| In this dissertation I attempt to display the theoretical presuppositions and limits of post-World War II Western Marxism. I analyze the writings of Henri Lefebvre, Jurgen Haberman, Jean-Paul Sartre, Louis Althusser, E. P. Thompson, and Harry Braverman. In addition to providing a textual analysis, I develop a criticism of social ontology.; I oppose the social ontology of Western Marxism to the historical perspective of Classical Marxism. I elaborate this fundamental opposition throughout the dissertation. In closing, I situate the development of Western Marxism within the historical context of the cold war. By means of that historical grounding, I bring out still further the limits of Western Marxism as a social theory of late capitalism. |
