The Marxist Urban Sociology of Jean Lojkine

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to evaluate the writings of Jean Lojkine. Lojkine’s writing, like that of Castells, attempts to apply a Marxist perspective to the analysis of urban areas. The corpus of his work, which is much smaller than that of Castells (see Bibliography) can be classified into two categories: his theoretical, Marxist, analysis of urban areas, and his empirical research. Unlike Castells, whose analysis develops out of a critique of conventional urban sociology, Lojkine’s starting point is Marxism itself (or that variant of Marxism known as state monopoly capitalism — see Chapter 5). More specifically, Lojkine’s urban analysis emerges from his analysis of the state and the urban policies of the state. It is in this sense that he regards the Marxist analysis of the state, particularly the contemporary French state, as ‘the guiding thread’ in all his writing (Lojkine, 1977d; also 1977a, p. 123).