Dr Chris Wyatt BA(Hons), MA, PhD

Senior Lecturer

contact:
Applied Social Science
Falmer
Brighton
BN1 9PH

Email: C.Wyatt@brighton.ac.uk

Research interests

• The libertarian left
• Workplace democracies
• Cooperative labour
• Marxist-humanism

Teaching

• Sociological imaginations
• Introduction to sociology
• Perspectives in social theory
• Sociological topic: human rights
• Introduction to politics
• Political ideas

Publications

(2006) 'A Recipe for a Cookshop of the Future: G.D.H. Cole and the Conundrum of Sovereignty, Capital & Class, 90. (Oct).

The concept of state sovereignty has, since Hobbes, been a highly contentious issue. Marx's critique that institutional detachments obscure the modern state's embodiment in socio-economic relations encapsulates the reason why sovereignty is not simply a political issue. This paper argues that in his libertarian socialist writings, Cole completes Marx's analysis, effectively filling out Marx's critique of the liberal state as a mask behind which capitalist power thrives. In seeking to defend Cole from his critics, this paper shows that while Cole's scheme permits a sovereign body to exist, the manner in which its powers are exercised is constitutionally restricted. Such formal limitations successfully redefine the substance of sovereignty.

(2008) The Difference Principle Beyond Rawls, New York: Continuum.

The book does not question Rawlsian principles of distributive justice, but it does reject the liberal institutions he advocates. It is shown how his difference principle (inequalities must maximise the conditions of the worst-off) will be more easily realised in the left libertarian scheme the book develops: New Economic Democracy (NED). The realisation of the two principles of justice, I infer, require reforms in property rights more extensive than Rawls' Property Owing Democracy (POD) permits; alternative political arrangements are therefore theorised in which to satisfy more thoroughly social justice understood in Rawlsian terms. The argument is that Rawlsian premises point to a more radical conclusion than Rawls acknowledges. So whilst Rawls' concept of justice (basic rights and duties are assigned equally to all individuals) is not contested, his more detailed conception of justice (the principles by which the concept is realised), justice as fairness, is. In doing so, the book shows the crucial respects in which NED differs from other models. The organisational features of a non-capitalist consumer representation, the institutionalisation of producer-consumer dialogue through the modernised guilds and consumer councils - which forms a path beyond the constraints of the exhausted planning versus market impasse - a theory of political pluralism, a critique of state sovereignty and a pluralist mediation of state and civil society distinguish NED from command socialism, social democracy and market socialism.

(2011) The Defetishized Society, New York: Continuum.

New Economic Democracy establishes a self-governing civil society, unifying the private sphere of production and the public sphere of citizenship within a non-statist scheme of communal ownership. It provides the premises to seeking a solution to Marx's fetishism of commodities. Only a thorough restructuring of the economic and political institutions can provide the social climate in which the phenomenon of fetishism can be transcended. Defetishizing the commodity implies reversing the concealment of the social relations through which commodities are produced and preventing the tendency to bestow magical characteristics to commodities. The key imperative to the defetishized society is a system of genuinely democratic institutions. The New Economic Democracy provides this necessary corrective and also challenges the prediction that politico-economic organizations, like worker cooperatives, are destined to be dominated by the dictates of oligarchs.

The explanatory approach of Marx's concepts combined with an original argument will make the book a valuable research tools to students and researchers in political theory, democratic theory, and political economy.

Reviews

"Wyatt's book is topical and important. Well-informed and clearly written, it describes a radical economic and political alternative to the sorry present disorder. He draws on G. D. H. Cole's libertarian socialism, Rawls's work on the equitable distribution of resources, and Marx's ideas on commodity fetishism. The resulting synthesis provides a powerful argument for a New Economic Democracy which would provide an alternative cooperative mode of production and, equally important, a corresponding mode of consumption. If enough people read this book, and act on it, there is hope for us yet."
– David Mclellan, Professor of Political Theory, Goldsmiths College, University of London, UK.

"The Defetishized Society analyses our commodified lives, both through Marx's theory of commodity fetishism and the fetishism of commodities we see in everyday society today. But Chris Wyatt does not just interpret the world. He also looks at how to change it. His book argues for a system of economic democracy that exposes commodity fetishism. Wyatt's libertarian socialist approach offers an alternative to both the libertarianism of the right and the statism of the left. This book is important, sophisticated and relevant. It is embedded in a solid theoretical grounding but also attuned to concrete contemporary realities. It is academically sound and sophisticated yet also develops political implications and practical possibilities."
– Luke Martell, Professor of Political Sociology, University of Sussex, UK.

"Capitalism is in crisis, but all the alternatives appear to be discredited. The Defetishised Society is a remarkable achievement that indicates the preliminary steps beyond this impasse. Chris Wyatt demonstrates the contemporary relevance of Marx’s critique of alienation, reification, and fetishism. But he goes beyond Marx and critique by showing how advanced capitalist societies can draw on reserves of libertarian potential to move beyond the crises of technocratic capitalism, stagnant social democracy and state socialism in decline. The book will surely be one of the most important works of political theory for years to come."
– Darrow Schecter, Reader in Humanities, University of Sussex, UK.

(2011) 'Capital', in Dowding, K. (Ed.) Encyclopaedia of Power, London: Sage.

(2011) 'Superstructure and Substructure', in Dowding, K. (Ed.) Encyclopaedia of Power, London: Sage.

(2011) 'Michels, Roberto', in Dowding, K. (Ed.) Sage Encyclopaedia of Power, London: Sage.

(2011) 'False Consciousness', in Dowding, K. (Ed.) Sage Encyclopaedia of Power, London: Sage.