Professor
Credentials
PhD Geography, The Ohio State University
MA Urban Studies, University of Akron
MA Geography, University of Delhi
BA (Honours) Geography, Utkal University
Research Keywords
Marxist Political Economy; Theory Of Class And State; (Uneven) Capitalist Development; Urbanization-Ruralization Of Capital; Industrialization Under Neoliberal Capitalism; Poverty Agrarian Change; Conditions Of The Working Class; Developmental Policies Of The State; Identity, Fascistic, & Class Politics; Social Capital Theory & Critique; Space-Society Relations & The Built Environment; Dual (Labour & Ecological) Metabolic Rift; Class Character Of The Academic; Political Economy And Politics Of India.
Contact Information
4700 Keele Street
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
416 736 2100
https://rajudas.info.yorku.ca/
Research Interests
I teach courses on Marxist political economy, global economy, international development, state-society/economy relations, and social struggles.
I am on the editorial board of Science & Society (Guilford, New York) and a member of its Manuscript Review Collective. I am also a member of the editorial board of Class, Race and Corporate Power and the editorial advisory board of Dialectical Anthropology.
I am a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the Critical Social Science Book Series, Brill, Leiden/Boston.
Research Projects
Neoliberal industrialization, the rural periphery, and uneven development in India (PI, 2016-2022, Collaborators: Professors Deepak Mishra, Mohanakumar S., and R. B. Singh from India); Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Grant
Geographically uneven development (GUD) is an enduring problem worldwide. Its urgency is more apparent in the context of the recent phase of industrialization occurring in the South since the onset of the neoliberal form of capitalism. This industrialization, which takes different forms, including transplantation of large-scale industry into rural areas, creating newly industrialized cities, is occurring in many parts of India, in which state’s earlier role in promoting equality between areas (and groups/classes) is relatively diminished since 1991. This new context raises a specific question: how does this pattern of industrialization cause uneven development between newly created urban areas and rural areas, and within the rural periphery? This multi-year project involves much theoretical work, which will guide the empirical component of the project. It will produce a thoroughgoing, rigorous critique of some of the existing views on uneven development and will seek to produce an alternative framework to understand it. The much-neglected perspective of uneven and combined development will shape the thinking about GUD. The project will theorize uneven development in terms of a) the interplay between the ruralisation of capital and what is known as the urbanization of capital, and the attendant issue of the uneven transition to real subsumption of labour, influenced by class struggle, and b) the relation of this interplay to the political power of different social classes as well as neoliberal state policies at sub-national scales. Among other things, the project will theorize, and shed empirical light on, some of the larger issues surrounding uneven development both as an explanan and as an explanandum: the theoretical and empirical link between capitalist industrialization and the place-specific successes/failures of capital and the state to acquire land and use it; geographical character of class relations, including the dialectics of ruralization and urbanization of capital, and of various forms of subsumption of labour under capital; and long-term objective and subjective obstacles to class-politics, including the processes shaping class-based mobilization across the rural-urban divide against capitalism and its state. In short: uneven development will be deployed as a window through which to look at the dynamics of capitalist class relation, in terms of its economic and political dimension, and of anti-capitalist politics.
Research Output
SPECIAL ISSUES/SECTIONS/SYMPOSIA IN ACADEMIC JOURNALS EDITED
Das, R. J. and Latham, R. 2022. ‘Theory and Class struggle: Three Interviews’, Class, Race and Corporate Power, Vol. 10:2.
Gough, J, and Das, R. J. 2016. A special issue on Marxism and Human Geography, in Human Geography: A New Radical Journal, vol. 9:3
Das, R. J. 2007. A special issue on Peasant, state and class, in Journal of Peasant Studies, 34 (3- 4), July/October; pp. 351-666
Das, R. J. 2026. Peasants in the capitalist society: Towards a theoretical perspective. In Praveen Jha (ed). Handbook of Agricultural economics. Springer. (Forthcoming)
Das, R. J. 2024. ‘Understanding Marx on health: Towards a class-based approach’ in Rodney Loeppky and David Primrose (eds). Reader on the Political Economy of Health and Healthcare. New York: Routledge
Das, R. J. 2024. ‘The Centrality of Marx to the Global Periphery’ in T. Brass and R. Das (eds). Interrogating the Future: Essays in Honour of David Fasenfest. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Das, R. J. 2023. ‘Classroom as a site of class struggle’ in Richard Hall, Inny Accioloy, Krystian Szadkowski eds. The Palgrave International Handbook of Marxism and Education. Palgrave/Springer.
Das, R. J. and Mishra, D. 2022. ‘Analysing poverty causally’ in R. Das and D. Mishra (eds) Global Poverty: Rethinking causality. Leiden: Brill
Das, R. J. 2022. ‘Social Oppression, Class Relation, and Capitalist Accumulation’, D. Fasenfest. Ed. Marx matters. Leiden: Brill.
Fasenfest, D. and Das, R. J. 2021. ‘Constructing the Conceptual Tools for the Global South’ in Håkon Leiulfsrud and Peter Sohlberg eds. Constructing Social Research Objects. Leiden: Brill.
Das, R. J. 2019. ‘Internal Colonialism’, in Audrey Kobayashi, edited. International Encyclopedia of Human Geography (2nd edition), Elsevier Press, Amsterdam.
Das, R. 2019. ‘Geography and Class.’ In Oxford Bibliographies in Geography. Ed. Barney Warf. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bordoloi, S. and Das, R. J. 2017. ‘Modernization Theory’, The International Encyclopedia of Geography, Wiley-Blackwell and the Association of American Geographers.
Das, R. J. 2020. ‘On The Urgent Need to Re-engage Classical Marxism’, Critical Sociology, 46:7.
Das, R. J. 2020. ‘Identity Politics: A Marxist View,’ Class, Race and Corporate Power: Vol. 8 : Iss. 1 , Article 5. pp.1-33. Available at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/classracecorporatepower/vol8/iss1/5
Das,R. 2020. The marginalization of Marxism in Academia. Monthly Review Online. https://mronline.org/2020/02/06/the-marginalization-of-marxism-in-academia/.
ARTICLES IN REFEREED JOURNALS
Das, R. J. 2027. Against the Retreat from Class: Reasserting Marxist Class Theory in the Age of Capitalist Crises, Critique: Journal of socialist theory (forthcoming)
Das, R. J. 2027. Capitalism, Climate Change, and the Political Economy of Workers’ Health, The International Journal of Social Determinants of Health and Health Services (forthcoming).
Das, R. J. 2026. Lenin’s Marxism: A Systematic Reconstruction. International Critical Thought, 1– 40. https://doi.org/10.1080/21598282.2026.2683452
Das, R. J. 2026. Capitalism and peasants: towards a theoretical perspective. Critique, 54(1), 21–62. https://doi.org/10.1080/03017605.2026.2627036
Das, R. J. 2026. The Necessity and Possibility of Temporary Revolutionary Compromise in Socialist Politics, World Marxist Review, Vol. 2:4 https://worldmarxistreview.org/index.php/wmr/article/view/140
Das, R. J. 2025. Climate Change Mitigation, Capitalism, and the Capitalist State: Towards a Theoretical Approach. International Critical Thought 15(4):1-26. DOI:10.1080/21598282.2025.2601197
Das, R. J. 2025. ‘Theoretical Enquiry into Social and Spatial Inequalities: An Urban-regional political economy perspective’, World Review of Political Economy. Vol. 16(3):320-350. DOI: 10.13169/worlrevipoliecon.16.3.0001
Das, R. J. 2025 ‘Marxism and non-Marxism in the World of Ideas: A dialectical view’, Critique: Journal of socialist theory, 53(2–3), 389–409. https://doi.org/10.1080/03017605.2025.2555042
Das, R. J. 2024. ‘Theses on Lenin’s Political Economy after Marx’, World Marxist Review, 4 (4), https://dx.doi.org/10.62834/ehbk5d74
Das, R. J. 2024. On Marx’s theory of fettering of productive forces by social relations of Production’. Critique: Journal of socialist theory, 52(4), 393–415. https://doi.org/10.1080/03017605.2024.2416745
Das, R. J. 2024. ‘Marx’s Grundrisse: Introduction to political economy and historical materialism’. World Review of Political Economy, 15(4):498-530. DOI: 10.13169/worlrevipoliecon.15.4.0498
Das, R. J. 2024. ‘Questioning Poverty, Questions for Poverty Analysis: Towards a Basic Theoretical Framework’. World Marxist Review, Vol. 2(2), 103-126
Das, R. J. 2024. ‘The Right-Wing Attacks on the Academic Left in India,’ Class, Race and Corporate Power: Vol. 12: Iss. 1, Article 6. Available at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/classracecorporatepower/vol12/iss1/6
Das, R. J. 2023. ‘The Post-Truth Condition in Capitalist Society: A Critical Enquiry’, International Critical Thought, 13:2, 205-226, DOI: 10.1080/21598282.2023.2226534
Das, R. J. 2023. ‘Post-truth politics in India’s right-wing ecosystem: An extended critical commentary’, International Critical Thought, 13:3, 403-428. DOI: 10.1080/21598282.2023.2223095
Das, R. J. 2023. ‘Capitalism, Class Struggle and/in Academia’. Critical Sociology, 49(6), 901-922. https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205231152560
Das, R. J. 2023. ‘Marxism and revisionism in the world today’. Capital & Class, 47(3), 383-406. https://doi.org/10.1177/03098168221139287
Das, R. J. 2023. ‘Why is identity politics not conducive to achieving sustained social justice?’, Dialectical Anthropology 47, 19–31 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10624-022-09673-6
Das, R. J. 2023. ‘The Good and the Bad in David Harvey’s Popular Marxism’. Critical Sociology, 49(7-8), 1079-1094. https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205221137765
Das, R. J. 2023. ‘Capital, Capitalism and Health’. Critical Sociology, 49(3), 395-414. https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205221083503
Das, R. J. and Latham, R. 2022. ‘Theory and Class struggle: An Introduction to the section’, Class, Race and Corporate Power, Vol. 10:2 https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/classracecorporatepower/vol10/iss2/5/
Das, R. J. 2022. ‘Politics of love, and love of politics: Towards a Marxist theory of love’. Class, Race and Corporate Power, Vol. 10:2 https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/classracecorporatepower/vol10/iss2/6/
Das, R. J. 2022. ‘On The Communist Manifesto: Ideas for the Newly Radicalizing Public’. World Review of Political Economy. 2022. Vol. 13(2):209-244. https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.13169/worlrevipoliecon.13.2.0209
Das, R. J. 2022. ‘What is Marxist geography today, or what is left of Marxist geography?’, Human Geography, 15(1), 33-44. https://doi.org/10.1177/19427786211049757
Das, R. J. 2021. ‘Educators need to be educated: Or, ‘class struggle’ in academia’. Capital & Class, 45(3), 339-346. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309816821993534
Das, R. J., Latham, R., and Fasenfest, D. (2027) The Power of Marxist Thought, Vol. 2 (in production).
Das, R. J. 2026. Marx, the State, and Primitive Accumulation: Rethinking Dispossession Under Capitalism. London: Taylor & Francis.
Das, R. J., Latham, R. and Fasenfest, D. (eds) 2025. The Power of Marxist Thought. Vol 1. Leiden/Boston: Brill
Das, R. J. 2025. Theories for Radical Change. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Brass, T. and Das, R. J. 2024 (eds). Interrogating the Future: Essays in Honour of David Fasenfest. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Das, R. J., Gough, J. and Eisenschitz, A. 2023. The Challenges of the New Social Democracy: Social Capital and Civic Association or Class Struggle? Leiden/Boston: Brill:
Das, R. J. 2023. Contradictions of capitalist society and culture: Dialectics of Love and Lying. Leiden/Boston: Brill
Das, R. J. and Mishra, D. 2023. Understanding poverty’s mechanisms: A Global perspective. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Das, R. J. 2022. Marx’s Capital, Capitalism, and Limits to the State: Theoretical Considerations. London: Taylor and Francis.
Das, R. J. 2020. Critical Reflections on Economy and Politics in India: A Class Theory Perspective. Brill: Leiden.
Das, R. J. 2020. The Political Economy of New India: Critical Essays. Delhi: Aakar.
Das, R. J. 2017. Marxist Class Theory for a Skeptical World, Brill: Leiden. (The paperback edition is published by Haymarket, Chicago in 2018]
Das, R. J. 2014. A Contribution to the Critique of Contemporary Capitalism: Theoretical and International Perspectives, New York: Nova Science Publishers. ISBN: 978-1-63117-559-6
Das, R. J. 2026. Eleven theses on Lenin’s theory of political oppression and the national question, Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal.
Das, R. J. 2025. Ignore Marxism if you prefer barbarism. Links: : International Journal of Socialist Renewal.
Das, R. J. 2025. Tasks facing Marxists in the current conjuncture, Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal
Das, R. J. 2024. Poverty of Left theory/practice in India, The Radical
Das, R. J. 2024. What is left of the left in the new hyper-neoliberal India? Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal.
Das, R. J. 2024. Socialist politics and revolutionary compromise. Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal.
Das, R. J. 2024. Lenin’s contributions to political economy.
Das, R. J. 2024. Capitalism, climate change and workers’ health: Notes on a research
agenda, Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal.
Das, R. J. 2024. ‘Capitalism, corporates, cronies and common people in India’s ‘new democracy’ on
sale: The case of the electoral bond scheme’. Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal.
Das, R. J. 2024. ‘Intellectual and political lessons of ‘The Communist Manifesto’ for our time’,
Monthly Review Online.
Das, R. J. 2024. On the Conditions of Workers and Peasants in India: What is to be done today? Countercurents.
Das, R. J. 2023. ‘How to think and write theoretically and critically about society’. Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal
Das, R. J. 2022. ‘Theory and class struggle: A dialectical approach’. Links: International Journal of
Socialist Renewal
Das, R. J. 2022. August 9. Interview on class theory with Daniel Tutt
Das, R. J. 2021. ‘The weapon of criticism cannot replace the criticism of the weapon: what
knowledge do we need for revolution against capitalism’, Monthly Review Online
Das, R. J. 2020. ‘Four components of Marxism’, Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal
Das, R. J. 2020. ‘The marginalization of Marxism in academia’, Links: International Journal of
Socialist Renewal.
Das, R. J. 2020. ‘The social power of money and the neoliberal capitalist model of
development’.Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal
Das, R. J. 2020. ‘What Questions Must Students Ask Their Educators, and Why?’, The Bullet,
Das, R. J. 2020. ‘The Pandemic and the Need for a New Society’, The Bullet,
Das, R. J. 2020. ‘Capitalist Political Economy, Fascistic Tendencies, and Left Politics in India’.
Marxist Sociology blog: Theory, Research, Politics;
Das, R. J. 2020. ‘The Fascistic Turn in the World’s Largest Democracy –Part 1’, Left Voice
(Left Voice is a socialist magazine published in New York)
Das, R. J. 2020. ‘The Fascistic Turn in the World’s Largest Democracy – Part 2’, Left Voice,
Courses
| Course Code | Title |
|---|---|
| Graduate: | |
| GEOG 5375/ENVS 5475/SOCIOLOGY 6794/SPTH 6192 | Capitalism, Place and Space (a course on Marxist political economy) |
| Undergraduate: | |
| GEOG 1000 | The World Today |
| GEOG 3130 | Global Economy |
| GEOG 3710 | South Asia |
| GEOG 4850 | The state, civil society and development |
| GEOG 3370 | International Development: Critical Geographical Perspectives |