The institutional conditions of practical progress
The complete text of "Plasticity into Power: Comparative Historical Studies in the Institutional Conditions of Economic and Military Success," which forms part of the Politics series. The book was originally published in 1988 and is to be republished by Verso in the near future. It explores, in comparative historical detail, an idea that plays a major role in my social-theoretical writings: the idea of the practical as well as the moral advantages of institutional arrangements and discursive practices that facilitate their own revision.
"Plasticity into Power" was published by Verso in a new paperback edition in 2004 together with "False Necessity" and "Social Theory: Its Situation and Its Task." To order this book go to the "my books" section of this website.