1. Writing The Relationship Of Resistance And Social Change

Abstract

Since its inception, sociology has struggled to explain the relationship of resistance and social change. Early currents of non-Western sociological thought dedicated to notions of conflict and resistance can be found dating back to thinkers like Ibn Khaldun. Some five centuries later, philosophers of history in the non-Islamic world were having similar problems trying to work out a systematic application of European Enlightenment thought. Without question, the crash of the Hegelian system at the hands of Marx and Engels produced a new era of critical social thought. Even while Khaldun had already established some five centuries earlier that human labor was at the core of explaining wealth and profit, Marxian social thought took up the concept in grand Hegelian style and ran with it. At the onset of the 20th Century, all signs seemed to be pointing to an impending capitalist crisis. Keywords: capitalist crisis; diverse forms of resistance; Hegelian system; Ibn Khaldun; social change