Eagleton does his magnificent little text a small disfavour by choosing a rather didactic sounding title. Something a little more open-ended might have been more appropriate, something along the lines of, why we should study Marx or Marx’s critical relevance for today. Maybe the author felt his title would catch the reader’s attention, which it does, but it also plays into the tradition of turning Marx, and the school of thought that followed, into something akin to a religion, the very opposite of what Marx would have wished for. In fact, so concerned was Marx that many of his adherents were treating his ideas dogmatically that he once reputed to have declared, whatever I am, I know I am not a marxist.

For me, when Eagleton is at his least didactic he is at his most effective. When he debates and explores and hypothesises Eagleton provides his readers with a timely gem, but when he lapses into uncritical mode he does his own cleverly constructed project a disservice.

With these few preliminary observations out of the way, I can say unreservedly that this is a compulsorily text for those trying to make sense of the unfolding global chaos; from urban riots on the streets of London and Athens, the ill-defined bloody revolutionary upheavals in the Arab states, the ebbing and flowing of the world financial meltdown, the huge swathes of humanity still subject to the most degrading regimes of poverty, hunger and outright famine, the ecological disasters looming at every corner of our planet, and dare I omit to add, the never-ending revelations of corporate corruption, avarice and outright criminality. Marx was no god and never saw himself as one, but he was certainly as groundbreaking in his world view as Charles Darwin or Sigmund Freud, and in terms of real politics and actual lives lived, surely he must be considered the most influential thinker of the modern era who had something definite and coherent to say about all of the above. If for no other reason, Eagleton’s eminently readable text is worthy of our immediate attention.

Eagleton has divided his work into ten conveniently bit-sized chapters, each one dealing with what he considers to be the serious fallacies and half-truths in the endless efforts to discredit the world view that Marx was attempting to elaborate. Some serious opponents of Marx might argue that Eagleton has created some flimsily constructed straw men all the easier to knock down, but having grown up with Marxism as my favoured tool of analysis since the days of the Vietnam anti-war movement, I can immediately recognise the spurious and often half-baked anti-Marxist rhetoric that has been spewed out ad nausea over the decades, invariably by a hostile capitalist media whose core interests are of course inimical to those of a more socialised, humane and rational world.

Chapter One seeks to refute the notion that Marxism may have been relevant in the nineteenth century but has little to say in the post-industrial western societies of the present day. By way of substantiating his counter argument Eagleton summons the following facts: Capitalism has created more prosperity than history has ever witnessed, but the cost not least in the near destitution of billions has been astronomical. According to the World Bank, 2.74 billion people in 2001 lived on less than two dollars a day. We face a probable future of nuclear-armed states warring over a scarcity of resources; and that scarcity is largely the consequence of capitalism itself. For the first time in history, our prevailing form of life has the power not simply to breed racism and spread cultural cretinism, drive us into war or herd us into labour camps, but to wipe us from the planet. Capitalism will behave anti-socially if it is profitable to do so, and it can now mean human devastation on an unimaginable scale. In these dire conditions, Marxism must necessarily become true again. P8

Eagleton then poses the question: What if it were not Marxism that is outdated but capitalism itself? Back in Victorian England, Marx saw the system as having already run out of steam. Having promoted social development in its hay-day, it was now acting as a drag on it. He viewed capitalist society as awash with fantasy and fetishism, myth and idolatry, however much it prided itself on its modernity. Its very enlightenment its smug belief in its own superior rationality was a kind of superstition. The final limit on capitalism, Marx once commented, is capital itself, the constant reproduction of which is a frontier beyond which it cannot stray. P9

If Marx has been proved wrong in his assessment of how long capitalism could continue to expand itself, he was surely correct in his logic that capitalism could not develop beyond its own parameters of private capital accumulation. Whether capitalism still has room to further develop the world’s collective resources is a debatable point, but what is not debatable is the perilous direction it is taking us all in pursuit of that extra buck.

Chapter Two tackles the tired old refrain that Marxism may well be fine in theory but whenever it has been put into practise the result has always been terror, tyranny and mass murder on an inconceivable scale. Eagleton’s counter response to this very common refrain is, I believe, the correct one; i.e., that any form of developed communism cannot be developed in conditions of nation scarcity, it could only conceivable flourish under international conditions of relative abundance in both a material and cultural sense. All previous attempts at creating a socialist system have taken place at the weakest and most backward part of the capitalist chain, with war ravaged East Germany being a possible exception, and as Marx predicted, this stultifying economic and cultural backwardness would eventually engulf even the most enthusiastic and dedicated of revolutions. In this he has been proved tragically correct. Eagleton puts the matter this way: You cannot abolish social class in conditions of scarcity, since conflicts over a material surplus too meagre to meet everyone’s needs will simply revive them again. As Marx comments in The German Ideology, the result of a revolution in such conditions is that the old filthy business will simply reappear. All you get is socialised scarcity. If you need to accumulate capital more or less from scratch, then the most effective way of doing so, however brutal, is through the profit motive. Avid self interest is likely to pile up wealth with remarkable speed, though it is likely to amass spectacular poverty at the same time. P16

Eagleton then adds: Ideally, socialism requires a skilled, educated, politically sophisticated populace, thriving civic institutions, a well evolved technology, enlightened liberal traditions and the habit of democracy. No Marxist from Marx and Engels to Lenin and Trotsky ever dreamt of anything else. P18

Many people, including academics who might be supposed would know better, ignore this crucial tenet of Marx’s thinking and by either not understanding or deliberately distorting his views, they are able to point to Russia, China, North Korea and Cuba and conclude that Socialism is a doomed project. What they spectacularly fail to appreciate is that Marx himself would have predicted, almost insisted, that a country seeking to build socialism in acute backwardness and national isolation would almost inevitably be consumed by such backwardness. What is perhaps amazing is that the Soviet Union, China and Cuba achieved as much as they did in the realm of social provision given the horrendous material and cultural backwardness that surrounded them. Just consider what might be achieved when the industrially developed countries of the world are collectively forced to put their minds to the question of the social ownership of wealth. A whole new and qualitatively higher level of social organisation might conceivable emerge that would make our existing capitalist norm look barbaric and thoroughly antiquated by comparison.

Chapter Three turns its attention to the claim that Marxism represents a theory of economic determinism where, it sees men and women simply as tools of history and strips them of their freedom and individuality. Here, in seeking to refute such claims, Eagleton is correct to stress the dialectical relationship between the objective march of the productive forces which, particularly under capitalism, seems to have a momentum altogether independent of human will, and the ever-present subjective, human response to those inhuman forces. It is a dialectical relationship that is so interwoven that it is near impossible for anyone to accurately predict when the subjective component will successfully predominate over the seemingly blind forces of capital accumulation. But to understand the dialectic is to come close to understanding how society propels itself forward decades, even centuries of low level class antagonism and then suddenly an explosion of human activity, sometimes articulate, sometimes wrapped in national or religious ideology but always, in the final instance, an expression of basic class economic interests. To use Marx’s formulation; In fifty years history doesn’t move a day, and then in one day it can move fifty years.

Marx, as Eagleton is quick to point out, is at pains to stress that humans are not simply playthings of uncontrollable economic forces. The chapter offers a thoughtful polemic on this most central debate within Marxism, and Eagleton provides this pertinent quote from Marx in order to underline Marx’s own dialectical approach to the question of mankind making its own history: History does nothing, it possesses no immense wealth, it wages no battles. It is man, real living man, who does all that, who possesses and fights; history is not, as it were, a person apart, using man as a means to achieve its own aims, history is nothing but the activity of man pursuing his aims. P50

Eagleton then adds:
There is no evidence that Marx is in general a determinist, in the sense of denying that human actions are free. On the contrary, he clearly believes in freedom, and talks all the time, not least in his journalism, about how individuals could (and sometimes should) have acted differently, whatever the historical limits placed on their choices. P52

Those that have explored this question will inevitable and continually differ as to how precisely the dialectic will play itself out in any particular circumstance, though all will concede that these dialectical opposites, productive forces and classes (and individuals), are in reality intimately connected by a thousand invisible threads, each side tugging on each other until one finally, if momentarily, dominates over the other. For my part, I must confess a predilection to a more determinist view of history, emphasising the material limitations of what is possible, which is not to suggest for one moment that humans are somehow passive onlookers, and that at key junctures, we humans are not decisive players, the ultimate moulders of our fortunes and destinies.

Eagleton, in the thirty odd pages devoted to this most complex of conundrums, presents the matter fairly and competently while at the same time successfully refuting those who would parody Marx and Marxism with blatantly unfounded accusations of a crude economic determinism.

Chapter Four takes the reader through the well rehearsed mantra that Marxism is nothing but a utopia and that it overlooks the true nature of the human species. This particular form of anti Marxist rhetoric takes the following dreary familiar form; The fact that we are naturally selfish, acquisitive, aggressive and competitive creatures, and that no amount of social engineering can alter this fact, is simply overlooked. Marx’s dewy eyed vision of the future reflects the absurd unreality of his politics as a whole.

This is a hollow straw man if ever there was one. Marx never tried to suggest a golden utopia but rather an age where human society had reached a level of material abundance, thus laying the material conditions for classes and the state to eventually wither away. Class society for Marx was considered an era of pre-history, and only when humans had transcended the conditions that gave rise to classes would humans embark on their real, fully evolved story, wherever that might take them. But this human story would be no utopia, new contradictions would inevitably emerge and we would always expect there to be competing interests and competing demands for finite resources. Eagleton puts the matter thus:
There is good reason to suspect that there can never be any complete reconciliation between individual and society. The dream of an organic unity between them is a generous-hearted fantasy. There will always be conflicts between my fulfilment and yours, or between what is required of me as a citizen and what I badly want to do. Such outright contradictions are the stuff of tragedy, and only the grave, as opposed to Marxism, can put us beyond that condition. Marx’s claim in the Communist Manifesto about the free self-development of all can never fully be realised.it is a goal to aim at, not a state to be literally achieved. P87

Very poetically put. With the abolition of scarcity and the opening of the era of material abundance, humans will be in a position to resolve their contradictions in a spirit of cooperation and rational discourse rather than antagonistic and irrational class warfare. Compared to what we have known throughout history, this would indeed be a form of utopia, but the conclusions Marx draws are grounded very much in a changed material, earthly circumstance. You can experiment with this supposedly utopian concept in any classroom. Start a new school year with only 15 lockers for 30 children and you have a recipe for aggressive and bullying behaviour. The strongest will inevitably try to get the lockers and the biggest bully will sure to get the best located locker. Start the year however with more than enough lockers for every child and their distribution barely becomes an issue. Abundance negates human division and conflict. Chances are that the kids will lose interest in the lockers altogether. Eagleton concludes:

If history has been so bloody, it is not because most human beings are wicked. It is because of the material pressures to which they have been submitted. P98

Whether there is, in fact, a utopian strain within the younger, more idealistic Marx is a mute point. Marx’s assertion that a humanity free from the shackles of private ownership will lead to an overcoming of our alienated self, is a speculative philosophical theory as much as a concrete economic one. Whether mankind can ever really free itself from a sense of alienation, an alienation that may derive as much from our increasing separation from nature as our separation from the process and fruits of our labour, will only ever be resolved in the cultural expressions of future civilisations. For now it can only remain a pleasantly enticing theoretical construct.

Chapter Five revisits, in slightly different guise, the criticism that Marx is too fixated with matters economic and thus fails to recognise the true complexity of human affairs. P107 Once again it is only through an appreciation of Marx’s thoroughly dialectical approach that it is possible to dismiss once and for all this unfounded and rather absurd criticism. The dialectic, so thoroughly elaborated by Marx, between the economic base and the cultural and political superstructure is skilfully re-explained by Eagleton in this short chapter. But first Eagleton must re-assert the primacy of the economic base. As any banker or industrialist worth their salt will tell you, without material production nothing can get done. Eagleton light-heartedly explains:

The first historical act is the production of the means to satisfy our material needs. Only then can we learn to play the banjo, write erotic poetry or paint the front porch. The base of culture is labour. There can be no civilisation without material production. Marxism, however, wants to claim more than this. It wants to argue that material production is fundamental not only in the sense that there could be no civilisation without it, but that it ultimately determines the nature of that civilisation. P107

But Marx was at pains to stress that if the fundamental nature of production ultimately determined the institutions and culture of a given civilisation, then the social superstructure is fully capable of leaving its mark and moulding in an active way, the economic base. How the two interact and influence the other is well documented by Marx’s writing. It is precisely the fact that humans are active agents in the process that gives history its momentum. One of Marx’s most celebrated dictums states: that hitherto philosophers had merely interpreted the world, the point is to change it. And in order to change it, it requires real, culturally aware, politically active and organised people. Not simply ‘a class in itself but a class for itself. This was hardly the philosophy of a man who disregarded the revolutionary role that humans, with all their political and cultural institutions, were capable of.

Chapter Six resumes the debate of the previous chapter and takes task with the assertion that Marx and Marxism had no time for the spiritual dimensions of humanity. In refuting this assertion Eagleton has this to say:

(For) Marx, spirit(ualism) is a question of art, friendship, fun, compassion, laughter, sexual love, rebellion, creativity, sensuous delight, righteous anger and abundance of live. P139

Or as Richard Dawkins might put it; stop worrying about imaginary gods and get on with enjoying your life.

But it is to state the blindingly obvious that no spiritual dimension for we humans, as described by Marx, is remotely possible while we still live in the realm of abject poverty, both natural and man-made. To triumph over scarcity and move to the realm of material abundance is to truly lay the foundations for humanity to express its spiritual dimension. It is impossible to live a full and compassionate life when every next thought is focused on where the next meal is coming from. Even in the so called developed West, the shadow of economic destitution perpetually hangs over the lower reaches of the middle class, the entire working class and most pressingly, the ever expanding under-class.

Towards the end of this chapter, Eagleton makes a very contemporary and pertinent point, stressing the inevitable link between the owners of production and the cultural and spiritual ideas of the day, Eagleton writes:

Marx thought that those who controlled material production tended to control mental production as well. The claim has even more force in an age of press magnates and media barons than it had in his own time. P148

In our age of endless bling, mindless consumerism and an appallingly shallow celebrity culture, where every thing and every one is turned into little more than a commodity, capitalism and its flag bearers offer little scope for a human spirituality to emerge, yet these very same advocates of capitalism are precisely the ones who shout loudest about a Marxism devoid of spirituality.

Chapter Seven returns to the question of class, and Eagleton takes to task those who would claim that class is an outmoded method of understanding the world. Here Eagleton has the simplest of tasks to dismiss this facile criticism. Contrary to the notion that the working class has become an irrelevant concept, Eagleton points out that, globally, the proletariat has never been larger or more central to the fortunes of global capitalism. As Asia assumes the mantle of workshop of the world rest assured that the working class will once again have plenty to say as this century unfolds.

And given the explosive events in Britain’s cities this week by the feral underclass, Eagleton is right on the button in describing the massive growth of semi-proletarian slum dwellers across the planet who, if combined with the more formal and organised working class, would create a social force greater than anything known in history. Eagleton explains:

Nor should we forget the enormous slum population of the world, growing at an extraordinarily fast rate. These men and women are not part of the working class in the classical sense of the term, but neither do they fall entirely outside the productive process. They tend to drift in and out of it, working typically in low paid, unskilled, unprotected casual services without contracts, rights, regulations or bargaining power. They include hawkers, hustlers, garment workers, food and drink sellers, prostitutes, child labourers, rickshaw pullers, domestic servants and small time self-employed entrepreneurs. P176

Eagleton then adds:

If they are not routinely exploited, they are certainly economically oppressed; and taken together they form the fastest growing social group on earth. If they can be easy fodder for right wing religious movements, they can also muster some impressive acts of political resistance. They form an informal proletariat which has shown itself well capable of political organisation; and if they were to revolt against their dire conditions, there is no doubt the world capitalist system would be shaken to its roots. P176

Eagleton might also have added that the line between the organised working class and the semi formal proletariat in advanced capitalist countries is becoming increasingly blurred.

Chapter Eight deals swiftly with the old hoary accusation that Marxism inevitably leads to a violent state dictatorship. Of course this accusation must be taken seriously given the less than impressive democratic credentials of the early experiments with social ownership. It is not sufficient merely to point to the backward conditions that surrounded Russia anmd China as they attempted to create a socialist system. Nor is it sufficient to point to the hostile encirclement that the young Soviet system faced from day one. Both are mitigating factors but neither sufficiently address the distinct tendency for communist parties to act undemocratically whether in power or aspiring to power. To paraphrase Trotsky; the party soon substitutes itself for the class, the central committee substitutes itself for the party, the political committee substitutes itself for the central committee, and in too many cases, the great leader substitutes himself for the entire political process. Democratic Centralism within communist parties very quickly reverts to blunt centralism whatever the prevailing circumstances. Sycophantic deference to the infallible leader has become the norm rather than the exception. Differences and nuances within the Party are immediately demonised as anti-party tendencies which must be expunged from the party with the utmost severity. Eagleton has little or nothing to say about all this. A pity.

Chapter Nine, the penultimate chapter, deals with the common assertion that Marxism is all about the all-powerful State, an assertion that is actually the antithesis of Marx’s own stated position. For Marx, the Socialist State was only ever a transitory institution necessary for the suppression of the inevitable counter reaction from the dispossessed agents of Capital. While Marx was always quick to ridicule the anarchists of the day for their naive calls to dispense with the State immediately, he was equally adamant that a future communist world would see the repressive State wither away completely. Here Eagleton is prepared to be a little more critical in his thinking, daring to suggest that Marx may have had a blind spot when it came to the Nietzschian notion that power may not be a thing in itself; but there is an element within it which luxuriates in dominion simply for its own sake which delights in flexing its muscles with no particular end in view, and which is always in excess of the practical goals to which it is harnessed. P209

Whether this is a fair criticism of Marx’s work is debatable, but it does Eagleton’s cause no harm to offer a little critical discourse. The tenth and final chapter seeks to repudiate those that would argue, often from a left perspective, that Marxism has now been replaced by more radical movements such as feminism, environmentalism, anti-globalism and identity politics of various descriptions. Eagleton doesn’t really answer this assertion and instead meanders aimlessly, finally alighting on Marx’s sometimes contradictory attitudes towards European colonialism.

No one single book and no one single author can be expected to exhaustedly deal with all the criticisms Marxism has attracted over the past 150 years. Eagleton has made an audacious start and for this he should be applauded. Some of his refutations are thinner than others and at times he surrenders his own critical faculties a little too lamely. But overall he has produced a text that is becoming more timely as each day passes. Karl Marx, reports of your demise and subsequent obituaries may be a little premature.