolition as a class structure. If human beings must be free to be fully human, then neither slavery nor exploitation is compatible with a full humanity.

Thus, in our view, capitalism as a class structure is itself a moral and ethical outrage. Beyond that, it contributes to a host of social ills (inequalities of wealth, political power, health, ecological sustainability, and access to culture). Those ills have so far resisted solution partly because the capitalist class structures that sustain them have not been abolished since their sustaining roles have not been recognized, let alone challenged.”

Page 4 in New Departures in Marxian Theory (2006), edited by Stephen A. Resnick and Richard D. Wolff. London and New York: Routledge.