Problems with 'Marx was right'.

[Rafiq]

Does anyone else here find the book a bit innacurate? It makes several, several great points. But it's 'soft' materialism, i.e., recognition of the spiritual, and other cases make it a bit unnagreeable. Also, the extensive unnecessary blabbering about market socialism as a solution was something I didn't like.

What are your thoughts?

[Tim Cornelis]

I assume you are talking about Why Marx was Right (http://www.amazon.com/Why-Marx-Right-Terry-Eagleton/dp/0300169434)?

I personally haven't read it, but I've heard that its author doesn't understand Marx.

And market socialism would not solve the crisis of commodity production, accumulation of capital, etc. there would still be a tendency of the rate of profit to fall, but without the capitalist exploitation. So, that doesn't seem compatible with Marxist economics.

[Tim Finnegan]

As I understood it, his discussion of the "spiritual" was an attempt to reformulate what is now understood as an spirituality as an embodied experience, so I don't think that it's rightly conceived of as "soft materialism" (if you're using that in the sense of "property dualism", i.e. the idea that while only material substances exist, they have mental/spiritual properties distinct from their physical ones?). For example, he says that "For Marx[...] "spirit" is a question of art, friendship, fun, compassion, rebellion, laughter, sexual love, creativity, sensual delight, righteous anger and abundance of life". (pp.140) It's essentially a Marxist-Humanist conception of humanity, differing more in language than in content from its predecessors.

And the discussion about market socialism, while longer and less critical than it would preferably have been, seemed intended to contradict the general assumption that socialism naturally concludes in Stalinist "centrally-planned economies" than to make a case for market socialism itself. But, I'm open to contradiction on that point.

[ZeroNowhere]

If you're talking about the Eagleton book, then yeah, it does have its problems (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2278680&postcount=4).

It's essentially a work of Marx apologism, and personally I tend to dislike those works. Eagleton, as with most authors of the genre, tends to attempt to make Marx palatable at the expense of the truth, with plenty of phrase-mongering, fancy pop culture references and such thrown into the bargain as a substitute for detailed analysis. The work essentially comes not from the perspective of a theorist, but of a debater and public apologist, and has all of the taints which debate usually breeds and which make it a generally worthless activity. In attempting to refute the idea that Marx is a utopian, while still making him respectable, Eagleton generally just states that he was a utopian, but his utopia was realistic; in his attempts to universalize Marx, he makes Marx in turn a liberal, a Jew, a prophet, a Christian, a Romantic humanist, a national liberator and a fiction.

Really, though, I'm not particularly keen on Marx apologism in general. We're Marxists, we have nothing to apologize for.

[Rafiq]

It does make a few good points, though, such as on chapter three when he was talking about "Marx's ideas lead to tyranny" and his refution. He said a lot of things (Marx was a romantic, a spiritualist) that I've never heard anyone accuse of Marx, so I figured he probably was full of crap.

[Ocean Seal]

I would put it a bit differently than Zero. The book isn't so much about Marx apologism as it is about rehabilitating Marx in a pop-history type of way. It is in effect much like science popularizing books. It makes it trendy and uses things that appeal to people to hopefully get them to investigate the subject more. Unfortunately, most people will just leave it there. Its political junk-food. Its okay to read stuff like that every now and then, just so long as you don't actually believe that it has any nutritional (ideological) value.

[SJBarley]

I'm around 5 chapters in at the time of writing and from what I can see Eagleton does well with dispelling some of the common myths of Marx and Communism in general but he does seem to miss the point alot. Particularly as others have said with his soft materialism and spirtitualism however I think its worth a read (judging by the early parts) if just for the few points he raises that are valid, it does make a change to read something even remotely left wing that can be found in my local bookshop

[Marxaveli]

I haven't read it yet, but I myself was thinking of writing a book based on a similar theme (debunking the typical misconceptions of Marxism and Communism). I really want to get into the semantics of it, because people throw these terms around without really knowing what they even mean, so they become loaded, pejorative terms. The book wouldn't be geared towards anyone here obviously, that would be preaching to the choir. I want to explain the basic concepts and help people distinguish from Socialism, Marxism, and Communism, as well as some of the important concepts of Marxism (false consciousness, class consciousness, alienation, etc). For those who I cannot reach, well, at least they will "know their enemy" i guess. I think such a book is one of the first steps in getting people to truly understand the principles of what Socialism and Communism seek to achieve, instead of just relying on some fuckhead like Glenn Beck for their source of info. There is quite a few books about Marxism out there but I know of very few that are written in this manner to destroy the misconceptions. Everything about Marxism seems to be very esoteric in general, and the lack of these types of publications has to be part of the problem.

[jpointon]

Eagleton's main point in this book is his claim that Marx's greatest contribution to society is his identification and analysis of capitalism. This being said, he does very little to ever explain the problems of capitalism, why it is unjust, or how it works. He trusts that the readers already know this to be a fact. This book is an upsetting example of how an author claiming to understand Marx probably does more to damage Marx's name than to add any value to it.

[Durutii Column]

It does make a few good points, though, such as on chapter three when he was talking about "Marx's ideas lead to tyranny" and his refution. He said a lot of things (Marx was a romantic, a spiritualist) that I've never heard anyone accuse of Marx, so I figured he probably was full of crap.

My intro to the communist manifesto says the same thing. I think that is the dialectic part.