(Book Review)There was a period in my political evolution when I went around calling myself a communist. By this label I had always meant a sort of libertarian socialist perspective (very similar to what I believe now) but naturally most people at Calvin assumed it meant I was a Stalinist, and it led to a lot of long discussions. (So much of political debate is just bickering over semantics, isn't it?).
Anyway, during this time I got a lot of flack from friend and foe alike for having never actually read "The Communist Manifesto".
If memory serves, "The Communist Manifesto" was assigned reading for History 102 (modern history), which was the core history course most people took. Because I - entered - Calvin - as - a -Classics -Major, I took History 101 (Ancient History) instead, and so after a while, I was, ironically, one of the few people in my circle of friends who hadn't read "The Communist Manifesto".
Because I was more interested in history than philosophy, I wasn't particularly interested in sitting down and reading "The Communist Manifesto" cover to cover, and I tried to come up with various excuses why I didn't need to read it. The important thing, I argued, was not dogma, but independent thought, no matter what label one affixed to one's self. Therefore it wasn't important for me to read what the so called leader of communism had written. (This may be partly true as far as it goes, although it should never be used as an excuse not to read something. But I dug in my heels on this, and refused to read it.)
Eventually, however, I gave in, and during the summer between Junior and Senior year (again, if memory serves) I checked "The Communist Manifesto" out of the library and actually read the whole thing.
After all the fuss I made about it, it was in the end pretty painless. It was very short, more of a pamphlet really than a book, and the prose was straight forward and easy to understand.
However Marx's true magnum opus, "Das Kapital", I've still kept my distance from. Since my brain is wired for history and not philosophy, when there's a book that even philosophy majors complain about having problems understanding, I tend to stay as far away as possible.
Enter Francis Wheen's "Biography" of "Das Kapital", a book I randomly stumbled across while browsing the bookstores when I was last in the states. It struck me that this book might function as a rather painless primer on "Das Kapital", so I picked it up.
This is part of Atlantic Monthly's series: "Books that Changed the World" in which several different authors write biographies of influential books.
I don't know about the other books in the series, but this book was very short (144 pages). I was able to read through the whole thing in just a few days.
Francis Wheen is also the author of a biography of Karl Marx, which I actually read 2 and a half years ago. Since his biography of Das Kapital is considerably smaller, I was a little worried I might just simply be getting re-worked material from his biography of Marx.
However, to be perfectly honest, I don't remember Francis Wheen's book well enough to make the comparison. The human brain is capable of forgetting an incredible amount in 2 and a half years, and, what's more, what little I remember of Francis Wheen's biography has become somewhat muddled in my mind with the other two -biographies of Marx I've read subsequently.
So I guess I'll have to leave the comparison to someone who has read both books back to back.
But it certainly felt like a lot of new information was in this book.
As with his biography of Marx, in his work on "Das Kapital" Wheen spends a lot of time making fun of Marx's personality quirks, but ultimately comes down on Marx's side on most of the issues.
Wheen blows up a lot of the mythology surrounding Marx on both sides by focusing on his all too human foibles (very much similar in tone to Mark Steel's lectures on Karl Marx--viewable on Youtube here). Far from being a dedicated evil genius or a revolutionary Jesus Christ, Marx had a terrible time writing this book. He procrastinated endlessly, constantly lied to his publisher and his friends and told them it was almost finished when it wasn't, and generally showed a remarkable inability to just buckle down and finish the thing.
As a result, only volume one out of an intended six volumes was completed during Marx's lifetime. Therefore, as Wheen emphasizes, despite the tendency of Marx's disciples to make dogma out of his work, no complete bible of Marx's theory exists.
Another one of Wheen's main points is that Marx intended "Das Kapital" to be a work of art rather than purely a work of economics. Instead of simply writing a straight forward economic text, Marx throws in so a great deal of humor, irony, literary and poetical allusions. I've got to say, based on Francis Wheen's description of it, "Das Kapital" doesn't sound half bad as reading material.
Lastly, as you would expect, Wheen spends a significant amount of time analyzing the ideas in "Das Kapital".
Wheen believes that although Marx may have failed as a prophet, he was extraordinary as an analyst. That is, although the communist revolutions may not have happened exactly as Marx had predicted, Marx was still able to give an excellent analysis of how capitalism functioned, and what it's inherent instabilities were.
Wheen goes on to assert that although Marx's theories have been unfairly maligned in the West, much of Marx's analysis has been subsequently vouched for by mainstream economists. In fact Wheen argues that Keynesian economics, with it's belief that capitalism unregulated and left to its own devices is inherently unstable, is very similar to Marx's own analysis.
Although this book was originally published back in November of 2007, one year ahead of the economic meltdown, recent events have made this subject much more relevant now than it was when it was first published. In fact, Time magazine, of all places, just recently published an article that raises the question: Was Marx's critique of capitalism right after all? (link here) And here in Japan, Marx's "Das Kapital" is enjoying renewed popularity as a Manga (article here)
Despite all my apprehensions, I've got to say Francis Wheen has made me very curious to check out the original "Das Kapital". Maybe I'll get around to it someday.
(Also, anyone interested should check out the NPR interview with Francis Wheen about this book.)
update: an edited version of this review is on Media Mouse here.
Link of the Day
Noam Chomsky: Is Capitalism Making Life Better?
and Is Grand Rapids Becoming Green
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