The Illusion of the Epoch Routledge Library Editions: Political Science Volume 47

British thinkers have considered Marxism primarily as a body of economic and social doctrine. They have concentrated attention on the class struggle and the alleged decline of capitalism but Marxism is also in a wide sense of the word, a system of thought and conduct comprising views about the principle purposes of human life. This book discusses this philosophy - the metaphysics, ethics and intellectual tradition inaugurated by Marx and Engels and continued by Lenin and Stalin. It first discusses Dialectical materialism and secondly the social theories and ethics known as Scientific Socialism.