Reviews for Marx for Our Times: Adventures and Misadventures of a Critique

The average rating for Marx for Our Times: Adventures and Misadventures of a Critique based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-03-13 00:00:00 William Hickey I began this with trepidation, since I have gradually but consistently moved away from both French theory and more traditional Trotskyist interpretations of Marx. The first couple of chapters where he engages critically with Analytical Marxism didn't do much to assuage my trepidation, since he repeats a lot of the dialectical hand-waving that is the bane of Hegelian interpretations of Marx. However, as I read on I grew to appreciate Bensaid's style, and his particular methodology. This book is not a powerpoint lecture on the ABCs of Marxism, it's more a French-style "lecture" where the author adopts a determinate standpoint (the three volumes of Capital + the Grundrisse, essentially, but also earlier philosophical works where necessary) or subject matter (Marx's thought, in all its contradictions) which he then applies to a number of contemporary and historical debates, in an improvisational, interpretative, manner: Marx and Hegel, Marxism's complex relationship to positivism and productivism, and the intersection of Marx's thought and contemporary debates surrounding the philosophy of science and ecology are all key touch stones. What I was convinced by was the following couple of points: 1) You need to read all three volumes of Capital to understand Marx's theory of class, production, reproduction, or anything else - they operate at different levels of abstraction (production, circulation, reproduction, respectively), yet each implies the other in a circular or inter-dependent manner. 2) Marx's debt to Hegel was never paid, and rather than a 'break' the transition from the philosophical works to the mature critique of political economy should be conceptualised as a continuous journey. 3) Despite the Stalinised maiming of Marx's thought, a revival of Second International progressivism, Marx himself cannot be placed in the dock for its crimes. If there is a productivist, teleological, determinist, positivist, non-scientific, moralistic, etc. Marx (to summarise the wide variety of sometimes contradictory accusations thrown at the old mole, which Bensaid is responding to, normally in their most contemporary, sophisticated, French mode) there is also always the precise opposite: an anti-determinist, anti-positivist, ecological Marx, whose viewpoint can be excavated through critical engagement rather than dismissal or anachronistic projection. This is bound to happen given the depth and breadth of his writing. 4) In this vein, the final chapter on political ecology is something of a minor masterpiece. Excellent book, definitely not an introduction to Marx and very heavy - densely philosophical and quite 'French' in its construction and context - at times, but worth reading for anyone interested either in the philosophy of Marx, or a good example of 'Capital-centric Marxism' i.e. using the categories and concepts of Capital (surplus-value, accumulation, profit rate) to grapple with novel or important historical questions, rather than an often vulgarised 'Marxism'.

Review # 2 was written on 2010-05-03 00:00:00 Yvonne Wiltsee Marxists of the world! Before you proclaim yourself entirely post-Marxist! Read this book to remind yourself why reading Marx in a post-1989 world is exciting, and why it's okay to hate Karl Popper and analytic Marxists (and why there is no more need to compromise). The age of vulgar Marxism is over, and Marx is back in style.