Considerations on Western Marxism

By Perry Anderson

Book Overview

This synoptic essay considers the nature and evolution of the Marxist theory that developed in Western Europe, after the defeat of the proletarian rebellions in the West and the isolation of the Russian Revolution in the East in the early 1920s. It focuses particularly on the work of Lukács, Korsch and Gramsci; Adorno, Marcuse and Benjamin; Sartre and Althusser; and Della Volpe and Colletti, together with other figures within Western Marxism from 1920 to 1975. The theoretical production of each of these thinkers is related simultaneously to the practical fate of working-class struggles and to the cultural mutations of bourgeois thought in their time. The philosophical antecedents of the various school within this tradition--Lukácsian, Gramscian, Frankfurt, Sartrean, Althusserian and Della Volpean--are compared, and the specific innovations of their respective systems surveyed. The structural unity of 'Western Marxism', beyond the diversity of its individual thinkers, is then assessed, in a balance-sheet that contrasts its heritage with the tradition of 'classical' Marxism that preceded it, and with the commanding problems which will confront any historical materialism to succeed it.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0053EYWA2
• ISBN13: 9780860917205
• Release Date: September 1976
• Publisher: Verso
• Length: 140 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Negative dialectics between theory and practice

Perry Anderson is a leading editor of New Left review and a prominent Marxist historian. His two part work, ¡®Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism¡¯ and ¡®Lineage of the Absolutist State¡¯ (see my reviews on those books for detail), is now counted as classic. In this short booklet, he poses two perplexing questions: ¡®why have Western Marxists been written so difficult to read?¡¯; ¡®why has there been no significant research on politics and economy among Western Marxists circle? Marxism is initially oriented towards practice. So its theory should be easy to be read by layperson and for its major premise is to transform the political economy, Marxist theory should tackle the very target of the transformation. But leading figures of Western Marxism, such as Lukacs, members of Frankfurt school like Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, Wlater Benjamin, and Fromm, paid little, if any, attention to economics or politics, but to methodology, philosophy or aesthetics. Besides, their writing styles are not behind Hegel or Heidegger in its difficulty to decipher. Perry Anderson argues that it¡¯s because the lack of prospect of revolution after the end of World War I. Marxist theorists were isolated from working class that was supposed to be the agent of revolution to end capitalism. Without such a vision, Marxist theorists were obsessed with pessimism. They could not have the vision of revolution. So philosophy and aesthetics were the escape from reality. For example, most works of Frankfurt school take a cynical stance against the reality under capitalism. They need a sanctuary protected from polluted reality. But that kind of place could not be found in the real world. Philosophy and aesthetics provide the spot to look down on the muddy secular world. One writes to be read by others. But interwar Marxists did not imagine of any reader in working class. Therefore their works should be directed to colleague scholars in ivory tower. In Adorno¡¯s word, such a stance should be called as ¡®Negative Dialectics¡¯. Adorno said ¡®Negative dialectics is a phrase flouts tradition. As early as Plato, dialectics meant to achieve something positive by means of negation: the thought figure of a ¡®negation of negation¡¯¡¦Negative dialectics seeks to free dialectics from such affirmative traits.¡¯ It¡¯s negation for negation. There is nothing to be achieved (revolution). Dialectics, thus, cannot but float over reality towards unrealized, maybe unattainable, reality.