36 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Terrific summary, January 5, 2007
This review is from: The Meaning of Marxism (Paperback)
This is a wonderful summary of Marx and Marxist thought.
With great regularity, Marxism is dismissed as (a) passe, (b) false, (c) ridiculous, (d) evil, and much else. Invariably, the people who do this dismissing either have no idea what Marxism is, and/or have a gilt-edged interest in maintaining the (oppressive) status quo.
D'Amato does a wonderful job of putting Marxist thinking into contemporary terms--and of translating difficult jargon into accessible explanations.
He is also great at explaining the economic mechanisms that Marx saw and described.
We are now entering one of the late phases of capitalism--intense concentration and monopolization, along with imperialist conquest or squeezing of resource-rich and cheap-labor-rich areas. This brings back into focus all of Marx's dire warnings and predictions.
Naturally, opponents of Marxist ideas have been vehement to denounce or deride; but once again, the dynamics of capitalism have proved him right and them wrong. (Remember Fukuyama's "End of History"????? Now it's on the scrap-heap of that very history.)
A clear, detailed, and inspiring book.
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27 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent survey of Marx's thought, December 13, 2006
This review is from: The Meaning of Marxism (Paperback)
Paul d'Amato has done a great service to Marxists and radicals everywhere by giving a concise, thorough, and up to date exposition of the thought of Marx and Engels, and their followers to the present day. The book makes short work of Marxist political economy, which is a rare accomplishment in and of itself, and also provides an engaging case for why Marx's thought is still relevant today. In the Marxist spirit, it does not stop at explaining a theory in mid-air; it never fails to make the ideas practical and concrete. The Meaning of Marxism is essential for anyone who wants to understand this never-more-relevant philosophy, and then use it to change the world.
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31 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Best introduction to Marxism available, October 25, 2006
This review is from: The Meaning of Marxism (Paperback)
Since Marx and Engels first developed their ideas about capitalism, class struggle, and workers' revolution, those ideas have been systematically slandered, distorted, and perverted. After reading D'amato's book, it is easy to see why. Marxist ideas and analysis of capitalism and its built-in flaws and contradictions are dangerous for the capitalist order because they actually explain the roots of war, the massive inequalities between workers and the poor and CEOs, the birth (or rather, creation) of racism, why women are oppressed, environmental destruction, why people starve in a world of food surpluses, and the booms and slumps of the economic cycle.
More importantly, Marxism explains how we can get out of the mess that capitalism has put us in: international working class revolution led by revolutionary workers' parties modeled on the Russian Bolsheviks and the early Communist International. D'amato does not simply assert that this is the answer, he explains why and how it is possible in a convincing and accessible way.
D'amato takes up common objections to socialism: "it's against human nature," "abolishing capitalist competition would mean crappy products and conformity" etc. He lays out why Marx argued that the working class would inevitably come into conflict with capitalism and why it and it alone has the potential to overthrow the system and create an egalitarian, classless, stateless society, provided a revolutionary party with strong roots and influence in the working class at a time of revolution exists and makes the right moves. He also explains how the Russian revolution of 1917, the first time the working class overthrew capitalism, degenerated and turned into state capitalism, where party bureaucrats set up Gulags to extract huge amounts of surplus value from workers in order to build up heavy industry to compete militarily with western capitalism. The last chapters focus on why socialism can happen in the U.S. and what a future socialist society would be like.
This is the only short, well-rounded introduction to Marxism out there. Activists fighting racism, sexism, Islamophobia, environmental destruction, the Iraq/Afghan wars, the attacks on free speech and civil liberties, and corporate greed will find it indispensible as a source of analysis and strategy. This is especially true in the U.S. where a principled and militant left is sorely needed and has to be rebuilt almost from scratch.
You can't fight the system if you don't understand it, and you can't win unless you understand the contradictions and weaknesses that make it vulnerable. If you believe that another world is possible and you want to win it, read this book.
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