Karl Marx, Our Contemporary

This text argues that the work of Karl Marx is often confused by misleading association with figures such as Lenin. Here, Marx's philosophy is examined in its own right and reassessed for its relevance to contemporary conditions. Keith Graham starts by identifying Marx's basic ideas: his views of human life and society, the importance of class, the concept of capitalism and its interpretation of history, his theory of change and the problematic relationship between Marxism and materialism are all described and critically assessed. The author then reconstructs Marx's philosophical assumptions. Arriving at a quite different interpretation than is conventionally put forward, Graham argues that Marx's philosophy has greater contemporary relevance and that it is much more resistant to becoming out-dated. It is a philosophy at once more extreme and more moderate: more extreme in rejecting all forms of commodity or market society but more moderate in its choice of the political methods employed to transcend capitalism. This challenging reinterpretation of Marxism should be of value to students and teachers of philosophy, politics, sociology and related disciplines.