Karl Marx and the Anarchists Library Editions: Political Science Volume 60

by Paul Thomas

This study examines Marx’s disputes with, and attacks upon, those anarchist theoreticians he encountered at various stages of his career. Marx’s attacks on Stirner, Proudhon and Bakunin are shown to be of vital importance to his career as a theorist and revolutionist. The formative influences upon Marx’s writings and his political activity are discussed and analyzed. The author re-situates Marx’s thought in the context of the 19th century when Marxism was not an unchallenged orthodoxy but a doctrine and method that needed to be defended against rival revolutionary impulses.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

432 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1980

About the author

Librarian's note: There is more than one author on Goodreads with this name.

Professor Thomas graduated from the University of Manchester, U.K., with First Class Honours in Modern History with Economics and Politics, and was one of the first John F. Kennedy Scholars from the U.K. to attend Harvard University, which awarded him his Doctorate in 1973. A specialist in Marx, Marxism and Political Theory, Professor Thomas's books include Karl Marx and the Anarchists (Routledge, 1980, second edition 2010); Alien Politics: Marxist State Theory Retrieved, Routledge, 1994; Rational Choice Marxism (co-edited with Terrell Carver), Macmillan, 1994; Culture and the State (co-edited with David Lloyd), Routledge, 1997; and Marxism and Scientific Socialism. From Engels to Althusser (Routledge, 2008 ; Chinese language edition, Jiangsu People's Publishing House, 2010). Professor Thomas's articles on Marx and Marxism include contributions to The Cambridge Companion to Marx and The Socialist Register, and he has published broadly on Rousseau, other political theorists, film and cultural studies. As one of the first Berkeley faculty members to teach a course that would satisfy the Breadth Requirement in American Cultures, Professor Thomas was a past Chair of the Berkeley Academic Senate-instituted American Cultures Committee. He also served as Secretary-Treasurer of the Research Committee on Political Philosophy (International Political Science Association). Since 2010 Professor Thomas has been a Contributing Editor of Film Quarterly, an ecumenical University of California Press journal. He is currently completing a short book on Karl Marx that is to be published in 2012 as part of Reaktion Books's Critical Lives Series, and distributed by the University of Chicago Press.

Reviews

[R. Reddebrek · Rating 2 out of 5]

This could've been a classic, if only Paul Thomas had written another book instead. It was a complicated read, there were parts that I felt were very interesting and valuable, and other parts were useless accusations and assumptions Thomas pulled from nowhere.

The book is often in conflict with itself, the chronology Thomas chooses to document often is incompatible with the conclusions Thomas draws from them. And at times it will spoil pages worth of goodwill to throw a strange -and completely unrelated to the section- form of abuse.

The book is extremely tilted to one side, both in word length and in treatment, the title itself is misleading, it isn't about Karl Marx and the Anarchists, its about Karl Marx and three individuals Thomas and later history has grouped together as a continuity.

Strangely this framing is one of the books main weaknesses, Thomas is possibly the most knowledgeable "Marxologist" I've ever come across he doesn't just quote the man he'll often explain the roots and context, often with an investigation into the original language used and the Hegelian lineage the ideas usually spawned from. And it is the most willing to take him to task of the Marx biographies I've read.

Unfortunately most of those criticisms are purely related to his personal failings as a human being. His ideas are largely untouched, just quoted, restated and re-explained. The only exceptions are if the criticisms of others appear off the mark, or if the issue can be explained by linking it to an older Hegelian idea that Marx will go onto supersede later.

Meanwhile the three Anarchists are examined and criticised heavily, but usually through the statements of Marx with Thomas providing much weaker and often pretty disingenuous supplements.

Other non Marx sources on this period and the ideas of the anarchists are almost exclusively extremely hostile to them. There are a handful of quotes and citations to more Anarchist friendly sources, but in many cases these seem selected purely to add ammunition to the hostile accusations.

Ultimately I'm left wondering who this book was actually for. Given the outline it may be tempting to conclude it was made to give strength to sectarian Marxists, but Thomas also spends quite a lot of the pages attacking and ridiculing the "vulgar Marxists" of many different tendencies and traditions.

And the Karl Marx he does describe seems more a reformist and political agitator, patiently waiting for the time to ripen.

[Neal Maro · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book uses Marx's refutations of various anarchists to draw out a distinction Marx makes between the state and civil society. A distinction that anarchists, largely through a sense of monolithic simplicity when characterising the state, don't bother to make. The importance of this distinction is that it becomes the basis for attempting to construct an idea of what life may look like in a communist society. The state is the political realm and civil society is the social and economic realm.

What this distinction emphasises, rather than negative freedom propounded by anarchists and liberals alike (freedom from things beyond the invidivual i.e the state should leave civil society alone) is collective self autonomy that fosters the possibility of humans recognising themselves through their actions:

"The goal of a Marxist politics is the Hegelian goal that man recognise himself in and through his own creations, this being (as Hegel had recognised) the only possible basis for intersubjectivity and thereby for community . . . the solution to alien politics cannot be no politics, but only politics of a different kind; it cannot be further depoliticisation, but only repoliticisation of the required type."

This more expansive view of political life must be sharply defined against politics as they exist under capitalism. Politics under capitalism being the class expression of the dominant class that uses the state to serve the interests of capital. Interests that result in widespread ecological destruction and extreme wealth inequality.

What Marx recognised was that to overcome the alienating character of civil society, an integration of the political, economic, and social realms of life must take place. This would result in positive freedom (at least in a Spinozist sense) whereby the individual would have the power to be in control of the direction of their life beyond the machinations of alien economic forces. Politics will not be abolished, it will be sublated by a new politics and by new humans.

[Ericka · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just started -- so far, ok, a bit name-droppy.