Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

"So long as we persist in our tendency to hive off the study of economics from politics, philosophy and journalism, Marx, will remain the outstanding example of how to overcome the frangmentation of modern social thought and think about the world as a whole for the sake of its betterment."  — Mark Mazwoer, Columbia University,  reviewing Gareth Stedman Jones's book  Karl Marx, Greatness and Illusion , the Financial Times, 5 August 2016.

"I'm a Marxist — we are misunderstood on both the left and right"

I have just read a review of Gareth Stedman Jones' book Karl Marx: Greatness and Illusion.  Then I've found a good comment. Timothy Shenk quotes Gareth Stedman Jones as saying that ‘the left ought to give up the idea that there’s some other system waiting in the wings instead of capitalism’ and that ‘there’s going to be some end of history where there’s some magical transformative solution and a completely different system takes over’ ( LRB , 29 June ). I will shortly be 68 years old and have been a Marxist all my adult life, yet I have never heard anyone on the left express these ideas. Stedman Jones is using an old ploy: attribute to the target of your criticism a viewpoint that they don’t actually hold, then proceed to knock it down." — John Cunningham The review itself requires a subscription (institution or university one).

A very interesting book. And what has made it more interesting is this review in the Financial Times (a very revolutionary socialist website!) So long as we persist in our tendency to hive off the study of economics from politics, philosophy and journalism, Marx, will remain the outstanding example of how to overcome the frangmentation of modern social thought and think about the world as a whole for the sake of its betterment. — Mark Mazwoer, Columbia University, reviewing Gareth Stedman Jones's book Karl Marx, Greatness and Illusion , the Financial Times, August 5 2016 My comment: the fragmentation of social thought is not an accident; it is part and parcel of the substance of the dominant ideological thought which manifests itself, for example, in the academic sphere and how subjects of studies have been fragmented and delivered. That has a lot to do with the capitalist market and its relationship to reproduction of ideas and commodities.