A study investigating how the founders of Marxism came to terms with the emergence of liberal democracy as a political system. It examines, in language without jargon, how they defined democracy and how they evaluated the liberal constitutional state, by placing their ideas in historical context.

“An extraordinary work of political historical analysis that methodically and convincingly argues for the superiority of a Marxist approach for pursuing democracy. Rich in historical detail and thoroughly engrossing in portraying the real-time analyses of and intervention in crucial events by prominent Marxist and liberal theorists and political actors, Marxism versus Liberalism is a truly impressive achievement that will have an enduring appeal.” —John F. Sitton, Professor Emeritus, Political Science, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA Performing a comparative real-time political analysis, Marxism versus Liberalism presents convincing evidence to sustain two similarly audacious claims: firstly, that Karl Marx and Frederick Engels collectively had better democratic credentials than Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill; and secondly, that Vladimir Lenin had better democratic credentials than Max Weber and Woodrow Wilson. When the two sets of protagonists are compared and contrasted in how they read and responded to big political events in motion, this book contends that these Marxists proved to be better democrats than the history’s most prominent Liberals. Exploring the historical scenarios of The European Spring of 1848, the United States Civil War, the 1905 Russian Revolution, the 1917 Russian Revolution, and the end of World War I, Marxism versus Liberalism carefully tests each claim in order to challenge assumed political wisdom.

Revisiting Marx’s Critique of Liberalism offers a theoretical reconstruction of Karl Marx’s new materialist understanding of justice, legality, and rights through the vantage point of his widely invoked but generally misunderstood critique of liberalism. The book begins by reconstructing Marx’s conception of justice and rights through close textual interpretation and extrapolation. The central thesis of the book is, firstly, that Marx regards justice as an essential feature of any society, including the emancipated society of the future; and secondly, that standards of justice and right undergo transformation throughout history. The book then tracks the enduring legacy of Marx’s critique of liberal justice by examining how leading contemporary political theorists such as John Rawls, Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, and Nancy Fraser have responded to Marx’s critique of liberalism in the face of global financial capitalism and the hollowing out of democratically-enacted law. The Marx that emerges from this book is therefore a thoroughly modern thinker whose insights shed valuable light on some of the most pressing challenges confronting liberal democracies today.

An international set of eminent scholars examine the contemporary relevance and continuing contribution of Marx's work. This indispensable volume presents Marx's theories in a new light, both for specialists who might think they already know everything about Marx and for a new generation of readers who are approaching his work for the first time.

“If you are curious and open to the life around you, if you are troubled as to why, how and by whom political power is held and used, if you sense there must be good intellectual reasons for your unease, if your curiosity and openness drive you toward wishing to act with others, to ‘do something,’ you already have much in common with the writers of the three essays in this book.” — Adrienne Rich With a preface by Adrienne Rich, Manifesto presents the radical vision of four famous young rebels: Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto, Rosa Luxemburg’s Reform or Revolution and Che Guevara’s Socialism and Humanity.

A study investigating how the founders of Marxism came to terms with the emergence of liberal democracy as a political system. It examines, in language without jargon, how they defined democracy and how they evaluated the liberal constitutional state, by placing their ideas in historical context.