Marx for Cats: A Radical Bestiary

Leigh Claire La Berge's Marx for Cats explores how cats have been understood as creatures of economic critique and liberatory possibility, arguing that felines are central to how Marxists have imagined the economy and that class struggle is ultimately an interspecies collaboration.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 408 pages
Publication date: 03 November 2023
Publisher: Duke University Press

At the outset of Marx for Cats, Leigh Claire La Berge boldly asserts that "all history is the history of cat struggle." Revising the medieval bestiary form to align with Marxist critique, La Berge embarks on a captivating journey, tracing feline footprints through Western economic history. Through this exploration, she unveils an animality that lies at the core of Marxism. Drawing upon a twelve-hundred-year arc that encompasses the feudal prehistory of capitalism, its colonialist and imperialist eras, the bourgeois revolutions that bolstered capitalism, and the communist revolutions that challenged it, La Berge meticulously outlines how cats have long been perceived as creatures of economic critique and liberatory possibility. By carefully examining the recurring archival presence of lions, tigers, wildcats, and "sabo-tabbies," La Berge compellingly argues that felines hold a central place in how Marxists have envisioned the economy. Moreover, by delving into the question of what humans and animals owe each other in the face of an ecological crisis, La Berge aligns herself with ongoing discussions about the necessity and potentiality of eco-socialism. In this playful and visually captivating radical bestiary, La Berge showcases that class struggle transcends species boundaries, ultimately manifesting as an interspecies collaboration.

Weight: 446g
Dimension: 132 x 430 x 32 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781478019251