A good start to Marx

Before settling into a scathing indictment of the man and his work, in his book Intellectuals, historian Paul Johnson observes: "Karl Marx has had more impact on actual events, as well as on the minds of men and women, than any other intellectual in modern times." Although there is little in Marxism which holds a personal attraction for me, it is nonetheless true that some familiarity therewith is necessary for a man who lives in “modern times”. To this end, and based on the recommendations of those more congenial towards his system, I picked up Marx For Beginners by Rius.

Contrary to Johnson, Rius believes that the ideas of Karl Marx have been a tremendous boon for humanity. He attributes: "social security, pensions, paid holidays, unions, scholarships" to the influence of Comrade Marx. Notably absent from his list is the Stalinist show trial, but so too is Stalin himself from the "little dictionary of Marxist terms" which concludes the book. Keeping in mind the veracity of Johnson's statement quoted above, Rius overreaches when he claims that "all revolutions... have a Marxist origin." Forget the American and French Revolutions: someone awaken Thucydides and tell him to rewrite the revolution of Corcyra to include Marxist overtones!

A "short biography of the man" is given before Rius delves into some useful background. However alluring his philosophy, one problem, as Rius admits, is that "Marx is hard to digest!" Understanding Marx's intellectual background can aid the digestion process. In this case, it helps to know something of Hegel, who requires some knowledge of Kant, and so on and so forth. With this in mind, Rius spends about thirty pages touching upon the history of western philosophy.

This section of the book is marred by Rius's attempts to conflate everything he approves as preparing in some way for Marx, while deprecating all other influences on western thought. His tendency to assign the moniker of materialist or atheist to early Greek philosophers underscores his point about the intrinsic antipathy between religion and philosophy; but while this was largely true of the Greek world, and may appear to be true today, the early Christians did their noble best to unify philosophy and religion. Plato was saved while Poseiden was left to rot. Sometimes, as when he insists that St. Thomas Aquinas practiced "mental gymnastics", Rius is being honest in revealing this bias—though I would add that he would benefit from Thomas's defense of private property in Summa Theologica II-II, Q24 A1. But when he includes Dante—who was immensely influenced by Thomistic mental gymnastics—in his pantheon of Renaissance personalities, one can hardly help but chuckle at such historical illiteracy.

The rest of the book covers Marx's: philosophy, economic doctrine, and historical materialism. Rius makes good use of quotes from Marx, Engels, and a number of their followers—the majority of which comes from The Communist Manifesto, which is, disappointingly, the one bit of Marx I've actually read—and his interspersed rhetorical asides are quite charming. The three-pronged exposition works well, and gives a good grasp of Marx's thought. It draws me no nearer to belief in his system, but it makes a certain amount of sense why one who had lost his faith in God, yet realized that evil often triumphed in this world, would latch onto such a system. As Daniel Boorstin puts it in The Seekers: "So for his followers, Marx was able to avoid the emptiness of a valueless world ruled by impersonal forces by assuring them of the triumph of justice in the long run."

There are a variety of reasons one might study Marx. At the very least, one may better grasp the happenings of the twentieth century, from Lenin's Revolution in Russia to the adoption of quasi-socialist legislation in many parts of the west. But a spectre is again haunting Europe, and indeed the world. I think it a gross misrepresentation to conclude that unregulated capitalism is somehow to blame for the economic crisis; nonetheless, the perceived failure of capitalism has amplified the siren's song of Marx. Whatever the shortcomings of his thought, the man may very well influence the twenty-first century as profoundly as he did the twentieth. For that reason, and so that the application—or misapplication—of his ideas sheds less blood and brings more justice than it did at first attempt, we may profit from studying him. Rius provides an instructive and engaging beginning.