Books in Brief: The Structure of Marx’s Worldview

The Structure of Marx’s Worldview, by John McMurty (Princeton, 269 pp., $15).

If reading Marx is dull as death, reading Marxian exegetes becomes, almost by necessity, the best cure for insomnia since Ny-tol. Still, McMurty’s laddered clarification of Marx’s views on human nature, technology, economic structure—drawing on early and obscure works to adumbrate topics where Marx said little, and that poorly—is not without its rewards. (Of sex, Marx “says very little, and furthermore talks only in terms of species-reproductive acts.”) Moreover, the chapter on human nature reinforces that dreary maxim of German Communism: If Marxism and human nature are incompatible, then human nature must change. In discussing Marx and the state, the author lucidly reconciles Marx’s view of the governmental superstructure as the repressive mechanism of the ruling class with the need for the passage of social legislation. Best of all is the concluding sentence to the chapter on technology: “Technology is, in a word, the Marxian Providence.”

GD

About the Author

Gerald T. Dunne

Featured Tags

The Structure of Marx’s Worldview, by John McMurty (Princeton, 269 pp., $15).

If reading Marx is dull as death, reading Marxian exegetes becomes, almost by necessity, the best cure for insomnia since Ny-tol. Still, McMurty’s laddered clarification of Marx’s views on human nature, technology, economic structure—drawing on early and obscure works to adumbrate topics where Marx said little, and that poorly—is not without its rewards. (Of sex, Marx “says very little, and furthermore talks only in terms of species-reproductive acts.”) Moreover, the chapter on human nature reinforces that dreary maxim of German Communism: If Marxism and human nature are incompatible, then human nature must change. In discussing Marx and the state, the author lucidly reconciles Marx’s view of the governmental superstructure as the repressive mechanism of the ruling class with the need for the passage of social legislation. Best of all is the concluding sentence to the chapter on technology: “Technology is, in a word, the Marxian Providence.”