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    Why Marx Was Right: 2nd Edition
    Why Marx Was Right: 2nd Edition
    Why Marx Was Right: 2nd Edition
    Audiobook7 hours

    Why Marx Was Right: 2nd Edition

    Written by Sam Taylor

    Narrated by Roger Clark

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In this combative, controversial book, Terry Eagleton takes issue with the prejudice that Marxism is dead and done with. Taking ten of the most common objections to Marxism—that it leads to political tyranny, that it reduces everything to the economic, that it is a form of historical determinism, and so on—he demonstrates in each case what a woeful travesty of Marx's own thought these assumptions are. In a world in which capitalism has been shaken to its roots by some major crises, Why Marx Was Right is as urgent and timely as it is brave and candid. Written with Eagleton's familiar wit, humor, and clarity, it will attract an audience far beyond the confines of academia.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 10, 2018
    ISBN9781977379337
    Why Marx Was Right: 2nd Edition
    Author

    Sam Taylor

    Sam Taylor has written for The Guardian, Financial Times, Vogue and Esquire, and has translated such works as the award-winning HHhH by Laurent Binet, and the internationally-bestselling The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair by Joël Dicker.

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    Reviews for Why Marx Was Right

    4/5

    187 ratings15 reviews

    What our readers think

    Readers find this title to be a scattered and poorly argued defense of Marx, with some dryly humorous moments. It simplifies the debate and doesn't do justice to critiques of Marx, but it is accessible to a general public. Overall, the book is not worth listening to and is considered despicable drivel by some. However, for those interested in exploring different versions of Marx, this text is considered essential.

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      I heard something like this from the author around 2000. Seemly sometimes A NATURAL opinion of Krl Marx. That is we wouldn't be abolishing our employers offices for no job. Traditional however Communism is a permanent philosophy instead of transtionatary.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      An excellent summary of misconceptions about Marxism delt with in an authoritative dryly humorous style. Listen to this book you have nothing to lose but your chains

      15 people found this helpful

    • 2/5
      Eagleton certainly has a way with words, but this defense of Marx is scattered and poorly argued. I gave up shortly after he called for state censorship of the media and expounded the wonders of the East German childcare system. Really? Go elsewhere if you want a thoughtful treatment of Marx.

      6 people found this helpful

    • 1/5
      Despicable drivel. This book is a terrific example of ignorance of history, politics, economics, sociology and philosophy - typical of today's "wishful thinking". Marx had never worked to earn his living: he mooched off his parents and Engels, and cheated on his wife - not someone whose ruminations deserve admiration, not to mention that these ideas have been tested by history and failed!

      5 people found this helpful

    • 1/5
      Marxists simply can't tell the truth. Not worth listening to.

      4 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Everyone has their own version of Marx. What Eagleton is doing is providing the Marx that often gets lost by both Marxists and anti-Marxists. This text is accessible to a general public, which is a strength. However, in being this accessible, it sometimes simplifies debate in such a way that doesn’t do justice to critiques of Marx. If you’re looking to read a variety of Marxist texts, I would consider this text essential.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      This is an excellent work on Karl Marx and his ideas!
    • 3/5
      Not terribly convincing. Eagleton is a good enough writer, I bet he’s better with other subjects. One major problem is that it’s unclear if he’s defending Marx or Marxism, and either way the subject matter is so wide and such a hodgepodge that it’s not at all clear to me that there’s a single underlying essence that can be defined and then defended. So he hops all around tons of different topics, lists what he says the critics say, and then defends. At least it was fairly short...
    • 3/5
      Best for:
      People who are already VERY familiar with Marx’s work and are looking for an outside opinion on how to defend different aspects of it.

      In a nutshell:
      Author Eagleton looks at what he believes are common arguments uses against Marxism and refutes them.

      Worth quoting:
      “Only through others can we come into our own.”

      Why I chose it:
      I thought it would be an interesting and easier to read way to learn more about Marx’s thoughts and writing. (Spoiler alert: it wasn’t, at least not for me.)

      What it left me feeling:
      Skeptical

      Review:
      I might have been led slightly astray by the pull quotes from reviews on the cover of the copy I purchased. ‘Irresistibly Lively and Thought-Provoking.’ ‘Short, Witty, and Highly Accessible.’ I think this is probably true (except the short part - a 250 page book is not short. It’s not long, but it’s not short), but the caveat should be on there somewhere that those only apply to readers who are already very well acquainted with the writing, theory, and discussion of Marx and Marxism. This is not a book where one LEARNS about Marxism. This is a book where one thinks more about it in relation to other areas of thought.

      It is an easy read, in that the author is a decent writer. However, after reading the first half of the book very carefully, I ended up just skimming the latter half because I knew what was coming, and I knew it wasn’t going to be what I was looking for. Each chapter starts with what I think is a flaw in the set-up of the book: instead of pulling real quotes at the start to highlight the arguments opposing Marxism that he’s about to refute, he just has a sort of paragraph where he paraphrases the complaints. I think I get why he made that choice, but it doesn’t work nearly as well as real-world examples. It leaves Eagleton too open to complaints of strawmen.

      In the chapters I read closely, a lot of Eagleton’s arguments seemed to boil down to this: Capitalists might make a claim about Marxism, but even if the claim is true, it’s also probably true of Capitalism. Or, because Marx (notoriously) doesn’t really talk about the details of what his version of society would look like, it’s easy to impose outside opinions on it in a negative way, and that’s not fair.

      But here’s the thing - these arguments all sounds fine to me, but I don’t know enough about Marx to know if Eagleton’s commentary is accurate. Now, this is going to be an issue with pretty much all non-fiction books, right? We rely on the author to be something of an expert in their field, to have thought through and researched. When I read a Mary Roach book, I don’t just accept everything at face value, but generally I assume that her interpretation of the facts is generally accurate.

      But with things like political philosophy, for me it gets much murkier. What values is the author bringing into the discussion? Are they the same as my values? What have they chosen to leave out that would change the entire discussion? Without some of my own first-hand reading of the text, this type of book isn’t really going to work. When I was in grad school for philosophy, yes, I definitely needed to read articles by contemporary writers that discussed Aristotle, but I also needed to read Aristotle myself, so I could come into the discussions with some first-hand understanding. And I think that in the same way, before I (or others) read works like this, we need to read the original arguments first.

      Now, is that the author’s fault? Probably not, and that’s why this is a three star and not a two star rating for me.

      Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
      Keep and maybe revisit later
    • 1/5
      In a word Marx is wrong. He and the author fall into the same trap, they blame capitalism for all the ills in the world. When capitalism is nothing more than an economic system base on private property and the individual that efficiently produces goods and services the market demands. Governments, political systems, control how the goods and services are used. Capitalism will efficiently produce plough shears or nuclear weapons. You decide.

      Marx also errors when he envisions 'democracy' in the hands of the workers managing the means of production. An 18th century politician postulated that democracy is simply the tyranny of the majority, any smoker who's the target of an Initiative, Referendum or constitutional amendment knows of what I speak.

      Marx's greatest failure is to understand what the 'means of production' is. It is not the factories and mines, farms etc., but capital in the form of currency (a unit of value). What good is it for the 'workers' to own a factory that manufactures typewriters for instance? What workers need are the means to accumulate capital from the value of their labor. Marx's failure to understand capital, how it is produced, moves and is consumed invalidates his arguments.

      Mr. Eagleton tome is bereft, as is Marx, of any logic. He makes unsubstantiated claims, provides no empirical evidence to support his hypothesis and his use of ad hominem attacks are undeserving of the educated. Mr. Eagleton fails to prove his contention.

      Read the book, but don't let the title mislead you.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      A finer re-introduction to the concepts of Marxism, and a ready reference for explaining common misconceptions about Marx's theories.
      It is a complex argument, and requires careful reading, but Eagletons tone is witty and clear.
    • 1/5
      The topic might be highly interesting, if not fascinating. But in his dull writing style the author does not appear to come to a single meaningful conclusion. A missed opportunity.
    • 4/5
      An excellent defense of Marxist thought and its relevance in the modern world.
    • 4/5
      Useful overview of the main criticisms of Marxist ideas, with Eagleton's take on why Marx still has something to tell us in the 21st century. Some of the arguments are more convincing than others: there seems to be a general progression from "He never said X" via "He did say X, but on another occasion he also said Y" to "He may have said X, but we have to understand Y". Sometimes the literary critic is every bit as slippery as the barrister. Even if one doesn't agree with everything in the book, Eagleton's touch is light enough to make the game amusing for the reader, and it is good to get the occasional reminder that we shouldn't take the "victory of capital" for granted.
    • 3/5
      This book would be most useful for someone who has not studied Marx, but who has a passing familiarity with political theory and wants to learn more about Marx. This would, for instance, be useful to someone who senses that popular criticisms of Marxism are "old chestnuts" and not a fair deal. That said, no-one who has read Marx or secondary critiques of Marx will find anything new here. Jonathan Wolff's "Why Read Marx Today?" was a more compelling book for someone new to Marx, I think.