10 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
Dutch-British physician and satirist — author of The Fable of the Bees — who argued that private vices (greed, luxury, self-interest) produce public benefits — anticipating Adam Smith's invisible hand and providing the first systematic defense of commercial society.
Alexis de Tocqueville's two-volume analysis of American democracy (1835, 1840) — the most important outside analysis of American political culture — which identified both the strengths (civic associations, federalism, local government) and dangers (tyranny of the majority, soft despotism) of democratic equality.
German-American psychologist and social theorist who synthesized Marx and Freud into a humanistic account of modern alienation and the psychology of authoritarian submission.
Axel Honneth's 2011 book (translated from German) developing a social theory of freedom grounded in Hegel's Philosophy of Right — arguing that freedom is not negative (freedom from) or reflective (freedom of self-determination) but social (freedom in mutual recognition).
German philosopher, economist, and revolutionary who developed historical materialism — the base-superstructure thesis — the labor theory of value, alienation, and the theory of class struggle as the driver of history.
American social theorist who developed the concept of surveillance capitalism — arguing that tech companies have invented a new economic logic that claims human experience as raw material for behavioral prediction products.
Axel Honneth's 1992 book reconstructing Hegel's theory of recognition as the foundation for a critical theory of society — arguing that the struggle for recognition (love, rights, solidarity) is the fundamental dynamic of social development and that social pathologies arise from its denial.
Bernard Mandeville's 1714 satirical poem and prose commentary — arguing that a prosperous hive of bees is built on private vices (envy, luxury, fraud) and that making the hive virtuous destroys its prosperity — the most provocative early defense of commercial society.
American author and activist who wrote at the intersection of race, class, and gender — critiquing mainstream feminism for its whiteness and developing a vision of love as a political practice.
Wokeness denotes heightened awareness of systemic injustice — particularly racism, sexism, heteronormativity, and other forms of structural oppression — and the moral imperative to challenge them. As a cultural phenomenon it encompasses a cluster of commitments: centring lived experience and identity, dismantling whiteness and patriarchy as structural forces, recognising intersecting axes of marginalisation, and reforming or abolishing institutions seen as perpetuating inequity. Contested by critics as ideologically rigid and divisive.