Review of New Dialectics and Political Economy

Citation

Butcher, J. (2007), "Review of New Dialectics and Political Economy", International Journal of Social Economics, Vol. 34 No. 12, pp. 977-978. https://doi.org/10.1108/03068290710830689

This collection of essays provides an interesting insight into the mindset of a school of academic Marxism that one might have expected to all but disappear in an era when the principal ideological divides have been re‐drawn between liberal‐democratic state traditions and fundamentalist‐theocratic positions.

Ostensibly essays by political scientists, there is not much “science” in evidence but plenty of polemic. These are, rather, essays in political philosophy as opposed to political science. They offer homage to Marxist dialectics and have the stated purpose of affirming a contemporary relevance for Marxist analysis.

Of course, the Marxist discourse still resonates in parts of the developing world where there is yet a profound alienation of labour from the means to production. Whether there is anything of relevance left in the Marxian world view for developed liberal democracies is an open question – one these essays do not satisfactorily resolve.

The arguments presented in these essays do not rely on any verifiable evidentiary basis. They are steeped in a declarative and normative Marxist tradition. It is surprising that a volume, ostensibly dedicated to the critical analysis of political economy manages to offer little original insight into either politics or economy.

Instead, we are offered 11 essays that are, in the main, dogmatic, ideological and self‐referential. The writing is ponderous, leans, on occasion, towards tautology, and would be largely inaccessible to anyone not well‐drilled in the quasi‐cultist argot of the confirmed Marxist. The authors posit “dialectics” as a methodology for the analysis of political and economic phenomena, rather than an intellectual construct supporting a particular philosophical/political discourse, thereby asking more of dialectics than it can deliver. As such, these essays offer greater insight into the mindset of Marxist scholars than they offer into the complexities of contemporary political economy.

None of this is intended to deride Marx's own contributions as an influential thinker. Some of Marx's insights are very likely relevant today in particular socio‐political contexts. In other hands this might be demonstrated, if presented by scholars capable of dispassionately applying Marxian analysis to contemporary phenomena (and, in the process, accepting the limitations of Marx's analytical framework rather than trying to shoe‐horn reality into the model).

Marx, it must be remembered was a typical nineteenth century man and, for all that he was a true social scientist, he was also, like many of his contemporaries, a utopian. In Marx, the boundaries between the analytical and the normative are fluid and blurred. Marx offered a cogent critique of nineteenth century capitalism and political economy, however, that economy and the social relations that pertained it no longer exist in much of the world. Representative democracy, the emergence of trade unions and the absorption of workers into a broad middle class were not part of the Marxian landscape and formed no part of his visionary prescriptions for human society.

This is a volume for “fellow travellers” only. It may provide reassurance to anxious contemporary Marxists of the continuing relevance of Marxian analysis, but offers little to political scientists or economists interested in explaining contemporary political economy. As a study of “Marxism” it succeeds partially (except that there is little in the way of critical reflection on its basic precepts), however it fails utterly to demonstrate the contemporary relevance of Marxian analysis.