“Harry Cleaver’s essays collected in this wonderfully edited volume demonstrate the continuing political relevance and urgency of concepts such as the refusal of work and the self-valorization of the working class.”—Michael Hardt, The Subversive Seventies

“This collection of Cleaver’s work, assembled by Ovetz and Van Meter, provides a vital reminder of the enduring power of Marx’s critique as a weapon in the hands of workers. It highlights how the self-activity of the working class continues to make history—today, tomorrow, and into the future. In this time of ‘monsters,’ Cleaver’s writings remind us that capitalism is defined by antagonistic social relations, and that these very contradictions provide the conditions for revolutionary transformation.”—Henry Fowler, Assistant General Secretary, General Federation of Trade Unions (UK) and cofounder of Strike Map

“The boot is on our necks, and this is a hint that our class enemies know we are winning. That is Points of Departure’s gift to readers: reminder after reminder that everyday people have power. Capital knows it and Harry Cleaver wants us to know it too.”—Heather Berg, Notes from the Sex Worker Left: Lumpen Theory

"For more than fifty years now, Harry Cleaver has provided profound insights into contemporary class struggles, thanks to an expressly *political* reading of the critique of political economy. Alluding to one of Gramsci's favourite aphorisms, Sergio Bologna once wrote that 'clarity is more important than either optimism or pessimism.' Drawing inspiration from the Italian workerist tradition whilst never being its slavish follower, Harry's writings have throughout those decades laid out with startling clarity his analyses of the planetary work machine and its vulnerabilities. This book is essential reading for anyone fed up with capitalism's endless crises and wars".—Steve Wright, Storming Heaven: Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism

Robert Ovetz holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Texas–Austin and is a senior lecturer in Political Science at San José State University, where he teaches labor relations in the MPA program and focuses on academic labor organizing and the labor movement. He is the author of When Workers Shot Back (Brill, 2018 and Haymarket, 2019), We the Elites (Pluto, 2022), and the forthcoming Rebels for the System (Haymarket), and is co-authoring a book on organizing against AI in higher education. Robert is co-editor with Kari Lydersen and Kevin Van Meter of Real World Labor, Vol. 4 (Dollars & Sense, 2024). He is also an editor and contributor to critical labor studies volumes, a labor writer for Dollars & Sense, and has been published widely in multiple languages. His writings can be found at sjsu.academia.edu/RobertOvetzPhD.

Kevin Van Meter holds a PhD in Geography, Environment and Society from the University of Minnesota, serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Labor and Society, and is a union organizer and labor educator who writes on contemporary labor issues, labor history, and working-class self-organization. He is co-editor with Kari Lydersen and Robert Ovetz of Real World Labor, Vol. 4 (Dollars & Sense, 2024). He is author of Guerrillas of Desire (AK Press, 2017), co-editor of Uses of a Whirlwind (AK Press, 2010), and has two forthcoming books: Reading Struggles: Working-Class Self-Activity from Detroit to Turin and Back Again (AK Press) and The American Worker: International History, Reception, and Responses (Common Notions). His work has appeared in New Politics, Notes from Below, Dollars and Sense, Truthout, Labor Notes, Work-Bites, The Chief Leader, Perspectives on Anarchist Theory, and other publications.

Harry Cleaver has developed a global following for his decades of work contributing to what he calls “autonomist Marxism,” or a Marxism that focuses on the self-organized struggles of workers against capital, the state, political parties, and unions. Following the New York City fiscal crisis of 1974–76, he joined the Zerowork journal collective alongside other militant scholars. The journal introduced the ideas of Italian operaismo (or Italian “workerism”) into the United States. He also was instrumental in helping introduce the Italian philosopher Antonio Negri to the English-speaking world by co-translating his collection Marx Beyond Marx: Lessons on the Grundrisse (Autonomedia, 1991).

Hired by UT-Austin in 1976 to teach Marxism–where he remained for 36 years until his retirement in 2012–Cleaver’s first book, Reading Capital Politically (Univ. of Texas Press, 1979) was the product of his class notes teaching Marx and ongoing involvement with activism within and struggles beyond the university. His decades of work on global working-class self-activity also preceded the re-emergence of self-organized worker struggles at Amazon and Starbucks, in the global gig work sector, and the current resurgence of global class conflict. Since retiring he has published three books The Fragile Juggernaut: Marx and Engels on Capitalism: Marx & Engels on Capitalism, Class Struggle and Crisis (Brill, 2024), 33 Lessons on Capital: Reading Marx Politically (Pluto Press, 2019), and Rupturing the Dialectic: The Struggle against Work, Money, and Financialization (AK Press, 2017).

Introductions

Introduction Robert Ovetz and Kevin Van Meter 

Political Readings: An Interview with Harry Cleaver 

Part I. Refusal of Work 

Short Introduction 

Chapter 1: Work is Still the Central Issue: New Words for New Worlds

Chapter 2: Work Refusal and Self-Organization 

Chapter 3: Technology as Political Weaponry 

Part II. The Crisis of Capitalism

Short Introduction

Chapter 4: Theses on Secular Crisis in Capitalism: The Insurpassability of Class Antagonisms 

Chapter 5: Close the IMF, Abolish Debt and End Development: A Class Analysis of the International Debt Crisis

Chapter 6: The Crisis of Neoliberalism and Alternatives in the 21st Century 

Part III. Marxist Theory 

Short Introduction

Chapter 7: Post Marxist Anarchism: Kropotkin, Self-Valorization, and the Crisis of Marxism 

Chapter 8: The Inversion of Class Perspective in Marxian Theory: from Valorization to Self-Valorization 

Chapter 9: Socialism 

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index