Name: Why Marx Was Right
Rating: 3.5 (6 reviews)
ISBN: 9780300231069

Terry Eagleton

Cover page -- Halftitle page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface to the Second Edition -- Preface -- ONE -- TWO -- THREE -- FOUR -- FIVE -- SIX -- SEVEN -- EIGHT -- NINE -- TEN -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Index

Why Marx Was Right

Tim Pendry

This is an Apologia for the unwitting founder of the latest but possibly not the last of the great ‘herd’ religions. The book itself is not a complete failure. If you are studying Marxism, it would be a good text that summarises the best case for it much as one might go to Tertullian or Augustine to get the best case for Early Christianity. Similarly, no babies should be thrown out with the bathwater of Communist history. Marx can be seen as analyst and as historical fantasist. As analyst, he offered superb insights into the nature of power and the construction of the social that will be timeless. As historical fantasist, lesser minds than his (amongst which we must include Professor Eagleton) have made a vicious stew that resulted in the ruination of many lives, not least that of the neurotic activists and martyrs of the religion created out of it. The book puts forward ten propositions against Marx in a series of chapters (and Eagleton does not stint on these) where he attempts with varying success, intelligence and good faith to counter them. The end result is unconvincing. Not that he does not write well or with logical argument but he constantly confuses categories, seeking to justify the history of Marxism, distance Marx from the history of Marxism and redraft our understanding of what Marx is supposed to have meant at different times and in different places. Because it is partly polemical, the final result reads like a desperate attempt to wean the Lefties whose progressive god has failed, the one that thought it could ride the capitalist and markets tiger, back into the fold. To take the religious analogy again, this is a subtle Jesuit trying to bring High Anglicans back home to Rome. But putting all this to one side (and it is noticeable that the one criticism he does not seek to counter is that Marxism is a religion in all but claim), the book is ultimately futile. Eagleton can argue until he is blue in the face but Marxism is a busted brand at three levels – - philosophically, it only works as essentialism in a world that is now too intelligent to take essences at face value, - politically, in the end, no Marxist state can exist until it happens by dint of a history that will not permit consistently Marxist actions and, - finally, at a human level, Marxists are often quite limited and neurotic people with a limited understanding of other persons and whose authoritarian instincts are only thinly veiled. Eagleton, though he writes well, cannot help being constantly snarky about individuals – whether Paris Hilton or Mick Jagger – whom he clearly despises with the sort of snobbery that made the Fabians and Raymond Williams so detached from the population they claimed to serve. He refuses to give respect to popular individual choices that might embrace these icons. He never really deals with sexuality or transgression except in ways that would make me fear a Cromwellian misery in his communitarian paradise. In the end, all I see is a sour intellectual of a failed political generation filled with resentment that the current crisis is not being interpreted according to a faith dearly holds. He wants everything – to show how superior he is, how he told us so and why his ancient ways are hip. The desperate attempt to ally Marx to the fashionable political cultures of feminism, anti-colonialism (with some justification in this one case) and environmentalism (pur-leeze!) shows an amazing lack of understanding. These deeply flawed identity and single issue movements represent the heart of conflict within but not against market capitalism. For this reason alone, the book may be placed in the library for reference but otherwise ignored. Marx may be studied as an authentic flawed genius with insights that match, say, those of Freud and Nietzsche but Marxism has little to teach us except to avoid intellectuals claiming to have a solution to our problems. In reality, Marx may have been right about ‘internal contradictions’ in capitalism but the handling of these contradictions will arise from the street and through cultural struggle and not through Marxism. On the contrary, Marxists are likely to be found up there trying to manage the State against us – that is certainly so across half Europe and in most of our ‘democratic’ centre-left parties where closet Marxists still hold sway. Eagleton repeatedly suggests that our choice is between ‘socialism and barbarism’ and this is where he frightens me because he places ‘socialism’ on the side of Rome and order against the free creativity of the general population as individuals. He claims otherwise but he is bluntly not to be trusted in this. In a stark choice between ‘socialism and barbarism’, one is tempted to choose barbarism as the lesser evil. Social revolution I still welcome (indeed, I think we are in the midst of it), but if you ever see a Marxist trying to take a lead within it, then remove them quickly, by any means necessary. If they do not kill you, they may end up killing your children.

Aldrake 

Yonas

Mirella Hetekivi

Vigneshwar Shankar

In this book, the author takes issue with the prejudice that Marxism is dead and done with. Taking ten of the most common objections to Marxism, that it leads to political tyranny, that it reduces everything to the economic, that it is a form of historical determinism, and so on, he demonstrates in each case what a woeful travesty of Marx's own thought these assumptions are. In a world in which capitalism has been shaken to its roots by some major crises, this book is as urgent and timely as it is brave and candid. Written with wit, humor, and clarity.

Why Marx Was Right

Reviews

Highlights