Organizing Class Consciousness

Georg Lukács and Organizing Class Consciousness Full text below. Please note Errata

Originally Published by Marxist Educational Press, 2009

Republished by undercurrent books, 2011

isbn 9780986954405

2016, German edition. Georg Lukács und die Organisierung von Klassenbewusstsein, translated by Andreas Förster. Hamburg: Laika-Verlag.

With a foreword by Dr. Rüdiger Dannemann, chairman of the Internationale Georg-Lukács-Gesellschaft.

John Gregson's review in Marx & Philosophy Review of Books

Centered on the influential work of Georg Lukács and his concept of imputed class consciousness, this book brings the Marxist understanding of class to the forefront of class analysis. Lanning demonstrates the capacity of this Marxist concept to mediate the relation between individuals and political movements in working class organizing. The author examines critically contemporary studies of class, as well as aspects of the work of E.P. Thompson, Istvan Mészáros, and others. He presents a theoretical analysis of the potential and significance of the individual in the conscious struggle for socialism.

Lanning’s wonderfully clear and masterful exposition of Marx’s theory of class consciousness and his convincing critique of some of its most influential doubters have an almost unique importance. This is top-of-the-line scholarship on the most crucial political topic of the day – a book no serious Marxist can ignore.

Bertell Ollman, Professor of Politics at New York University; author of Alienation: Marx’s Conception of Man in Capitalist Society and Dialectical Investigations