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Marx, Hayek, and Utopia (Suny Series in the Philosophy of the Social Sciences)

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Utopianism is a term which conjures up many thoughts. It is most often used to mean the designing of plans for society which are unrealizable according to their own standards of value. While this is certainly a sound general usage, a more specific set of illustrations are useful to show the *roots* of utopianism. The roots of utopianism, the qualities that constitute utopian thought throughout history (from Plato to Rawls), are the specific fallacies of thought that show in utopianism - reification, dualism, constructivism, etc.

Sciabarra gives a sound exposition of the original critiques of utopianism by Karl Marx and F.A. Hayek and thus proceeds to show how two unique and radical thinkers were able to legitimately separate their radicalism from utopianism.

Beyond the issue of radicalism vs. utopianism Sciabarra's book is also a useful auxilliary to a comparison of historical similarities between radical thought of Hayek, Marx, and the theorists influenced by them.

Sciabarra's main original thesis here is that Marx and Hayek are related by their (implicit or explicit) commitment to a doctrine of internal relations which is also called dialectic. Dialectical analysis rejects many of the traditional ontological dualisms of political science - holism (organicism) vs. atomism, criticism vs. action and commits itself to examining the dynamic relationships that define the thought and action; therefore the being of things. Relationships are not external to agents, dialectically speaking, but they are internal to and inseparable from what it means to be an agent - a socially constituted being with realms of choice, consent, resistance, and emancipation available. Thus we can begin to eliminate the aforementioned haunting dualisms.

This book is also useful beyond presenting an original thesis. It offers some very accessible explanations of Marx and Hayek's thought on economics, psychology, and humanity's capability to collectively construct its own future. The last chapter also offers a discussion of the radical psychology of Habermas and Wainwright and it's applicability to radical projects - of the left or right.

A compulsory book to read for any social theorist. Question of social planning and limits of epistimology are especially actual in today's world of globalization.