Marx and Marxism

Author: Gregory Claeys
Publisher: Bold Type Books
ISBN: 1568588968
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 418

Book Description
A new biography of Karl Marx, tracing the life of this titanic figure and the legacy of his work Karl Marx remains the most influential and controversial political thinker in history. He died quietly in 1883 and a mere eleven mourners attended his funeral, but a year later he was being hailed as "the Prophet himself" whose name and writings would "endure through the ages." He has been viewed as a philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, even a literary craftsman. But who was Marx? What informed his critiques of modern society? And how are we to understand his legacy? In Marx and Marxism, Gregory Claeys, a leading historian of socialism, offers a wide-ranging, accessible account of Marx's ideas and their development, from the nineteenth century through the Russian Revolution to the present. After the collapse of the Soviet Union his reputation seemed utterly eclipsed, but now a new generation is reading and discovering Marx in the wake of the recurrent financial crises, growing social inequality, and an increasing sense of the injustice and destructiveness of capitalism. Both his critique of capitalism and his vision of the future speak across the centuries to our times, even if the questions he poses are more difficult to answer than ever.

Marx and Marxism

Author: Gregory Claeys
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141983493
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 429

Book Description
An illuminating overview of Marx's intellectual influence from a leading historian of socialism Why was Marx so successful as a thinker? Did he have a system and if so, what does it consist of? How did Marxism develop in the twentieth century and what does it mean today? Karl Marx remains the most influential and controversial political thinker in history. The movements associated with his name have lent hope to many victims of tyranny and aggression but have also proven disastrous in practice and resulted in the unnecessary deaths of millions. If after the collapse of the Soviet Union his reputation seemed utterly eclipsed, a new generation is reading and discovering Marx in the wake of the recurrent financial crises, growing social inequality and an increasing sense of the injustice and destructiveness of capitalism. Both his critique of capitalism and his vision of the future speak across the centuries to our times, even if the questions he poses are more difficult to answer than ever. In this wide-ranging account, Gregory Claeys, one of Britain's leading historians of socialism, considers Marx's ideas and their development through the Russian Revolution to the present, showing why Marx and Marxism still matter today.

Marx and Marxism

Author: Peter Worsley
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134451547
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 137

Book Description
Discusses varieties of Marxism, distinguishing between ideas that remain valid, those that are contestable, and those that should be discarded. Emphasises connections between theoretical debates real political struggles.

Marx's Inferno

Author: William Clare Roberts
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691180814
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 298

Book Description
Marx’s Inferno reconstructs the major arguments of Karl Marx’s Capital and inaugurates a completely new reading of a seminal classic. Rather than simply a critique of classical political economy, William Roberts argues that Capital was primarily a careful engagement with the motives and aims of the workers’ movement. Understood in this light, Capital emerges as a profound work of political theory. Placing Marx against the background of nineteenth-century socialism, Roberts shows how Capital was ingeniously modeled on Dante’s Inferno, and how Marx, playing the role of Virgil for the proletariat, introduced partisans of workers’ emancipation to the secret depths of the modern “social Hell.” In this manner, Marx revised republican ideas of freedom in response to the rise of capitalism. Combining research on Marx’s interlocutors, textual scholarship, and forays into recent debates, Roberts traces the continuities linking Marx’s theory of capitalism to the tradition of republican political thought. He immerses the reader in socialist debates about the nature of commerce, the experience of labor, the power of bosses and managers, and the possibilities of political organization. Roberts rescues those debates from the past, and shows how they speak to ever-renewed concerns about political life in today’s world.

Labour and Value: Rethinking Marx’s Theory of Exploitation

Author: Ernesto Screpanti
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
ISBN: 178374782X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 124

Book Description
In this book Ernesto Screpanti provides a rigorous examination of Marx’s theory of exploitation, one of the cornerstones of Marxist thought. With precision and clarity, he identifies the holes in traditional readings of Marx’s theory before advancing his own original interpretation, drawing on contemporary philosophy and economic theory to provide a refreshingly interdisciplinary exegesis. Screpanti’s arguments are delivered with perspicuity and verve: this is a book that aims to spark a debate. He exposes ambiguities present in Marx’s exposition of his own theory, especially when dealing with the employment contract and the notions of ‘abstract labor’ and ‘labor value’, and he argues that these ambiguities have given rise to misunderstandings in previous analyses of Marx’s theory of exploitation. Screpanti’s own interpretation is a meticulously argued counterpoint to these traditional interpretations. Labour and Value is a significant contribution to the theory of economics, particularly Marxist economics. It will also be of great interest to scholars in other disciplines including sociology, political science, and moral and political philosophy. Screpanti’s clear and engaging writing style will attract the interested general reader as well as the academic theorist.

Marxism and Morality

Author: Steven Lukes
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Book Description
... An honourable, instructive and impressively able book.' The Times Higher Education Supplement.

The Meaning of Marxism

Author: Paul D'Amato
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1608460517
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 354

Book Description
“In [D’Amato’s] able hands, Marxist politics come alive and leap before us, pointing a way toward a better world. It’s a knockout.”—Dave Zirin, author of What’s My Name, Fool?: Sports and Resistance in the United States In this lively and accessible introduction to the ideas of Karl Marx, with historical and contemporary examples, D’Amato argues that Marx’s ideas of globalization, oppression, and social change are more important than ever. Paul D’Amato is the associate editor of the International Socialist Review. His writing has appeared in CounterPunch, Socialist Worker, and SelvesandOthers.org. He is an activist based in Chicago.

Marx After Marxism

Author: Tom Rockmore
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0470695439
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Book Description
Marx After Marxism encourages readers to understand Karl Marx in new ways, unencumbered by political Marxist interpretations that have long dominated the discussions of both Marxists and non-Marxists. This volume gives a broad and accessible account of Marx's philosophy and emphasizes his relationship to Hegel.

Marx's Dream

Author: Tom Rockmore
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022655466X
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 295

Book Description
Two centuries after his birth, Karl Marx is read almost solely through the lens of Marxism, his works examined for how they fit into the doctrine that was developed from them after his death. With Marx’s Dream, Tom Rockmore offers a much-needed alternative view, distinguishing rigorously between Marx and Marxism. Rockmore breaks with the Marxist view of Marx in three key ways. First, he shows that the concern with the relation of theory to practice—reflected in Marx’s famous claim that philosophers only interpret the world, while the point is to change it—arose as early as Socrates, and has been central to philosophy in its best moments. Second, he seeks to free Marx from his unsolicited Marxist embrace in order to consider his theory on its own merits. And, crucially, Rockmore relies on the normal standards of philosophical debate, without the special pleading to which Marxist accounts too often resort. Marx’s failures as a thinker, Rockmore shows, lie less in his diagnosis of industrial capitalism’s problems than in the suggested remedies, which are often unsound. ? Only a philosopher of Rockmore’s stature could tackle a project this substantial, and the results are remarkable: a fresh Marx, unencumbered by doctrine and full of insights that remain salient today.

Fire and Hemlock

Author: Diana Wynne Jones
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 110156699X
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 430

Book Description
A fantastic tale by the legendary Diana Wynne Jones—with an introduction by Garth Nix. Polly Whittacker has two sets of memories. In the first, things are boringly normal; in the second, her life is entangled with the mysterious, complicated cellist Thomas Lynn. One day, the second set of memories overpowers the first, and Polly knows something is very wrong. Someone has been trying to make her forget Tom - whose life, she realizes, is at supernatural risk. Fire and Hemlock is a fantasy filled with sorcery and intrigue, magic and mystery - and a most unusual and satisfying love story. Widely considered to be one of Diana Wynne Jones's best novels, the Firebird edition of Fire and Hemlock features an introduction by the acclaimed Garth Nix - and an essay about the writing of the book by Jones herself.