In the midst of present dangers—environmental, humanitarian, and political crises, and now (since the book’s publication) pandemic and economic disaster, and the onset of a sweeping antiracist movement—critique can seem to be a luxury.1 Problems like these can appear so obvious as to require little further reflection. They give contemporary life to Marx’s exhortation not to interpret the world but to change it. What, then, is the purpose of critique in a moment like this? – Public Books