Mike McCarthy Book Recommendations & Book Mentions
This list consists of recommendations or mentions of books spotted in media, social media accounts, podcasts or other public websites.
Mike McCarthy on X
@marquetteu prof. Author of Dismantling Solidarity, 2017. @VersoBooks ms in progress. Editor @critsoc. Likes: economic democracy, social theory, 2x2 tables.

What Does the Ruling Class Do When It Rules?: State Apparatuses and State Power Under Feudalism, Capitalism and Socialism
Goran Therborn
@bo_austin_ @TiltingatM3 Goran Therborn makes a similar point in "What Does the Ruling Class do When it Rules?" so thought it might have been that.
Paperback, 2008
$19.95$9.98 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Contentious Politics (Revised)
Charles Tilly
I once reached out to Charles Tilly to spark a conversation about contentious politics. IIRC we had a useful exchange. Then he sent me this nearly 40 page (funnily) annotated bibliography on political identity. Maybe of use to someone, 15+ years later: https://t.co/ZbaBJ93TjD
Paperback, 2015
$52.00$27.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book(max discount $25)
Beyond Capital: Marx's Political Economy of the Working Class
M. Lebowitz
@BigMeanInternet @freedaaron By the way, have you read Michael A. Lebowitz's "Beyond Capital: Marx’s Political Economy of the Working Class"? It lays out the argument you are implicitly making in detail. It's useful! But doesn't invalidate Wright imo.
Paperback, 2003
$99.99$74.99 + Free shipping50% off your first book(max discount $25)
First-Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship: Elite Politics and the Decline of Great Powers
Richard Lachmann
@nils_gilman Have your read Richard Lachmann? ...Also big causal arguments also about elites in world history. See Capitalists in Spite of Themselves and First Class Passengers on a Sinking Ship.
Paperback, 2024
$29.95$14.98 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Classes
Erik Olin Wright
@Leigh_Phillips Marx explicitly understood this crucial aspect of class, I should say. And it is something that people that do class analysis also recognize today. See Erik Olin Wright's Classes, for instance.
Paperback, 2023
$24.95$12.48 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Systemic Corruption: Constitutional Ideas for an Anti-Oligarchic Republic
Camila Vergara
Constitutionalizing “plebeian power” from Systemic Corruption (2020) by @Camila_Vergara https://t.co/9Mn9Fah4tV
Paperback, 2022
$26.95$13.48 + Free shipping50% off your first book
The Years
Annie Ernaux
“Mitterrand’s re-election restored our tranquility. Far better to live without expectations under the left than in constant fury under the right.” The Years, Annie Ernaux
Paperback, 2017
$19.95$9.98 + Free shipping50% off your first book
The Promise of Politics
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt on the centrality of agonistic pluralism in the Ancient Greek concept of the political in The Promise of Politics https://t.co/GkCPt4KCOd
Paperback, 2007
$18.00$9.00 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Participation and Democratic Theory
Carole Pateman
Carole Pateman's Participation and Democratic Theory is indispensable. It is the best refutation of the weak/thin Schumpeterian view of democracy that remains the common sense. It is coupled well with Bernard Manin's The Principles of Representative Democracy.
Paperback, 1976
$25.00$12.50 + Free shipping50% off your first book
Freer Markets, More Rules
Steven K. Vogel
@nils_gilman Reminds me of the title of the Steve Vogel book, "Freer Markets, More Rules"
Paperback, 1998
$33.95$16.98 + Free shipping50% off your first book