20世纪70年代前后，分析的马克思主义、结构主义的马克思主义以及后马克思主义酝酿生成，并采用不同的解释路径尝试解决马克思主义传统在当代所面临的理论和实践的双重困境。这种困境一方面来自新自由主义的兴起为资本主义重新注入活力，另一方面则来自苏联社会主义实践遭遇到的现实发展障碍。在运用马克思主义理论对当代资本主义进行解释与批判的过程中，以上的西方马克思主义思潮生成了多元的理论路径，由此带来的问题是，经典马克思主义蕴含的理论观点和立场受到了不同程度上的改造、重构甚至是否定。阿列克斯·卡利尼科斯作为同属于该时期的英国左翼知识分子，在面对新自由主义全球化进程的加速以及马克思主义科学性遭受的质疑时，通过对经典马克思主义的捍卫和继承树立起了独特的学术和政治立场。卡利尼科斯对马克思主义的理论兴趣直接来源于对社会不平等问题的关注以及对学生、工人运动的接触。在马克思的政治经济学批判资源中，他获得了理解资本主义的科学方法、形成了以社会主义革命替代资本主义的政治构想。

相较于其他的马克思主义学者，卡利尼科斯兼具一位马克思主义思想家和活跃于一线的反资本主义政治活动家的双重身份，他的理论探索全面地展现了其突出的政治诉求——建立起以马克思主义的社会主义替代资本主义的新秩序。在经典马克思主义传统的浸润下，卡利尼科斯对于当前新自由主义的全球性世界秩序持有坚决的批判态度，并围绕“反资本主义”议题进行了社会主义建设的全面设想。通过总结其理论的研究内容以及政治的关注议题可以发现，他对社会主义思想的探索和尝试表现为一个持续建构的过程。该过程一方面明确回答了马克思主义科学性在当代所面临的质疑，另一方面，通过对资本主义历史特征的政治经济学批判分析、以历史唯物主义视角对社会变迁动力的揭示以及从道德规范层面对社会主义价值观念的建设，全面塑造了一个由无产阶级革命推动实现的社会主义民主计划方案。

马克思政治经济学批判理论是卡利尼科斯社会主义思想生成的直接理论基础。对于卡利尼科斯而言，马克思政治经济学批判为其提供的资源不仅是对资本主义社会关系的系统性分析，更为关键的是，马克思在超越古典政治经济学形式逻辑和黑格尔辩证法的基础上实现了方法论的革新。卡利尼科斯开创性地将“科学研究纲领”和马克思的知识体系加以比照，以知识体系的开放性和预测能力取代了认识固有的线性发展模式的评价方式。因而在他看来，马克思在《资本论》中以范畴有序排列形式所最终呈现出的叙述逻辑不仅实现了商品背后的社会关系的分析，同时也为分析发展中的资本主义提供了科学的方法。卡利尼科斯在以“资本”和“劳动”为核心的资本主义社会关系中确定了社会主义替代资本主义的历史必然性，并且坚持以马克思的分析方法和批判视角来审视危机理论的当代性维度以及资本主义发展新特征的实质。

卡利尼科斯认为，只要剥削性的社会关系存在，阶级斗争就将一直持续下去，因而他的社会主义构想始终坚持以工人阶级革命作为唯一的现实途径。然而在新自由主义意识形态的不断渗透下，通过“革命”实现社会主义的政治策略以及将无产阶级作为革命主体的科学社会主义内涵面临着严重的边缘化趋势。卡利尼科斯选择从结构与行动的关系问题出发以此解答社会历史前进的动力问题。他指出，行动者既不是被“唤问”为历史的参与者，也不是依据个体意向选择来决定历史，而是在结构与行动的互构过程中获得阶级的身份，从而集结行动、展开工人阶级自我解放的政治行动。在无产阶级革命行动策略的前提下，卡利尼科斯设定的民主计划的社会主义表现为：在具有坚定信念的政党引领下，通过革命构建起以“磋商协作”为特点的民主计划模式的完整过程。

新自由主义下突出的“不平等”问题让卡利尼科斯意识到必须对社会主义的道德规范维度做出关涉。卡利尼科斯在揭示新自由主义下不平等状况实质的基础上，以自由主义和马克思双方对平等探讨的“相互介入”对后者规范性维度加强解释，将平等诠释为他所认为的人类有能力平等地获得幸福的状态。从重视价值观的公共性特征、坚持价值观的积淀性过程以及实现价值观的全球性目标三个方面解释了“公正、效率、民主、可持续性”协同价值观念何以展现社会主义的优越性。

卡利尼科斯的社会主义思想是西方马克思主义在资本主义批判过程中所形成的重要研究成果。对于世界范围内社会主义事业的推进而言，他的思想建构是科学社会主义理论在面对现代性挑战下生成的时代思考。尽管在实践层面存在诸多的现实困境，但其本质上仍然是强化革命主体阶级意识这一西方马克思主义理论路径的显现。对于西方马克思主义而言，卡利尼科斯社会主义思想建构的过程正是不断回应当代马克思主义被质疑为有效性丧失的过程，他通过与各种马克思主义思潮的对话和自我建构理论的生成，实际上对西方马克思主义革命主体日益迷失这一理论现状的反思，因而为经典马克思主义在西方马克思主义语境中的再度崛起做出了理论贡献。

Around the 1970s, analytical Marxism, structuralist Marxism, and post-Marxism were conceived and generated, and different interpretative paths were used to try to resolve the dual theoretical and practical dilemmas faced by the Marxist tradition in contemporary times. This dilemma arose from the rise of neoliberalism to re-energise capitalism on the one hand, and from the real developmental obstacles encountered by Soviet socialist practice on the other. In the process of applying Marxist theory to the interpretation and critique of contemporary capitalism, the above Western Marxist currents of thought have generated a plurality of theoretical paths, which has led to the problem that the theoretical perspectives and positions embedded in classical Marxism have been transformed, reconstructed, or even rejected in various degrees. Alex Callinicos, as a British left-wing intellectual belonging to the same period, established a unique academic and political position through his defence and inheritance of classical Marxism in the face of the accelerating process of neo-liberal globalisation and the questioning of the scientific nature of Marxism. Callinicos’ theoretical interest in Marxism stemmed directly from his concern with social inequality and his exposure to the student and labour movements. In the resources of Marx’s critique of political economy, he gained a scientific approach to understanding capitalism and developed a political vision for replacing capitalism with a socialist revolution.

Compared to other Marxist scholars, Callinicos combines the dual roles of a Marxist thinker and an active anti-capitalist political activist, and his theoretical explorations comprehensively demonstrate his prominent political demand - the establishment of a new order that replaces capitalism with Marxist socialism. Infused with the classical Marxist tradition, Callinicos is resolutely critical of the neo-liberal global world order and has developed a comprehensive vision of socialist construction around the topic of “anti-capitalism”. By summarising the research content of his theory as well as the topics of political concern, it can be found that his exploration and attempts at socialist thought are manifested in a process of continuous construction. The process, on the one hand, explicitly answered the contemporary questioning of the scientific nature of Marxism, and, on the other hand, comprehensively shaped a programme for a socialist democratic plan realised by the drive of the proletarian revolution through the critical analysis of the political economy of the historical features of capitalism, the revelation of the dynamics of social change in the perspective of historical materialism, and the construction of socialist values at the level of moral norms.

The theory of Marx’s critique of political economy is the immediate theoretical basis for the generation of Callinicos’ socialist ideas. For Callinicos, the resources provided by Marx’s critique of political economy were not only a systematic analysis of capitalist social relations, but, more crucially, a methodological innovation based on Marx’s transcendence of the formal logic of classical political economy and the Hegelian dialectic. Callinicos’ pioneering comparison of the “scientific research programmes” with Marx’s system of knowledge replaces the inherently linear mode of evaluation of cognition with the openness and predictive power of the system of knowledge. Thus, in his view, the narrative logic that Marx ultimately presents in Capital in the form of an ordering categories not only achieves an in-depth analysis of the social relations behind commodities, but also provides a scientific methodology for analysing the developing capitalism. Callinicos identifies the historical inevitability of the replacement of capitalism by socialism in the social relations of capitalism centred on “capital” and “labour”, and insists on Marx’s analytical method and critical perspective in examining the contemporary dimension of crisis theory and the essence of the new features of capitalist development.

Callinicos believes that the class struggle would continue as long as exploitative social relations existed, and thus his vision of socialism always insisted on working-class revolution as the only realistic way forward. However, the political strategy of socialism through “revolution” and the connotations of scientific socialism, with the proletariat as the subject of the revolution, are facing a serious marginalisation under the constant penetration of neo-liberal ideology. Callinicos chooses to answer the question of the dynamics of social-historical progress by starting from the question of the relationship between structure and action. He points out that actors are neither “interpelled” to be participants in history, nor do they determine history on the basis of individual intentional choices, but rather they acquire a class identity in the process of the interconstruction of structure and action, and thus gather action and carry out the political action of the working class for its self-emancipation. In the context of the proletariat’s revolutionary strategy of action, the socialist expression of the democratic programme set out by Callinicos is the complete process of the revolutionary construction of a model of the democratic programme characterised by “consultation and collaboration” under the leadership of a party with strong convictions.

The prominent problem of “inequality” under neoliberalism makes Callinicos aware of the need to address the moral normative dimension of socialism. On the basis of revealing the essence of inequality under neoliberalism, Callinicos reinforces the latte’s normative dimension with the “mutual intervention” between liberalism and Marx’s exploration of equality, interpreting equality as a state in which human beings, in his view, are equally capable of attaining happiness. The synergistic values of “justice, efficiency, democracy and sustainability” are explained in terms of their public character, their persistence in the process of accumulation of values, and their fulfilment of the global objectives of values, which demonstrate the superiority of socialism.

Callinicos’ thoughts on socialism is an important research result formed in the course of Western anti-capitalist exploration. For the advancement of the socialist cause worldwide, his ideological construction is an epochal advancement of scientific socialist theory in the face of the challenges of modernity, and despite the many practical dilemmas at the practical level, it is still an important tool for reinforcing the class consciousness of revolutionary subjects. For the development of Marxism, the process of Callinicos’ socialist ideological construction is precisely the process of constantly responding to the contemporary Marxism being questioned as a loss of validity, and he has achieved the inheritance and reflection of classical Marxism through the dialogue with various Marxist currents of thought and the generation of self-constructed theories, thus providing an important support for the contemporary vitality of Marxism.