ABSTRACT
Introduction Texts which bear the singular or collective signatures of Hussain, Hindess, Cutler or Hirst have become noticeable within the context of Marxist theory and politics for a particular mode of theoretical criticism and analysis. To some extent the central questions addressed in these texts have arisen from an intensive investigation and critique of Althusser’s theoretical projects. Works like Hindess and Hirst’s Pre-Capitalist Modes of Production (hereafter PCMP) and Mode of Production and Social Formation (hereafter MPSF) attempted to critically develop Althusserian modes of political analysis, whilst Marx’s Capital and Capitalism Today (hereafter MCCT)—the two-volume collaborative work of all four authors mentioned above-is written very much in the spirit of Althusser and Balibar’s Reading Capital. Like Reading Capital, MCCT supplemented its criticism of Marxist theory with far-reaching theoretical and political strategies.
