ABSTRACT
This chapter argues for the uses of theory which might, even in a post-theory period, confront a pervasive sense of pessimism in the face of the massive powers of international capital and its invasion into almost every cultural space on the planet. The certainty which resides among the leaders of the dominant culture of the West is a product of the end of the Cold War and the belief that capitalism is not only triumphant but also unstoppable. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels argue that the potentially world-wide transformations produced by the development of the capitalist mode of production involve, in their famous phrase, the 'uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions', crises which are experienced as 'everlasting uncertainty and agitation'. It is clear that an analysis of class cannot proceed without an accompanying analysis of gender, racism and sexuality, social divisions which involve both economic and cultural domination and exclusion.
