In this excellent study of Karl Marx's thought, Cyril Smith takes a long and winding route that starts with classical world thought. When he arrives at the door to Marx's pantheon we see that, with the significant yet largely overlooked example of Spinoza, most thinkers—and especially Western ones—are opposed to essential aspects of democracy. In Marx and the Future of the Human Cyril Smith explains that Karl Marx, more than any other thinker, is misrepresented by what has come to be understood as 'Marxism.' Marxism has developed into, among other things, a method for analyzing capitalism, a way of looking at history, and a way to theorize the role of the working class in a future society. Marx, however, speaks about a conception of human life that was absent during his lifetime and remains absent today. Marx sought 'the alteration of humans on a mass scale:' economics, politics, daily lived-life, and spiritual life. In discussing Marx and spirituality, Cyril Smith relates Marx to the thought of William Blake. Someone coming to Marx for the first time as well as the seasoned scholar can read this book. Marx and the Future of the Human is a book rife with thoughtful and creative connections written by someone who has spent most of his life close to the spirit of Karl Marx's thought.

It was in critical humanistic intent that Marx attempted the overturning of Hegel's dialectic in Historical Materialism: understanding future human humanity as the necessary overcoming («Aufhebung») of private productivity which fails to satisfy man's human need. This study, based on a spectrum of primary sources from the young to the mature Marx, presents the critical function and the praxis-inductive role the future had in Marx's thought. The promise that continues to live in this thought is thereby explicitated. It is however a promise premised on a persistent idealism in Marx's claimed materialism which compromises the depth of man's human need in a future whose realization is necessarily (only) future.

This book offers readers a rare chance to witness a mainstream thinker challenge an outlaw-activist. Avakian and Martin wrestle with big questions that have to do with the state of the world and the possibility for radical change. The scope and relevance of Marxism, and the nature and reach of communist revolution, are at the heart of this rich and lively dialogue. Avakian and Martin probe a wide range of issues: the place of ethics in a transformative revolutionary politics; Kant, Rousseau, and Hegel; Marx and the question of colonialism and Eurocentrism; the Maoist experience in China; sustainable agriculture and the task of overcoming the urban-rural divide; imperialism and lopsided development in the world, and the effects on social structure and revolution; animal rights; secularism and religion; the post-911 agenda of the U.S. ruling class, the political-social-cultural landscape of the U.S., and the prospects for resistance and revolution; Marxism and the question of homosexuality; the challenges confronting radical and communist intellectuals and the possibilities for engaged, creative intellectual work today.

This major biography fundamentally reshapes our understanding of a towering historical figure.

This new exploration of Marx as a Jewish thinker presents “a perceptive and fair-minded corrective to superficial treatments” of his life and work (Jonathan Rose, Wall Street Journal). A philosopher, historian, sociologist, economist, current affairs journalist, and editor, Karl Marx was one of the most influential and revolutionary thinkers of modern history. But he is rarely thought of as a Jewish thinker, and his Jewish background is either overlooked or misrepresented. Here, distinguished scholar Shlomo Avineri argues that Marx’s Jewish origins made a significant impression on his work. Marx was born in Trier, then part of Prussia, and his family had enjoyed full emancipation under earlier French control of the area. But then its annexation to Prussia deprived the Jewish population of its equal rights. These developments led to the reluctant conversion of Marx’s father, and similar tribulations radicalized many other Jewish intellectuals of that time. Avineri puts Marx’s Jewish background in its proper and balanced perspective, and traces Marx’s intellectual development in light of the historical, intellectual, and political contexts in which he lived.

This book responds to the need for a retrieval and renewal of the work of Karl Marx through close philosophical analysis of his publications, manuscripts, and letters -- especially those relevant to politics, morality, and the future. This philosophical study stands out because of its two principal features. First, it reviews and develops ideas about the future, though often only briefly discussed by Marx and his commentators, drawn from Marx's work. Second, it focuses on collective matters that are critical for Marx's ideas but rarely investigated and still problematic. Part One introduces Marx with a discussion of emancipation and freedom in community. It then discusses the importance of retrieval and the methodology for promoting it. Part Two is about misunderstandings of Marx's ideas about productive development, division of labour, and organisations. Part Three discusses nations, morality, and democracy, all of which Marx supported. Part Four takes up Marx's significant, but misunderstood, ideas about the future and his relation to the anarchists.