Radical Philosophy Review

Volume 16, Issue 2, 2013

Critical Refusals, Part 2

Michael Forman
Pages 507-528

One-Dimensional Man and the Crisis of Neoliberal Capitalism
Revisiting Marcuse in the Occupation

A new wave of global protest movements offers the opportunity to reassess Marcuse’s work in the early twenty-first century. Before engaging with the Occupy movement and its analogs, it is necessary to scrutinize Marcuse’s assumptions about the affluent society. This examination suggests that the conditions of neoliberal accumulation diverge significantly from those Marcuse more or less took for granted as permanently stabilizing capitalist societies in the Global North. While much of what Marcuse offers retains relevance, its appeal to the new movements is not immediate because these can no longer take for granted the prosperity of the earlier era.