Subset Theory: A Marxist Approach to Social Movements

The study of social movements has been dominated by mainstream perspectives that emphasized the balance between agency and structure in the motivation and mobilisation for social movements, and why social movements occurred. The lacuna in these theories has been the sidestepping of capitalism and class question as the structural factors that are responsible for the agentic disposition for social movements and its emergence. This critique of mainstream perspectives has found an important echo in recent Marxist scholarship on social movements. What is limited in both mainstream and Marxist perspectives is the lack of theoretical framework that can help activists and participants in social movements to understand capitalism as the basis of mobilisation for social movements and develop a programme of action that is useful to facilitate a new social order to resolve the problems that gave rise to the social movements. This book develops a Subset theory that articulates a Marxist theory of social movements that takes a radical departure from the mainstream theories that did not explain the latency of issues that led to the emergence of social movements. This a theoretical approach that transcends the logic of contentious politics that has dominated the remit of intellectual discourses and engagement in contemporary scholarship. Using Feminist movements and Black Lives Matter movements as useful cases, a Subset theory attempts to put a Marxist stamp, and demonstrates that social movements are just subsets of class struggle that are taken-for-granted by actors, activists, and participants of social movements. The implication of this theory is the refiguration of the analysis of social movements towards altering the intellectual map and provides a framework to guide activists, civil society, and actors within the social movements to reimagine a radical way to facilitate social change in the contemporary world.