The Neo-Marxist Legacy in American Sociology

A significant group of sociologists entering graduate school in the late 1960s and 1970s embraced Marxism as the foundation for a critical challenge to reigning orthodoxies in the discipline. In this review, we ask what impact this cohort of scholars and their students had on the mainstream of American sociology. More generally, how and in what ways did the resurgence of neo-Marxist thought within the discipline lead to new theoretical and empirical research and findings? Using two models of Marxism as science as our guide, we examine the impact of sociological Marxism on research on the state, inequality, the labor process, and global political economy. We conclude with some thoughts about the future of sociological Marxism.