Why Read Marx Today?

Bol

Wolff argues that we can detach Marx the critic of current society from Marx the prophet of future society; he remains the most impressive critic we have of liberal, capitalist, bourgeois society. He shows that the value of such does not depend on their views being true, but on features such as their originality, insight and systematic vision. In recent years we could be forgiven for assuming that Marx has nothing left to say to us. Marxist regimes have failed miserably, and with them, it seemed, all reason to take Marx seriously. The fall of the Berlin Wall had enormous symbolic resonance: it was taken to be the fall of Marx as well as of Marxist politics and economics. This book argues that we can detach Marx the critic of current society from Marx the prophet of future society, and that he remains the most impressive critic we have of liberal, capitalist, bourgeois society. It also shows that the value of the 'great thinkers' does not depend on their views being true, but on other features such as their originality, insight, and systematic vision. On this account too Marx still richly deserves to be read.

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Pagina's: 144, Paperback, Oxford University Press