By Telos Press · Monday, December 9, 2019 New from Telos Press: Anthropocene Alerts: Critical Theory of the Contemporary as Ecocritique, by Timothy W. Luke. Order your copy in our online store, and save 20% on the list price by using the coupon code BOOKS20 during the checkout process.
 From the late 1970s, Timothy W. Luke has developed critical analyses of significant social, political, and cultural conflicts, with a particular focus on the entangled politics of culture, economy, and nature. Luke’s “ecocritiques,” many of which first appeared in the pages of Telos, advance a critical theory of the contemporary that takes aim at our ongoing ecological crisis, a period marked by rapid climate change, extensive biodiversity loss, and deep ecospheric damage. The essays collected here range across diverse topics, from the politics of the Anthropocene, Paolo Soleri’s urban design experiments, the Unabomber manifesto, the Trump administration’s attacks on environmental protections, and the informationalization of ecological change, to community agriculture projects, deep ecology, the symbolic politics of climate change treaties, Edward Abbey’s ecological writings, and the biopolitics of accelerationism and the Dark Enlightenment. Taken together, this collection documents crucial moments in Luke’s project of ecocritique as well as the commitment of Telos to environmental criticism, political theory, and policy analysis.
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By Erik Olin Wright · Thursday, May 9, 2019 Erik Olin Wright’s “Martin Sklar’s Theory of Capitalism and Socialism” appears in Telos 186 (Spring 2019). Read the full article at the Telos Online website, or purchase a print copy of the issue in our online store. Individual subscriptions to Telos are available in both print and online formats.
 This essay explores how Martin Sklar’s typology of the patterns of thought that have animated social and political struggles in capitalist societies since the mid-nineteenth century can, with some modification, be incorporated into a more general analytical framework for thinking about alternatives to capitalism. Sklar frames his analysis primarily in terms of two contrasts—between what he calls “utopian” and “realist” modes of thoughts, and between capitalism and socialism as ways of organizing political-economy institutions. He supports a realist mode of thought that examines the ways in which socialist elements emerge within capitalism, creating various kinds of hybrids through what he calls the “capitalism/socialism interplay.” The prospects for progressive social change come out of that interplay. This essay proposes modifying Sklar’s framework in two respects: First, rather than rejecting the utopian mode of thought, utopian models can be useful as a way of clarifying the normative foundations of struggles for human emancipation and the logical connections between different elements of proposed alternatives to existing institutions and social structures. Second, while Sklar is correct that real economic systems contain hybrids of capitalist and noncapitalist elements, it is a mistake to lump all relevant noncapitalist elements under the rubric “socialist.” Specifically, it is useful to distinguish statism from socialism. This creates a more nuanced conceptual map of possibilities and points more clearly to the problem of democratizing state and democratizing the economy as the central task of progressive politics.
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By Telos Press · Monday, December 17, 2018 New from Telos Press: The Tyranny of Values and Other Texts, by Carl Schmitt. Translated by Samuel Garrett Zeitlin, edited by Russell A. Berman and Samuel Garrett Zeitlin, and with a preface by David Pan. Order your copy in our online store, and save 20% on the list price by using the coupon code BOOKS20 during the checkout process.
 Written during the Weimar Republic, the Nazi era, and the Cold War, this collection of occasional pieces provides an instructive look at the ways in which Carl Schmitt employed his theories in order to make judgments about contemporary historical events and problems. Covering topics such as the political significance of universalism and jurisprudence, the meaning of the partisan, the world-historical significance of the Cold War, the deterioration of metaphysics into “values,” the relationship between theoretical concepts and concrete historical situations, and his views on thinkers such as Machiavelli, Bodin, and Rousseau, these essays establish a revealing counterpoint to his more formal work. They react on the one hand directly to contemporary political questions and demonstrate the way in which he saw the immediate historical significance of his ideas. On the other hand, he also feels free to provide in these pieces the kinds of methodological reflections that help us to better understand the particular epistemological framework that makes his thought so unique.
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By Russell A. Berman · Wednesday, December 12, 2018 Telos 185 (Winter 2018) is now available for purchase in our store. Individual subscriptions to Telos are also available in both print and online formats.
 Recall the 2016 campaign and even more the aftermath of the Trump victory: otherwise reasonable people rushed into heated rhetoric regarding the imminence of dictatorship and the end of democracy as we know it. Comparisons of the America of 2016 and Germany of 1933 proliferated, while denunciations of Republicans as Nazis or Nazi collaborators became common. It would be a worthwhile project for a student or scholar of American culture to cull through those statements and confront their authors with them today: if they were so wrong in 2016, what value is their judgment today, moving forward?
For those predictions were simply and utterly wrong. Of course, the Republican in the White House and the Republican-controlled Congress pursued a version of a conservative agenda (although not always with success, as in the case of health care). But the rule of law prevailed, courts could decide against the government, the liberal part of the press has been articulate in its critique of administration policies, and, in a quite normal and proper manner, the midterm elections took place. American institutions have proven much more robust than the hysterics of little faith claimed in 2016. Those prophets of dictatorship owe us an accounting—or actually an apology—for their hyperbole. They significantly trivialized what really happened under the Nazi dictatorship, and they cavalierly slandered that slightly less than half of the American electorate that voted for Trump. Time for some critical self-reflection? This is not at all a suggestion that they must endorse the president, but it is way past time for them to concede that his supporters are not a priori Nazis, no matter how much juvenile fun name-calling affords.
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By Russell A. Berman · Monday, June 11, 2018 Telos 183 (Summer 2018), celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the journal Telos, is now available for purchase in our store.
 Telos began this anniversary year with our previous issue’s exploration of the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., tragically assassinated fifty years ago in April. That too was 1968, the excitement of profound social change and the bitter taste of disappointment. So much in our culture today remains framed by that specific polarity. Now, in this issue of the journal, we take stock more broadly: not a judgment on that one year but a return to some of the key themes that have defined Telos. We have been able to carry on these discussions thanks to the vision of the founder, Paul Piccone, the support of our publisher, Mary Piccone, the dedication of our editorial group, the intellectual agility of our authors, and the loyalty of our readers. Thanks to all.
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By Jack Robert Edmunds-Coopey · Monday, March 12, 2018 As an occasional feature on TELOSscope, we highlight a past Telos article whose critical insights continue to illuminate our thinking and challenge our assumptions. Today, Jack Robert Edmunds-Coopey looks at Joseph Diaz’s “Schmitt and Marcuse: Friends, Force, and Quality” from Telos 165 (Winter 2013).
It seems necessary in contemporary critical circles to construct a history of natural histories, because the presuppositions of philosophical systems have become more and more prominent while being in need of closer investigation. Within the history of natural histories is the history of the presupposition. Joseph Diaz’s article discusses the basis of political friendship in Aristotle’s Ethics in order to contextualize the work of Carl Schmitt and Herbert Marcuse. These two thinkers existential presuppositions are perfect examples of the forms of natural histories that underpin such elaborate individual philosophical projects.
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