Forty years ago seven writer/activists collectively co-wrote a book titled, Liberating Theory. The seven authors were myself, Leslie Cagan, Noam Chomsky, Robin Hahnel, Mel King, Lydia Sargent, and Holly Sklar. All seven were highly active in the New Left. All seven, after that experience, had a lot in common, including that we all felt that a successful left needed what some of us called a shared conceptual toolbox to conceive, judge, and implement strategy and vision suitable to winning fundamental change in our future. So our joint book tried to offer a liberated theory—liberated from the past, that is. 

For the book’s “front matter,” each co-author wrote a short comment of personal hopes for our collective effort. I wrote, “‘To win limited respite from harsh oppression is an essential day-to-day priority. But even a brief survey of the recurrence of new forms of old oppressions—new Vietnams, new starvation, new racism, new violence against women, new denials of rights and degradation of potentials—shows that establishing a humane society is the only way to attain lasting liberation. Nonetheless, in recent years “the left” has largely lost its capacity to project an uplifting conception of human possibilities and a plausible picture of how people’s potentials might be fulfilled. Since I believe Liberating Theory can help reinvigorate our desires for and capacities to achieve a better future, I worked on and advocate its conceptual framework and hope others will do likewise.”

Leslie Cagan wrote, “Usually my writing focuses on leaflets, organizing materials, calls for action, and fund appeal letters. Working on Liberating Theory has allowed us the opportunity to bring together a sample of the diversity of our struggles and has allowed me to think more sharply about theory. The demands of daily political activism and organizing often mean a lack of attention to theory. It is my hope that this collective writing effort will offer social/political activists a nudge in the direction of taking the task of building our theory more seriously. I believe it will be possible to bring fundamental, revolutionary change to this country. Out of the everyday struggles of people throughout this nation and around the world, we learn new ways to name the problems and define new solutions. At the same time, our organizing and mobilizing needs a framework that gives direction to our efforts. I hope this book will be read by people active in a wide range of political, social, and economic struggles, as well as those just beginning to think about such issues. This book does not solve the problem or give us magical formulas for organizing. What I hope it does do is provoke discussion, open up debate, motivate further theoretical work and play some role in inspiring us all.”

Noam Chomsky wrote, “We often tend to focus our attention on today’s atrocities and on efforts to mitigate them, at least I do, recognizing, however, that we are at best applying a bandaid to a cancer that will erupt elsewhere. If we are to go beyond, our work must be guided by a vision of a future that is attainable and worth achieving and it must be part of a sustained and long-term commitment by many people, ultimately the great mass of the population, who share this vision. Liberating Theory is an attempt to come to grips with these problems. I hope that this unusual project will stimulate others to undertake a critical analysis of the ideas presented here and to develop them further and to join in helping to bring this dream a few important steps closer to reality.

Robin Hahnel wrote, “Functioning separately, movements to overcome racism, sexism, classism, and authoritarianism fail. Functioning together and sharing aims and methods, they can succeed. I helped write Liberating Theory because I believe that to go forward radically we need to develop a new understanding of society and ourselves suited to human potentials and able to promote solidarity among people with different priorities. Now that the book exists, I will promote the idea that activists from many constituencies should debate, criticize and improve it in the belief that this can contribute to a growing movement that seeks and finally attains a better future.”

Mel King wrote, “As an activist, politician, and citizen I constantly encounter people who say injustice exists because people are evil; life can’t be better or more fair because that’s the way we are. I should be more realistic. But I know that injustice exists because of the politics of scarcity and its impact on social relations and psychologies–things we can change. I know that life and society can be much better, and that we can make it happen. Liberating Theory can help us understand society, develop visionary goals, and create effective strategies. Our central aim in writing it was the need to combine agendas of different movements even while preserving the dignity and integrity of each. My hope for Liberating Theory is that it will galvanize anti-racists, feminists, disarmament activists, anti-interventionists, gay and lesbian liberationists, and everyone seeking a better world to live and grow in, helping each with their own priorities and to connect to all the others. I am a member of the Rainbow Coalition. The impetus of the Rainbow is not to reform a little here and a little there, not to, in Vincent Harding’s words, have affirmative action in a dehumanized society, but to transform the defining relations of society so that life is vastly improved. Liberating Theory provides a way of looking at and thinking about society consistent with my priorities and able to further them. It transcends each of its seven authors to belong to the whole left. I hope readers will respond with support and energy so we can get together and go forward, now.”

Lydia Sargent wrote, “I could begin with many lofty reasons why I contributed to Liberating Theory. But something has happened to them—my lofty reasons, I mean. As I drift further from the events, ideas, and goals that contributed to my own radical consciousness-raising, I feel more and more impatience, despair, even boredom creeping into my political work and my life and getting a stranglehold on my lofty reasons. I am haunted by the fear that I will live out my life as a witness to the continued existence of what I hate, without ever seeing the fruits of a hoped-for revolution. So I contributed to Liberating Theory for pragmatic as well as lofty reasons. I, frankly, will do anything I can in order not to participate in a society that oppresses people around the world while insuring that its own citizens occupy their days with a myriad of limited choices which it refers to as democratic: buying Pepsi or Coke; Evian or Perrier; eating MacDonalds or Burger King; working at Burger King or Wendy’s; choosing apartheid or less apartheid; intervention or less intervention; nuclear weapons or more nuclear weapons; straight sex or no sex; profits or more profits; marriage and a career, marriage and no career, no marriage and a career, no marriage and no career; a nice boss or a less nice boss; a job being servile or a servile job; the Vogue version of feminism or the Cosmopolitan version; watching “Kate and Allie” or “Dynasty,” Rambo or The Big Chill; and on and on. I can no longer rationalize the continued existence of such a society by saying that the opposition is too strong, or the left is too weak, or political disagreements and sectarianism can never be overcome, or we lack a vision, solidarity, courage, commitment, analysis, skills, and knowledge. These are not reasons enough to prevent me believing in the very real possibility of a diverse, creative, liberatory society and in the necessity for all those involved in left political practice to bring their unique perspectives, personalities, and humor to the process of creating and working for such a society. I think the concepts, vision, and strategy discussed in these pages provide a framework not only for beginning but for succeeding.”

And Holly Sklar wrote, “Between the time I finished working on Liberating Theory and the writing of this preface, I spent seven weeks in Nicaragua researching a new book on U.S. policy. This was my fourth trip to Nicaragua since 1980, and each time I’ve come away with an essential message about the power of a people reclaiming their destiny and rebuilding their country from the ground up. Sandinismo is a liberating theory and practice which integrates Marxism, feminism, spirituality and cultural liberation, representing a new wisdom etched in Nicaraguan history, but with lessons from and for liberation movements around the world. We have yet to create our “Sandinismo,” our U.S. identity, our liberating program, our popular power. Liberating Theory is meant to help close the gaps in our movement and serve as a guide for a movement deserving and capable of taking power and creating a new democracy. Liberating Theory rejects dogma and monotony. It was and is a collective venture, a mutual education. We did not take years in an effort to achieve perfect consensus or perfect terminology. Our goal was to achieve a new and valuable synthesis of ideas and concepts, to serve as a catalyst for future endeavors. I think we succeeded in that, and I look forward to new stages of the project, stages molded by additional people and expanding perspectives.”

Then followed the book’s introduction:

In the summer of 1984 South End Press asked a number of political activists to submit a collectively-authored book which would analyze conditions in the United States today, project a shared vision of our society as we would like it to be and propose a strategy for bringing about this new society. Over twenty activist/writers from diverse backgrounds agreed to collaborate in this unique effort. Four participants were chosen by the group to be “core writers,” responsible for initiating and revising various drafts of the manuscript. In succeeding months the core writers interviewed the other participants and, had events gone according to plan, the next step would have been to incorporate insights from those interviews into a first draft which would then have been criticized by all participants as if it had been their own work. The core group would next have incorporated suggestions in a new draft and submitted that for further revision. On a few occasions the full collective would have gathered to discuss content and distribution and by the winter of 1985-1986 we would have published the book.

Instead, due to a combination of factors, work stalled shortly after the interviewing ended. The break in the project made us realize that as prospective authors of a political analysis that could unite many constituencies, we first had to agree on a shared conceptual framework for bringing unity out of diversity. But it was clear from our interviews that no one of the many conceptual approaches held by our authors could alone provide guidance. What features define our society? How do they interrelate? These and related questions had to be addressed before we could do more detailed analyses and project goals and strategies. We decided to divide the project into two stages. The first would provide an effective conceptual framework to employ in the second, where we would apply the new insights.

To produce Liberating Theory, our shared framework, the original group of “core writers” was enlarged to include all the authors of the present volume: Michael Albert, Leslie Cagan, Noam Chomsky, Robin Hahnel, Mel King, Lydia Sargent, and Holly Sklar. The first draft was written by Albert and Hahnel, and then put through intensive rewrites by the other authors. Not all of us agree with every word and certainly we would each have had different emphases had we written alone. But whatever our differences, we all agree that the framework presented here is a powerful conceptual starting place for understanding modern societies, developing liberated visions, and formulating strategies to help us make those visions real. With  Liberating Theory as a foundation we have high hopes that the product of subsequent efforts will be truly ground-breaking. We fully expect concepts presented here to evolve and new ideas to emerge as the on-going project unfolds.

Chapter One of Liberating Theory presents a methodological overview of our perspective. Chapters Two through Five refine and enrich familiar concepts for understanding economic, political, community, and kinship relations. Chapter Six develops new concepts for understanding how these four types of relations influence one another in real societies and chapter Seven addresses questions of historical change. Finally, Chapters Eight and Nine explain how to apply Liberating Theory’s conceptual framework to envisioning a liberated society and developing an effective strategy for reaching it. In a set of appendices, we have also included imaginary dialogues contrasting our perspective to others currently more prevalent on the left. There is one dialogue for each chapter and each dialogue presupposes that the participants have just become familiar with the chapter it relates to. As hypothetical exchanges the dialogues remind us that ideas are held by people and that concepts for movements must be thrashed out in context of real needs. But including the dialogues was the most contested decision we had to make. While four of us thought of the dialogues as provocative concluding sections for each chapter—Albert, Chomsky, Hahnel, and Sargent—the other three–Cagan, King, and Sklar—found them to be, at best, distracting and, at worst, caricatures. Favoring “participatory democracy,” we decided to include them as appendices at the end of the whole volume to allow readers to make their own decisions about whether and/or when to read them. 

I interject from 2026: For purposes of this and coming articles based on the chapters, I have taken the liberty of moving the dialogs back to conclude each associated chapter. They are quite feisty. As I read them over on the way to that decision, I found them amusing, often funny, and taken in the right spirit properly provocative. Also, indicative of the times, then, which again, was forty years ago, literally 1986.

The Introduction continued: Liberating Theory emphasizes methods, not final answers. It does not analyze specific events, but presents ways of understanding past and present events as well as possible futures. It does not develop a particular strategy, but presents methods for creating diverse strategies suited to complex contexts.

There then followed the first chapter which was titled, “Method, Motivation and Social Theory.”

Political activists need concepts suited to accurately analyzing society and history. But accuracy is not all that matters. In addition, to help popular movements, clear and concise concepts need to be applicable by activists operating in everyday situations—not just by “armchair” radicals with endless time for deciphering arcane rhetoric. Moreover, social theory must help prevent the “baggage of history” from subverting attempts to establish liberating new relations. To be liberatory, concepts need to counter tendencies to ignore, devalue, or oversimplify important social dynamics such as race, sex, class, or authority. This point cannot be emphasized enough: activist theory must help its advocates overcome their own oppressive socializations. It will not do for our theories to aggravate or even impose new biases.

Certainly social theories cannot help us make testable predictions in the manner of physics or chemistry. Social predictions cannot approach the precision of a formula: “if we mix chemicals A and B in environment X, after a said time elapses, such and such amount of C will result.” But, nonetheless, we can use powerful social theory to explain relationships; to envision possibilities and delineate trends that may impede or promote those possibilities; and to make “probabilistic predictions” about likely outcomes of current activities—all in ways that broaden our perspectives and counter our biases. These are our goals for “liberating theory.”

When Marxists conceptualize society, a particular picture of social and historical possibilities emerges. Is the Marxist view comprehensive enough to meet activists’ needs? Does it counter or aggravate socialized biases? What about other theories such as feminism, nationalism, anarchism, populism or ecologism? Advocates of different schools of thought rarely claim to already have all the answers we need about history, contemporary societies, or alternative visions. They often do claim, however, to have conceptual frameworks sufficient for developing these answers now and in the future.

Our view is different. While these theories teach many important truths, they each also bias our analyses by obscuring some important dynamics and unduly exaggerating others. We feel that not only do we need new answers about our society but also new concepts to help us find those answers. Let’s look at this problem more closely.

At the extreme, some political activists claim that one particular domination precipitates all really important oppressions. Whether Marxist, anarchist, nationalist or feminist, these “ideal types” argue that important social relations can all be reduced to the economy, state, culture or gender. Their extreme “monist” approaches emphasize “reductionist” foundations.

Each idealized monist theory targets different “domination relations” as the “motor force of history.” Not surprisingly, as they each find a different essential tension, their respective proponents criticize one another harshly. The idealized Marxist looks first to economic and class relations to explain not only economic, but also sexual, racial, political and all other types of domination. Likewise, the idealized feminist looks primarily to gender, the idealized nationalist to culture, and the idealized anarchist to the state. Of course, only a few activists actually assert that everything, everywhere is always economy-based, state-based, gender-based, or culture-based—and nothing more. The ideal types are caricatures. But most adherents of each perspective do claim that their particular concepts of structure and power are at least the central determinants of oppression and social change.

For example, some people adopt a label like “feminist” simply to show their commitment to overcoming a particular form of oppression without necessarily accepting only one theoretical paradigm as valid. They may mean to convey, for example, that they see the roots of patriarchy as having powerful influences on all sides of social life, while still acknowledging that other critical dynamics might also be at work. But many other activists adopt “ism” labels to make the self-conscious theoretical claim that a particular sphere of society deserves priority attention because it incorporates the driving forces which determine historical possibilities in every sphere of society. As Shulamyth Firestone put it in The Dialectics of Sex, a  feminist of this sort might “seek the ultimate cause and the great moving power of all historic events in the dialectic of sex; the division of society into two distinct biological classes for procreative reproduction, and the struggles of those classes with one another; in the changes in the modes of marriage, reproduction and childcare…; in the connected development of other physically-differentiated classes (castes); and in the first division of labor based on sex which developed into the (economic cultural) class system.”

The monist/reductionist program always has roughly the same structure: a body of experience or data is dissected into components, some of which are said to have features that disproportionately determine the properties of the whole they together compose. The whole is then analyzed primarily in terms of these favored parts, on the grounds that these parts exist in and of themselves, operate largely according to their own laws, and powerfully influence the whole by processes immune to major alteration by operations of other parts of the whole. Though monist analysts distinguish themselves by choosing different defining features of society and history, their basic method is the same.

No matter how carefully they proceed, all the different reductions of the same complex phenomena to different root causes cannot be correct. Representatives of different perspectives naturally ably criticize one another. In the ensuing chaos many disgruntled leftists opt for eclectic pluralism, employing the concepts of more than one framework, much as the anarchist Bakunin called himself a Marxist in economics, and as many Marxist economists now call themselves feminists regarding gender.

I interject: Nowadays, in 2026, for example, an activist might refer to racicalized capitalism among other concatenations.

The chapter continued: Countering monism, pluralist approaches claim we must use more than one set of intellectual tools because social causes cannot be reduced to a single class of determining relations. Many activists simultaneously claim to be Marxist and feminist, anarchist and nationalist, or feminist and anarchist, because they rightly recognize the complexity of their environment and see merit in more than one analytic orientation. Whether a pluralist analysis succeeds obviously depends upon the analyst’s skill in choosing the right tools to scrutinize changing circumstances. Yet pluralism dictates that to analyze the economy you should use Marxist categories while to analyze the family you should use feminist categories, and even that advice is inadequate.

Monist approaches fail whenever we need to recognize more than one set of causal factors. For example, black and white and male and female workers don’t all have the same interests and mindsets simply because they all belong to the same economic class.

Over-simplifying causal factors to include only class relations ignores racial and sexual dynamics that cause women and blacks, among others, to endure different oppressions, not only when pay checks and pink slips are dispersed, but day-in and day-out because of the racist and sexist definitions of their economic tasks. Class concepts cannot alone adequately explain factory life and so, even to understand the economy, much less the rest of society, we must go beyond Marxism. Similarly, each monist approach exaggerates the influence of its favored sphere, underestimates the influence of other spheres, and largely ignores the crucial fact that every sphere is itself critically influenced by other sources of social definition.

Pluralist approaches try to escape these distortions by adopting more than one perspective, but since events are often so multifaceted that only a comprehensive theory can reveal their true character, this too often fails. Imagine looking at a country scene using, in turn, blue, red and green filters. Though you would see much, you would also have great difficulty discerning features dependent upon how colors mix. Similarly, a Marxist-feminist will see traditional economic exploitation and also patriarchal violence against women, but miss many of the more subtle ways that gender relations redefine class definitions or that economic dynamics redefine family norms.

Because they fail to account for multi-faceted defining influences, Marxist categories insufficiently explain even the economy, feminist categories insufficiently explain even gender, nationalist categories insufficiently explain even culture, and anarchist categories insufficiently explain even the state. All these foci are certainly necessary, but to use them optimally we need to develop a new orientation that allows us to embody refined versions of each primary framework in a new whole.

We tentatively call this new orientation complementary holism. It is rooted in two modern scientific principles: “holism” and “complementarity.” Holism informs us that reality’s many parts always act together to form an entwined whole. In the words of physicist David Bohm, in his book Wholeness and the Implicate Order, all phenomena are “to be understood not as…independently and permanently existent but rather as product[s] that [have been] formed in the whole flowing movement and that will ultimately dissolve back into that movement.”

Of course Bohm doesn’t mean to imply that a useful understanding of an electron in a lab of a physicist in N.Y. can’t be had unless we also explain the texture of wood in a staircase in the Kremlin. The influences of the latter will be too slight to care about. But he does mean to highlight that, since all phenomena influence all other phenomena, we should always be very careful about how we abstract any particular aspect of our surroundings from the whole. Extracting the economy from the rest of society, for example, will often be ill advised. Here the interactions are too important to exclude any from our focus. Since in practice it is not so easy to keep this rather obvious guideline in mind, choosing concepts that continually highlight its importance can help.

Complementarity, in the sense we use it, means that the parts which compose wholes interrelate to help define one another, even though each appears often to have an independent and even contrary existence. Our definition, as further developed below, is a significantly altered form of the general complementarity principle developed by scientist Niels Bohr and other members of what is called the “Copenhagen School,” who felt the more precise quantum physics definition of complementarity was generalizable to various social and historical phenomena.

Just as Marx and Engels paid strict attention to “state of the art” science in their time, we should keep up with contemporary developments. Ironically, however, though most contemporary Marxists pride themselves on being “scientific,” few bother to notice that “state of the art” science has changed dramatically in the last hundred years. While avoiding simplistic mimicry and misapplication of scientific principles, we should update our methods by seriously examining contemporary science for new ideas relevant to our theoretical efforts.

Modern quantum physics, for example, teaches that reality is not a collection of separate entities but a vast and intricate “unbroken whole.” Ilya Prigogine comments in his book From Being to Becoming, “The new paradigms of science may be expected to develop into the new science of connectedness which means the recognition of unity in diversity.”

I interject: I apologize for the name “complementary holism” which may well have substantially reduced prospects for the offered liberated theory to catch on. We tried for but did not come up with better.

The chapter continued: When thinking about phenomena, we inevitably conceptually abstract parts from the whole in which they reside, but they then exist as separate entities only in our perceptions. There are no isolated electrons, for example, only fields of force continually ebbing and flowing in a seamless web of activity which manifests events that we choose to call electrons because it suits our analytic purposes. For the physicist, each electron, quark, or whatever is a “process” and a “network.” As a process it has a developmental trajectory—extending through all time. As a network, it is part of an interactive pattern—stretching throughout all space. Every part embodies and is subsumed in a larger whole. Similarly, relativity theorists explain that our image of time as a continually progressing river is also a human construct. In reality, time no more flows than does space. The two are complementary aspects of a single whole, even as we perceive them to be separate. In both spatial and temporal dimensions there exists only unity in diversity, diversity in unity.

Using similar logic, contrary to most radical formulations, we argue that it is wrong to call a society “capitalist,” or “patriarchal,” or “racist” or “dictatorial,” and think that with a single descriptor one has revealed the essence of the society in question. Many readers might be thinking, “that’s obvious; who could disagree?” Yet, a review of radical literature shows that the answer is, at least in practice, a great many people. In publication after publication, a single sphere of society is addressed (or even labeled) and claims are then made to the effect that not only has this particular sphere of society been fully understood—which it hasn’t—but that the fundamental dynamics of the overall society have been properly illuminated. Writing a book on economics or culture is fine. We cannot always address everything. Examining single spheres in isolation with monist theories and claiming comprehensive knowledge is not fine. We needn’t abstract poorly. Adrienne Rich’s eloquent definition of patriarchy provides an example of monistic over-generalization: “Patriarchy is the power of the fathers: a familial-social, ideological, political system in which men—by force, direct pressure, or through ritual, tradition, law, and language, customs, etiquette, education, and the division of labor, determine what part women shall or shall not play, and in which the female is everywhere subsumed under the male… Under patriarchy, I may live in purdah or drive a truck;…I may serve my husband his early-morning coffee within the clay walls of a Berber village or march in an academic procession; whatever my status or situation, my derived economic class, or my sexual preference, I live under the power of the fathers, and I have access only to so much of privilege or influence as the patriarchy is willing to accede to me, and only for so long as I will pay the price for male approval.”

From this starting point, if we are not very careful, it is all too easy to lose track of the defining influence economic, political, and cultural forms can have on gender relations and lose track of the different experiences of different women, of the different possibilities they face, and so on. Yet, often we do need to temporarily escape the complexities of “connectedness,” and at these times we take as our focus not the whole interconnected society, but a particular type of abstract economy, kinship system, cultural process or governing form. We write a treatise on the “capitalist economy” or “parliamentary democracy” just as a physicist might write one on the “electron.” Yet, in doing so we must remember that our conclusions are suspect. For as with the electron and its field, the economy, community, state and kinship spheres are always complementary facets of a single unbroken natural and social order.

Of course, we are not saying that a theory of the electron is suspect if it doesn’t include reflections on the Crusades—just that it is suspect if it doesn’t include reflections on photons or even gravitation. And likewise, we are not saying a theory of the capitalist firm is suspect if it does not include reflections on the anthropology of ancient matriarchal societies. But it had better include reflections on contemporary gender, community and political relations since these always intertwine with and help define economic forms.

To take the economic example further, the assumption that only classes are important economic actors and that classes are wholly defined by economic relationships common to different modes of production would be valid only if it were justifiable to abstract from the fact that members of classes are also members of different sexes, cultural communities, and political structures. That is, racial, gender, political and other dynamics which play upon economic relations would have to be marginal for the theory to always do a good job. Yet, all too often such abstractions are flawed, as when many Marxists assume the lack of relevance of gender in assessing production relations or when many feminists ignore race when assessing kinship forms.

In short, since society itself is holistic, it is essential that we develop an intellectual framework specifically contoured to understanding an interconnected reality. We should expect interdependence and only introduce simplifying assumptions that deny the importance of interconnections when such assumptions are carefully justified. Since existing theories fail to adequately follow this approach, we cannot begin our efforts by assuming Marxism, feminism, nationalism, anarchism or even some combination of these.

Contemporary science teaches us to examine reality in unusual ways. Embarking upon our effort to create a new conceptual framework for political analysis, we should heed its lessons. Unlike monists, we must incorporate more than one angle of approach. Unlike pluralists, we must integrate our diverse angles of approach and allow each to refine the others within a comprehensive framework which allows important truths to emerge.

Thermodynamics, which is concerned primarily with energy relations, is another physical science with methodological insights of use to social theorists. Here, Ilya Prigogine’s studies have led to a new theory of change of what he calls “dissipative systems.” For Prigogine, most dissipative systems continually undergo reproductive transformations. Continual fluxes in dissipative systems embody a perpetual flow of energy and matter which leave the dissipative systems largely unchanged over time. Though everything flows, the result of this turmoil is only evolutionary change fluctuating around a stable pattern of development which defines the character of the whole dynamic system. People, for example, undergo countless flows of energy, material and information with the surrounding environment, yet each morning we awake with our identity secure. Viewed one way we are wildly out of equilibrium, our very cells regularly dying off and being replaced. Yet, viewed another way, we are here today, tomorrow, and the day after, relatively unchanged.

Sometimes, however, fluctuations in dissipative systems invoke fundamental transformations in their defining characteristics. In these “revolutionary” cases, instead of all changes away from the basic defining pattern being reigned in, pressures from within and without together push the system so far from its defining trajectory that old identities shatter.

Prigogine applies his conceptualization universally, to the smallest physical systems, to individuals and social groups, to societies and whole ecologies, and to cosmic systems. In biological and social evolution, for example, changes occur within limits and generally preserve the host system’s defining character. In biological and social revolution, however, changes burst all restraints so the host system ceases to exist in its old form and is replaced instead by a new system with new defining features and altered evolutionary and revolutionary potentials. Though it would be simple-minded to extrapolate too freely from Prigogine’s studies, his lessons can provide insights relevant to our own understanding of social systems.

If we view all complex structures as dissipative systems, following Prigogine, then we can evolve an image of social structures existing within, overlapping and encompassing one another, all influencing and even flowing through one another. On occasion, the ebb and flow of one sphere becomes so pronounced—owing to its own internal motions and/or to growing pressures from without—that it undergoes a profound change and, in turn, sometimes causes other systems to change as well. Seeing societies and even parts of societies—like their kinship spheres or economies—as dissipative systems should prove enlightening in coming chapters. Moreover, although the specific features of revolutionary processes differ depending on the type of “dissipative system” under discussion, the general dynamic is always present.

Yet, if nature is an unbroken whole with parts we can only examine in light of how they mutually interpenetrate and define one another, what does it mean to discuss a “system” separate from the rest of nature? We don’t hesitate to speak of chemical compounds, molecules, biological organs, rocks, mountains, products, people, economies and societies as separate “things.” In each case, however, we mentally extricate a conceptual piece from the whole tapestry of society and nature where no such extrication is entirely accurate. We do this, of course, because our mental abstraction helps us think about the part, albeit a little incorrectly, in a more manageable way. If every time we wanted to talk about a chair, car, or friend we had to simultaneously discuss the whole rest of our society and even of the universe, obviously we would never say or think anything.

At the other end of this axis, however, as we have already argued, it is also wrong to forget that a tapestry of interconnections does exist, so that whenever we do speak of parts by themselves, we do so only in approximate ways. We must always check to see that the interconnections we ignore can, indeed, be ignored at small cost. To initiate our theoretical journeys with reductionist assumptions that unchanging “atoms” of influence will be found at the foundation of all social and historical processes would be a disastrously narrowing step. A more encompassing attitude informed by a desire to carefully search out justifiable abstractions is better suited to activist needs.

When we extract a part from a larger whole and examine it, we must remain aware that an encompassing whole defines the aspect we analyze. Indeed, for Prigogine, precisely the relationship of the part to the whole—the way its aspects interrelate and flow through that whole and vice versa—allows the part to attain sufficient coherence for us to examine it separately. If we think of ourselves again, it is the way energy and materials flow from our environment through us and back allowing us to continually reproduce our component features that allow us to maintain our coherent definition as separate people. Likewise, thinking of an economy, it is the particular ways goods, services, ideas, and relations flow though the economy, from it to the rest of society and back, that allows the sphere to maintain its coherence. Without interconnection and continual flux, neither people nor economies could persist as discernible systems with defining patterns of development to be maintained during normal times and transformed during revolutionary times. In essence, it is a special type of ongoing change that promotes ongoing continuity.

Within dissipative systems, parts are always subsumed under still larger wholes and any boundaries we recognize must be understood as abstractions. It follows that when we try to understand any particular system’s evolutionary and revolutionary tendencies we should look not only to its “internal” attributes, but also to those affecting it from “without.” Indeed, the division between “within” and “without” is really only something that we impose by our particular conceptual labeling of the system. This lesson is important when talking about such societal subsystems as the economy, polity, community and kinship spheres and can go a long way toward preventing monist misconceptualizations. For example, this recognition runs counter to the idea of employing exclusively an “internal contradictions” view as the basis of a methodology of change, precisely because the concept “internal” is itself an arbitrary one dependent upon how we view society, history, or whatever subject matter we are addressing. For by our conceptualizing, it is we who define the boundaries between “things” determining what is “internal” and “external” to each. Again, we can and certainly should do this for many purposes, but not always, and always with great care.

So what are the fundamentals of “complementary holism.” Many different kinds of domination characterize human history. Imperialist powers have dominated other peoples politically, culturally, and economically. Within particular nations, men have dominated women, ruling classes have dominated other classes, whites have dominated people of color, members of one religion have dominated members of another, and so on. Moreover, each of these different kinds of domination has existed in a variety of forms; each has had pervasive effects on the quality of people’s lives; and each has influenced the whole structure of societies in which they have appeared. Genocide, colonialism, slavery, racism, and religious oppression have each had their own particular dynamics and consequences. Rape, psychological abuse, objectification, and the exclusion of women from participation in political, cultural, or economic activity outside the family, as well as discrimination against women when they are able to participate in “public” life, present a multitude of different forms of gender oppression. The exploitation of peasants by landlords, workers by capitalists and workers by planning bureaucracies and managers are all forms of class oppression, each different from the others. Similarly, execution, imprisonment, banning of political activity, and unjust access to public participation are all forms of state oppression, any of which can be utilized by monarchies, dictatorships, representative “democracies,” or even participatory democracies. Our pains have come in many shapes and sizes, each with their own characteristic signatures and each with influences extending far beyond their immediate spheres.

Each of these types of domination has elicited a monist theory—feminism, nationalism, anarchism, Marxism—which we have rejected as inadequate whether taken separately or in pluralist combination. In coming chapters, we outline alternative concepts that start from the premise that each domination generates highly interconnected but irreducible social forces. We also build a series of sub-theories that make no a priori assumptions about any hierarchy of different forms of domination, a view we will support in more detail later. Only empirical investigation of a particular society at a particular time can verify the existence or non-existence of a hierarchy of dominations in that particular case. And often, rather than a hierarchy of oppressions, there will be a holistic interweaving of oppressions.

As a complex “dissipative system,” any society usually evolves along a relatively stable pattern of steady evolutionary change. People engage in diverse types of social activity which leads to the creation of systems and institutions which generate social groups with different social responsibilities and different access to status, power, and means of attaining well being. Occasionally, these component structures and even society as a whole undergo revolutionary transformations.

Using vague “domination terminology,” we can say that any society has a well-defined complex of social relationships determining its “modes of domination” and the division of its citizenry into groups of dominators and dominated. When a society merely evolves, these patterns reproduce without major change. But when a revolution occurs, they transform.

We can conceive of society as two basic networks: a human center composed of citizens, their consciousnesses, personalities, needs and skills, and a surrounding institutional boundary  composed of society’s institutions and their role structures. These two networks, the human and the institutional, “us” and “the system,” together comprise the larger society which, in turn, encompasses both. The institutions are certainly created by the actions and expectations of the human population. Yet, the consciousnesses and personalities of the people are themselves molded by the institutional structures people continually confront.

The psychological dynamics that equilibrate our personalities and society’s boundary vary, to be sure, but the basic relations are simple. By our activities we not only fulfill immediate needs, but also develop personality traits and future preferences. When we work in a certain type of job, or mother or father children, or go to church, temple or mosque, or participate in politics, we not only influence others but also “create” ourselves “to fit.” When we contour our activities to fulfill certain role requirements, we naturally acquire certain related traits and needs. Moreover, as we have a disposition to think well of ourselves, most often we then also contour our attitudes to rationalize our efforts so they appear logical, good, or at least necessary.

It follows that if institutions offer only a limited number of roles through which we may gain access to means of survival and fulfillment, most of us will naturally and inexorably mold ourselves to fit the requirements of those roles. If we do otherwise, we either become permanent misfits or we seek to change our institutional context. So, most often, most people develop acceptable self-images by accommodating their values to the logic of their activities, which are in turn structured by society’s institutional boundary. And this means that we regularly bring our mindsets into accord with that boundary. Most times, therefore, powerful pressures push people to seek only what society is prepared to bestow upon them.

At the same time, institutions obviously also reflect the personalities and ideas we bring to their design and construction. We continually recreate our society’s institutions so that of course they accord with our values, needs and desires.

In sum, both society’s boundary and its center create and are created by the other; each is the subject and object of their entwined history. The two co-define one another. The division between them is imposed and porous. If we extend center and boundary in time and space, they each expand through their “edges” to embody one another.

Society’s center and boundary are complementary aspects of a single unbroken whole. Both center and boundary are complex dissipative systems. Whatever society’s defining features may be, they will necessarily pervade both society’s center and boundary. They will persist through evolutionary changes since such changes necessarily involve limited adaptations of both center and boundary. Revolution, however, will alter these defining features. Since we know that historically people universally engage in certain social activities, which in turn involve social relations contouring daily life and governing group interactions, as our next conceptual step it makes sense to subdivide society along lines highlighting these activities, social relations, and social groups. In the next four chapters we will conceptualize economic, political, kinship, and community spheres showing how each may be usefully characterized by a predominant activity and particular defining social relations and group structures—each entwined with the others in a complementary holist fashion. We will not assume at the outset any particular hierarchy of the influences stemming from these spheres, but will instead address such interrelations as we come upon them in our theorizing. After discussing each sphere largely in isolation from the others in these early chapters, later we will attain a higher level of accuracy by combining our new conceptualizations into an encompassing framework for thinking about societies and history.

So ended the first chapter of Liberating Theory. The book had, in addition to the text, a number of fictional dialogs, each an imaginary stylized version of the kind of discussion that could conceivably occur when those who hold different political perspectives react to the associated chapter of Liberating Theory. The dialogs were designed to provoke and enliven political debate. 

The participants included:

Coho: A complementary holist with roots in civil rights and sixties anti-war movements.

Marlen: A Marxist Leninist professor active in numerous campus organizations over the years.

Nat: A nationalist with roots in sixties black power movements involved in community organization and anti-apartheid work.

C.C.: A council communist working as a machinist and organizing around workplace democracy.

Radfem: A radical feminist who works at an abortion clinic and who is active in movements against violence against women and in the gay and lesbian community.

Sofie: A socialist feminist active in the sixties civil rights movement and working as a freelance photographer in the Rainbow Coalition.

Neopop: Once a Marxist but later a populist working on a radical journal.

Ana: An anarchist who works at a radio station and is active in anti intervention and disarmament organizing.

Plury: A union organizer active in the Latino community and an exponent of a pluralist ideology.

Cyn: A marxist theorist whose current cynicism has become debilitating.

So, the first dialog to accompany the above first chapter, begins:

Coho, the complementary holist says: Because they fail to account for multi-faceted defining influences, Marxist categories insufficiently explain not only community, kinship, and political realities but the economy as well; feminist categories insufficiently explain not only economic, community, and political realities but also gender; nationalist categories insufficiently explain not only kinship, economic, and political realities but community as well; and anarchist categories insufficiently explain not only kinship, economic, and community categories but the state as well. We need a new synthesis.

Marlen, the Marxist Leninist replies, immediately, as usual: Are you through, Coho, because I have a great deal to say about your very flawed presentation. (shifting to get more comfortable). Now …

Nat the nationalist (trying to stave off an extended rehash of marxist economics) interrupts:  Hold it right there. I thought we agreed to have these conversations in a friendly constructive spirit.

Marlen responds (trying to regain control): I am being friendly and constructive. Now while Coho states …

C.C., the Council Communist clarifies for those not familiar with Marlen’s politics: His idea of constructive is to try to argue us back to the orthodox fold.

Nat says: Let him try.

Radfem, the radical feminist (squaring off) adds: That’s why I’m sitting near the exit.

Sofie the socialist feminist (always hopeful) adds: Surely he’s softened since the last time we were together—1972 wasn’t it?

Neopop the populist efficiency expert, adds: Listen, I’m indispensable at my job which I’d like to get back to before 1990, so if we could speed things up. Perhaps I should act as chair?

Ana, the anarchist (sensing developing hierarchies) says: I don’t think that will be necessary, Neopop.

Plury, the union organizer (conciliatory, as usual) says: Let’s not be defensive. Everyone has something to contribute, something important to say. I am expecting to learn a great deal that will help in my organizing.

Marlen. skillfully refocusing the debate, adds: I agree with Plury that you all have a great deal to learn. Now, Coho, you state that since no theory can be totally comprehensive, we must focus in on critical elements. Then you proceed to focus out. You’ve got more categories than a tax form. My approach allows us to look at other oppressions but to concentrate on economic forces which are the only elements that can bring about major change.

Ana: (speaking over the ensuing angry comments) says: I am glad, and I mean this sincerely, that you recognize other oppressions besides economic ones. That wasn’t the case in 1972. But I think what Coho has in mind is that we all begin to see the limits of our particular monist or pluralist theories. I certainly see the limits of yours, Marlen. You ignore the fact that in all kinds of current societies, even where Leninists rule, the economy doesn’t dominate but is dominated by the state. You miss that the will to dominate and the countering will to collectivity are what make change happen. Lust for power, not lust for money.

Radfem (about ready to move out the door) says: Ana, your analysis stems from reading history written by men. “Capitalist society?” “Dominant states?” My approach reflects the fact that we live in a patriarchal society that happens to have private property and a constitutional “democracy.” Its money grabbing authoritarianism derives from more basic levels. Who owns property or governs is determined, not determinant. Patriarchy creates political and economic oppressions. Gender must be our organizing focus, kinship our priority lens.

Marlen: But address the question, Radfem. Coho has challenged our “monist” theories. And believe me, yours seems the most monist of all. I am extremely sensitive to sexist oppression but to say that….

Radfem interrupts: Don’t even think of debating me on your qualifications around sexism. As for Coho’s analysis, I’m frankly suspicious. To use an analogy …

Sofie interrupts: Not physics again.

Radfem: If you put a lot of vegetables in a stew, the one with the strongest flavor will dominate. The same is true when you combine all these perspectives. The one with the “weight of history” is going to dominate.

Nat: (spotting an ally against Marlen) And if you put all us meat, vegetables, and potatoes in the stew pot together, Radfem, the first thing you white folks will pick out is that beefy Marxist economics which you will then swallow hook, line, and sinker.

Coho: Though I am intrigued by the stew analogy, Radfem’s approach prevents us from noticing the influence of different groups of vegetables. What happens when everyone picks out the white potatoes and leaves the black-eyed peas to burn on the bottom.

Nat: I was getting to that.

Plury, learning from everybody and eager to put it all together, says: I find all the vegetables in the stew delightfully edible as I find all your approaches useful depending on the circumstances. To create my own analogy, if I’m building a new society, I reach into my theoretical tool box for a hammer for hammering, a screwdriver for….

Sofie, interrupting before the analogies get out of hand says: While you’re each praising or defending your own approaches, you are ignoring one of Coho’s main points about monism. Marxism doesn’t even fully understand its own priority focus—the economy. Why? Because the theory itself is sex-blind, unable to understand how gender oppression affects the economy. And radical feminism doesn’t fully understand the family and sexuality because it cannot incorporate economic influences on kinship arrangements. I have combined the two into a composite theory which embodies both class and gender concepts.

Nat: What about me? Am I still burning at the bottom of the pot?

Ana, enjoying the stew approach, responds: None of you has addressed the primary question. Who decides what goes in the stew?

C.C.: No, who makes the stew?

Marlen: Who owns the stew?

Sofie, as they are all getting carried away adds: What sex is the stewmaker? The ingredients?

Coho responds over continuing rapid fire comments: This is precisely why I asked you all here, after all these years. We have to try and get out of this endless reiteration of the predominance of our own approaches. Let me summarize the existing situation. First, Marlen, you want to hold to Marxist concepts because…

Marlen interrupts pleased to be first: Because why throw out the most important and thorough analysis of the capitalist epoch? It’s strong and useful. It locates struggle with the working class but has the potential to also understand the oppression of women and minorities—in that context, of course.

Coho counters: But do you really think that society and history are only about wages, employment levels, profit rates, and class struggle? And, Radfem, you argue that Marxist concepts…

Radfem shrugs and admits: They drive me nuts. Marxists talk only of economic differences, class oppression. They even see the family just as a means of reproducing the labor force. They try to attract women into the fold by organizing economic campaigns around wages for housework as the primary feminist concern because it gets to what they call the material root of things. What a joke. Marxists can’t understand sexism’s origins, tenacity, or even its economic effects.

Coho, countering firmly, adds: But would your concepts push you to look at other oppressions? Do they help you understand differences between women who define themselves as working class, as minorities, as anarchists? And, Nat, you argue that Marxism…

Nat interrupts: Ignores and subsumes race and nationality. A Marxist society has no respect for cultural or religious heritage. How we define ourselves, how we celebrate, play, and pray determine the base on which social structures are built. And, while I agree with Radfem about Marxism, I think, quite frankly, that sexism is just a white cultural phenomenon. Derivative and not causal.

Coho, countering briskly, adds: But your analysis could be applied against you. If we are defined by who we are, doesn’t defining yourself primarily as black limit your potential to understand sexism or classism or authoritarianism, even as it usefully highlights racism? And, Ana, you argue that…

Ana interrupts: I argue that sexism, racism, and classism are just three among the many forms of authoritarian hierarchies. Their constructs don’t allow them to see more than one or two forms of dominance relations. Mine encompasses all dominations.

Coho responds: But would you, in turn, be inclined to explore the more subtle and blatant dimensions of racism and sexism or only those analogous to political hierarchies? And C.C., you would like to see a theory that…

C.C. Interrupts: While I understand Radfem’s and Nat’s concerns I don’t think their oppressions are at the root of things. It is the economy and the state together that create the social constructs of sexism and racism.

Coho jumps in as Nat and Radfem rise from their seats: And Plury. I take it you would use concepts pragmatically from the theory pie.

Plury: Yes, I would take Nat’s, Radfem’s, Marlen’s, and Ana’s analyses and use them each as needed.

Sofie reacts: But how do you know what’s needed and when? What if they interact in a way that separate usage doesn’t discern? I have combined Marxist economic analyses and feminist categories into a broader theory.

Nat, losing patience, says: Once again, where do you put racism in this picture?

Sofie: The same place you put sexism, Nat. Cultures are derivative not causal.

Marlen: And we’re back where we started. At an impasse.

Coho: I don’t think so. I don’t see why we can’t collectively move forward. You each realize the weaknesses of each others monist approaches, but not of your own. You each suspect that combinations of approaches will subsume your own. You feel solidarity with those whose concerns are being mutually ignored. Yet you each in turn downgrade one or more of the other’s concerns. Given this situation, what are our choices? We can continue in this manner, holding to our approaches, working toward our separate visions with those who share our theories and strategies. We can give it all up and let others determine our future. Or, we can use the new fourfold approach that redefines each of your concepts to account for influences from all spheres and unites us all in successfully building a new liberatory society. (smiling pleasantly) What do you think?

Nat: Christ.

Ana: Not quite, but close.

Plury: I am inspired.

Neopop: She’s a little out of touch, isn’t she?

Marlen: Opportunist.

Sofie: I’m willing to be persuaded. Just as long as she doesn’t quote Prigogine again.

Radfem: I’m doubtful.

Nat: So am I. What makes your approach any better than ours, Coho? You are just as influenced as everyone else. Your approach is corrupted by white and western ways of thinking.

Radfem: (accusingly) Exactly. You grovel in front of scientism and capitulate to male thinking.

Plury, apolitically: Yes. Why do activists need all this theory anyway? When it comes to day to day actions, it becomes irrelevant.

Ana: It also often becomes synonymous with sectarianism and elitism.

Neopop, still wishing there was a chairperson: Would you have us intuit our way to social change?

Marlen, admiringly: Well put.

Coho, confidently: Are you serious? Do you want me throw out all theory? Or just mine? To successfully work for a liberated society, we need theory and strategy and we also need each other. Our separate experiences and observations may give us special sensitivity to one or more aspects of life in the United States, but they are only partial observations and cannot provide us with complete pictures. Moreover, growing up in the U.S. affects us all adversely. White male professionals become blind to most kinds of oppressions. Black male professionals understand racism but haven’t got a clue to sexism and classism.

White male workers may understand exploitations, but be racist and sexist. White female workers may understand class but not racism. Black female professionals may understand race but not class.

And not only all that. Being black or lesbian or a worker doesn’t necessarily guarantee that you won’t yourself reproduce racism, sexism, or classism. While the oppressed often understand domination relations in the oppressor, they don’t always understand the extent to which being oppressed has flawed our own perceptions. If we are to avoid debilitating mistakes, intuition and experience are important, but so is theory.

And if Radfem adopts a monist feminist theory because she understandably fears Marxists will erase her concerns about women; and Nat adopts a monist nationalist theory because he justifiably fears feminism will overshadow concerns for racial oppression; and so on, then each of our approaches will be skewed in some way.

Marlen, frowning: But why not just enlarge Marxism’s scope?

Coho: No. Starting with purely economic—or purely kinship, community, or political—concepts will lead to seeing things too narrowly.

Marlen: But I can broaden my concepts.

Coho: Not enough, unless you fundamentally redefine them you will continue to highlight labor divisions but ignore sex practices; calculate wages but ignore cultural identity; track unemployment but misunderstand the state.

Ana: But I can enlarge my domination concepts more naturally.

Coho: Perhaps, but if you do you will highlight only those features of racism and sexism that are analogous to political hierarchy. You will oppose power differentials between men and women, but feminists will be the ones to analyze women-centered mothering and erotophobia.

Well meaning monists claiming to generalize their concepts only encompass the economic (authority, gender, or community) aspect of other activities. Starting with economics, they look at the family as factory. Starting with gender they look at the state as a complex of extended families. And so on. Arguing for “expansionist” monism still fails to capture the unique attributes of other spheres. When it is time to take action, Marxists often slight gender concerns, enlightened feminists procrastinate about racism, nationalists blur class issues. Exceptions wash out in the predominant trends. Monist theory yields myopic movements coupled by flimsy alliances.

What we need now is a new theoretical approach that is inclusive, that corrects for biases, that can be flexibly expanded, and that presents an unfragmented view of reality. To use Radfem’s analogy: we need a stew where all the different flavors are both separate and distinct before they go into the stew but which, when joined together, complement and enhance the flavor of the whole.

Radfem, sorry she ever mentioned the stew: Ok, ok. Forget the stew, will you.

Cyn, the cynic, and a new voice from the corner of the room, says: Excuse me, but there’s one thing you’ve overlooked, Coho.

Nat: (frowning) Who’s that person?

Radfem, shrugging: Beat’s me. Friend of yours, Sofie?

Sofie, curious: Never saw her before.

Plury, friendly: Let the person speak.

Marlen: Yes. I’m interested in what Coho overlooked.

Cyn, cynically: Perhaps I’m being too negative but you’ve overlooked the fact that no matter what the theory and how realistic a picture of society it gives, you’re dealing with a very flawed human nature. Just look at the conversation in this room. You can never be successful.

Coho, tongue-in-cheek, interrupting a variety of annoyed responses, responds: Well, then. In the face of such an analysis, I guess it’s hardly worth continuing.

Marlen: What? I’ve got more to say on the subject. Let’s get on with it.

Nat: Right.

Radfem: I’m all ears.

Sofie: Nothing would please me more.

Neopop: Just make it quick.

Plury: My excitement knows no bounds.

Coho rustles through her papers as the others eye her, and Cyn, apprehensively—

But for more, we need to navigate another chapter before more dialog.  I hope this first dialog, and the ones to come add something for you, but please remember they were written 40 years ago. Which is to say, just yesterday in system changing time.

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