Terry Eagleton; "Why Marx Was Right."

Right before I begin, to all of those who read this I am not some crazy communist nut who is intending to overthrow the government and introduce; a fairer, a classless, stateless world.  As nice as that would be.  It is my own view that capitalism ultimately means that working class people are exploited for the benefit of the rich, as such working class labour is undervalued.  Whether communism is the means to evenly distribute wealth, and ever likely to result in anything but a dictatorship is a different debate, for a different blog.

Anyway, let's look at this book from a purely literary standpoint.  The book is entitled "Why Marx was Right," however right from the offset Eagleton tells us that his book was written to "refute Marxist criticisms one by one."  This book ultimately becomes "Why Marx wasn't wrong," this defensive outlook means that Eagleton often comes across as abrasive and neglectful of other viewpoints.  Paragraphs dedicated to the "necessity of an exploitative relationship in order to identify a non-exploitative one," appear to be not only cruel and Stalin-esque but arguably any form of worker exploitation is ultimately not Marxist.  At worst this book often lauds the importance of Marxism whilst telling us why it can never work, which is a shame for all of us who hold the hope that the world may one day be fairer.

On the other hand Eagleton is often interesting and when he looks at the development of Marxism from a historical perspective he is genuinely informative.  For example prior to reading this book I was not aware that globally the majority of the world’s urban population live in slums.  Or that two billion people live on less than $1 per day, or that 17m Mexicans have the combined wealth of one Mexican billionaire.  Facts such as these are interesting and the fluidity in which Eagleton espouses them makes this book an interesting reflection of the state of the world's morality, more so than it is a promotion of Marxism.

Was Marx right?  Eagleton is not quite clear; he himself acknowledges that Marx was not always perfect.  Personally I think that this book is a useful tool for those who want an insight into Marxism today, whether this book has persuaded me that Marxism is any more moral than capitalism is a different matter.  In general a good read but not for those who are after an irrevocable defence of Marxism.