False Necessity Anti-Necessitarian Social Theory in the Service of radical Democracy. With a new 40 page introductio

Newly available, the complete work of Politics?a program for a comprehensive progressive alternative to the dominant ideologies of social democracy and neo-liberalism?from one of the world?s leading social and political thinkers.

False necessity is the central theme in the three-volume series Politics. It presents both a way of explaining society and a program for changing it. The explanation develops a radical alternative to Marxism, showing how we can account for established social arrangements without denying their contingency or our freedom. The program offers a progressive alternative to the now-dominant ideological conceptions of neoliberalism and social democracy: a set of institutional innovations that would democratize markets, deepen democracy and empower individuals.

For this new edition, Unger has written a comprehensive introduction that explores the limits of our understanding of society and our practice of politics, and reconsiders proposals contained in the book as special cases of a larger family of untried political possibilities.
This new edition of False Necessity marks the beginning of Verso's reissuing of Roberto Mangabeira Unger's major works in political and social thought, first published together as Politics. Unger's ideas have helped to inspire progressives across the world who look for alternatives to the ruling political and economic orthodoxy. Here he develops a radical explanation for society that is different from both Marxism and neoliberalism, and offers a program for change. His new and comprehensive introduction explores the limits to our understanding of society and politics and reconsiders the proposals in the book as examples of many untried intellectual and political possibilities.
?[Unger] does not make moves in any game we know how to play ?[His] book may someday make possible a new national romance ? [It] will help the literate ? citizens of some country to see vistas where before they saw only dangers?see a hitherto undreamt-of national future??? Richard Rorty

?A philosophical mind out of the Third World turning the tables, to become synoptist and seer of the First.?? Perry Anderson

Roberto Mangabeira Unger is Professor of Law at Harvard University and a political activist in Brazil. His books include What Should Legal Analysis Become?, Politics: The Central Texts, and Democracy Realized.