Simon Clarke’s practical–theoretical dialectic and the unity of purpose: A personal reflection

Abstract

Simon Clarke played an unrivalled role in the intellectual trajectory of his former students and significantly shaped the research and the field of sociology in post-Soviet Russia. While his work appears comprised of two distinct lines of inquiry, the essential unity of Simon’s intellectual project may be appreciated by zooming in on the factors that motivated the entirety of his work, such as ethical orientation and a desire to understand the mediations of social relations and tensions between capitalism and freedom, autonomy, self-determination and dignity. Whether studying the political economy of ‘post-Fordist’ global capitalism, the class composition of post-colonial South Africa, the development of workers’ movements in post-socialist states, or the relationship between capital as a social relation and the state as a form of contradictory expression of its class character constituted through struggle, there is a unity of purpose in Simon’s work. In this article, I reflect on the above through a personal reflection of a former doctoral student.