“Marx” by Terry Eagleton, 1997
One High-Marxist
Brit here. Eagleton is a multiple
professor and especial political expert in literary theory and fussy Roman
Catholicism. Eagleton grew up working class, in an Irish
Republican family and later was a member of several British Trotskyist
groups. This book was bound in an intense
black hardcover, lodged in the forgotten stacks of a University Library. His most famous book is “Literary
Theory: An Introduction,” where he
approaches literary formalism, psychoanalysis, structuralism and post-modernism
from a political and Marxist point of view.
What does he have to say to a ‘Jimmy Higgins’ in this book, which is the British
version of saying a regular Leftist activist? Well...
 |
| Eagleton at Rest |
Eagleton’s
book is probably known as a monograph in England. In this small volume he goes over some of
Marx’s greatest hits, highlighting some famous quotes, incessant dialectic pairings
and the wonderful grounded language that Marx, the ‘economist,’ sometimes used
to describe just about everything. At
one odd point Eagleton claims that it was Engels that came up with dialectical
materialism, but then admits perhaps Marx was on board too. Perhaps!
Eagleton
explains Marx’s takes on philosophy, anthropology, history
and politics. Here is a sample
salient point from each.
1. He discusses the idea that Marx’s anti-philosophy
was still a philosophy of sorts. It was
an ‘anti-philosophy’ because if theoretical problems are actually rooted in
social contradictions, they cannot be solved except by addressing those real
contradictions in the real world. Just
as combatting religious, metaphysical or magical ideas is not done purely
through logic, reason and facts, as liberals or pure atheists would have us
believe. Society has to change for ideas
to adjust. Under communism according to Marx
the main contradictions of life would actually disappear and this would
‘self-abolish’ radical political theory too.
Ultimately ‘philosophy’ is grounded in history, not inside our heads.
2. Marx saw humans as social animals, with
change being the essence of humanity's life.
Marx understood both individualism and social being – ‘species-being’ –
were absolutely linked, not diametrically opposed. Mental and manual labor, city and country,
animal and human, body and mind, head and heart – are also false dualisms. Eagleton quotes from Marx’s early works,
which some may find ‘romantic’ but others absolutely true as pictures of
alienation:
“The less you eat,
drink, buy books, go to the theatre, go dancing, go drinking, think, love,
theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save and the greater will
become the treasure which neither moths nor maggots can consume – your capital”
Money is “…the
universal whore, the universal pimp of men and peoples…”
3. Marx did not discover the notion of
social class, he focused on how class was related to a ‘mode of production’ of
human life and necessities. Tribal life,
slave agricultural societies, tribute
societies, feudalism, capitalism, the dictatorship of the proletariat … and socialism
lurking in the wings. The last stage of
socialism is where class disappears. Producing the basic human needs of life is
what makes up the bedrock of history, not great men or women, not war, not various
superficial identities, inventions, ideas, not even gods. Eagleton discusses whether Marx felt socialism
was inevitable. He concludes no. Socialism
can come about as capital socializes labor, develops technology and
centralizes economies world-wide – which it has already done. Marx describes this period thusly, when the
ruling class and capitalist property become archaic:
“Centralization of the
means of production and socialization of labour at last reach a point where
they become incompatible with their capitalist integument. This integument is
burst asunder. The death knell of
capitalist private property sounds. The
expropriators are expropriated.”
(Communist Manifesto).
4.
Marx is a practical political
thinker, even though he sometimes seems too abstract. He concluded that the proletariat was the
‘last class’ because they had the power to abolish classes. Social inequality is eliminated in socialism,
but not between individuals, who remain of differing skills, energy levels and
intelligences. Under communism,
abundance and time will finally render inequality moot, and individualism will
flower under the strength of mutual bonds, economic sufficiency and democracy. Marx
did not spend much time looking into this future, as he knew the actual class
struggle determines how the future looks.
More is
contained in the book than just what is in these notes, of course. No review can incorporate everything, which is
why you should come down and buy some books during this cold winter. May Day has many books on ‘theory’ by various
authors. We have anarchist,
anarcho-syndicalist, council communist, environmentalist, guerillaist,
humanist, left communist, Leninist, liberal, left liberal, Maoist, Marxist,
Schactmanite, Social Democratic, Stalinist and Trotskyist writers and theorists.
Did I miss anybody?
And I got it
at the UGA Library!
Red Frog
January 22, 2022
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