Marx And Modern Political Theory

Philip J. Kain deftly demonstrates the historical antecedents to and continuing relevance of Karl Marx's thought. Kain reveals the unappreciated pluralism of Marx, how it has endured and how it will continue to adapt to the challenges of modern day thought such as feminist theory.

This anthology offers students a carefully edited selection of the most influential and enduring interpretations of key political theorists. There are sections on Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Burke, Bentham, Mill and Marx. Each section includes classic articles by leading critics, a substantial introduction by the editors, and a guide to further reading. A general introduction to the volume as a whole is also provided. This is an up-to-date and extensive guide to the key issues at stake in the interpretative debate, and it provides an invaluable text for students and teachers of modern political thought.

Marx’s Inferno reconstructs the major arguments of Karl Marx’s Capital and inaugurates a completely new reading of a seminal classic. Rather than simply a critique of classical political economy, William Roberts argues that Capital was primarily a careful engagement with the motives and aims of the workers’ movement. Understood in this light, Capital emerges as a profound work of political theory. Placing Marx against the background of nineteenth-century socialism, Roberts shows how Capital was ingeniously modeled on Dante’s Inferno, and how Marx, playing the role of Virgil for the proletariat, introduced partisans of workers’ emancipation to the secret depths of the modern “social Hell.” In this manner, Marx revised republican ideas of freedom in response to the rise of capitalism. Combining research on Marx’s interlocutors, textual scholarship, and forays into recent debates, Roberts traces the continuities linking Marx’s theory of capitalism to the tradition of republican political thought. He immerses the reader in socialist debates about the nature of commerce, the experience of labor, the power of bosses and managers, and the possibilities of political organization. Roberts rescues those debates from the past, and shows how they speak to ever-renewed concerns about political life in today’s world.

"Germino examines the scholars of this period whose works he feels have made significant new approaches to the critical understanding of our world and, consequently, to the problems of our time. He discusses utilitarianism, lieberalism, scientism, and messianic nationalism"--Back cover

Offers a powerful new interpretation of Engels’s contributions to modern social and political theory. In this comprehensive overview of Friedrich Engels’s writings, Paul Blackledge critically explores Engels’s contributions to modern social and political theory generally and Marxism specifically. Through a careful examination both of Engels’s role in the forging of Marxism in the 1840s, and his contributions to the further deepening and expansion of this worldview over the next half century, Blackledge offers a closely argued and balanced assessment of his thought. This book challenges the long-standing attempt among academic Marxologists to denigrate Engels as Marx’s greatest mistake, and concludes that Engels was a profound thinker whose ideas continue to resonate to this day. “This is an excellent intellectual and political biography, which provides a highly readable account of its subject and a vigorous defense of his ideas. It is likely to become a standard work on Engels’s ideas and politics.” — Sean Sayers, author of Marx and Alienation: Essays on Hegelian Themes “Paul Blackledge’s new book has no equal as a contemporary assessment of Engels’s political thought. It provides a strong refutation of the ‘divergence thesis,’ whereby Engels is said to have systematically diverged from Marx’s analysis. Appearing on the 200th anniversary of Engels’s birth, it should be widely read.” — John Bellamy Foster, author of Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature “Clear, balanced, and comprehensive, Blackledge’s book is the best introduction to Engels that I know. It does full justice to the many areas in which Engels displayed his prodigious talents.” — David McLellan, author of Karl Marx: A Biography “Paul Blackledge has brought us a remarkable political and intellectual portrait of Friedrich Engels. This book is a masterful tour, taking the reader through Engels’s contributions to philosophy, dialectics, political economy, revolution, reform, strategy and tactics, military theory and history, the origins of women’s oppression and the state, natural science, and more. All of the great controversies are here; you will find all of the rich traditions of classical Marxism compiled together, plus a few surprises even for the most seasoned reader.” — David Laibman, editor, Science & Society

The interpretive literature in the history of political thought is now vast, complex and esoteric, posing as much a barrier to the understanding of the undergraduate student as it offers assistance. This unique and innovative text provides the student with a guide through this maze of argument. Each chapter sets out the major positions and debates that surround the texts of key thinkers, analyzes major problems of interpreting them, examines the sources of disagreement, and evaluates the different interpretations in terms of their strengths, weaknesses and contributions to scholarship.

Originally published in 1957, this book collects together large sections of important tracts from a variety of political documents, particularly those concerned with democracy, communism, Protestantism or Catholicism. The extracts come from a wide range of authors including Bertrand Russell, Karl Marx, John Locke and Pope Pius XII. This book will be of value to anyone seeking an overview of the key political divisions in the late 20th century or who is interested in political theory generally.