ABSTRACT
A paradox emerges in Steven Resnick and Richard Wolff's foundational text, Knowledge and Class. This chapter discusses the striking underdevelopment of the ethical moment in the articulation of their entry point concepts of class and overdetermination. Resnick and Wolff's asymmetric treatment of class and overdetermination reflects tendencies in the predominant traditions in social and political philosophy, on one hand, and epistemology and ontology, on the other. Much contemporary political philosophy attends to the ethical question explicitly when theorizing analytical categories and appropriate forms of political, economic, and social organization. Recognition of the ethical moment in the commitment to overdetermination encourages new understandings of the efficacy of radical scholars and the obligations they face as researchers and advocates of the communities they purport to serve. In the hands of Community Economies Collective (CEC) scholars, overdetermination gives rise to a political imagination that permits class and other forms of emancipation.
