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The Meaning of Marxism
“In [D’Amato’s] able hands, Marxist politics come alive and leap before us, pointing a way toward a better world. It’s a knockout.”—Dave Zirin, author of What’s My Name, Fool?: Sports and Resistance in the United States
In this lively and accessible introduction to the ideas of Karl Marx, with historical and contemporary examples, D’Amato argues that Marx’s ideas of globalization, oppression, and social change are more important than ever.
Paul D’Amato is the associate editor of the International Socialist Review. His writing has appeared in CounterPunch, Socialist Worker, and SelvesandOthers.org. He is an activist based in Chicago.
In this lively and accessible introduction to the ideas of Karl Marx, with historical and contemporary examples, D’Amato argues that Marx’s ideas of globalization, oppression, and social change are more important than ever.
Paul D’Amato is the associate editor of the International Socialist Review. His writing has appeared in CounterPunch, Socialist Worker, and SelvesandOthers.org. He is an activist based in Chicago.
256 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2006
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February 2, 2013
This is probably about as concise and clear you can get about a theory and history that is so long and dense. It is really a very good introduction to Marxism and inspires the reader to start delving into a more thorough examination of it. It is a surprising witness to the common sense of Marxist theory and socialism in practice, and pretty resoundingly refutes most arguments against it. Some may have an issue with the perspective of the writer as he is a well known member of the International Socialist Organization, and arguments about interpretation seem common between different socialist factions. I truly think that his interpretations are clear, well founded, and can be affirmed with research and thoughtful examination. While he occasionally drifts into vague language, this is a part of all political writing and he generally clarifies himself in a paragraph or two; these rare confusions prompt the reader to ask more questions and come to their own conclusions about socialism. I highly recommend it to anyone curious about Marxist theory, from those who have taken it as their political compass to those who on the far right who cry socialism at the drop of a hat. You will be pleasantly surprised, and far more capable of having an honest, accurate discussion on the topic.
August 17, 2025
#Binge Reviewing my previous Reads, #Overrated Books To Roast:
Paul D’Amato’s The Meaning of Marxism wants to be a revolutionary spark, but instead it’s a re-heated 2-minute Maggi Noodles of Marxist leftovers served with the enthusiasm of a pamphleteer at a street corner rally.
It promises perseverance, clearness, and a call to action.
What it delivers is a pep talk for 19th-century factory workers who no longer exist, scattered with narratives meant to prove that history hasn’t passed Marxism by.
D’Amato’s central pitch is that Marxism is alive, vibrant, and more necessary than ever. But his “proof” is basically: “Look around, capitalism still sucks!” True enough—wages are stagnant, inequality is obscene, billionaires are playing space cowboy. But identifying capitalism’s problems is like pointing out that the Titanic hit an iceberg.
The real question is what you propose to do about it—and here D’Amato’s solutions are little more than warmed-over revolutionary clichés.
The book leans heavily on accessibility, but often at the cost of nuance. You get slogans instead of arguments and rally chants instead of strategy. It’s Marxism stripped down to a guidebook list:10 Reasons Capitalism Is Bad and the Workers Will Rise. This simplicity is supposed to make Marxism “come alive.” Instead, it makes it sound like a religion where every social ill is answered with the same mantra: “Just wait, the working class will save us.”
And here lies the fatal problem: the “working class” that D’Amato romanticizes is vanishing—or mutating into forms Marx never imagined. The book bangs on about the power of industrial labor while Amazon automates warehouses, Uber drivers get replaced by algorithms, and AI writes code faster than entire teams of developers.
If Marx’s proletariat was supposed to seize the means of production, D’Amato never explains how a DoorDash driver is supposed to seize an algorithm. His answer to automation? Pretend it’s just “mechanization 2.0.” It’s like bringing a hammer to a quantum computer fight.
Even when he admits that globalization has reconfigured labor, D’Amato falls back on the same tired faith: the global proletariat will unite.
Unite where? On Zoom?
In a Discord server?
Against which boss—Musk, Ambani, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Bill Gates or the algorithm quietly deciding whether they’re “efficient” enough to get their next shift?
D’Amato talks about global solidarity as if we’re still in the age of coal miners, not cloud computing.
The real irony is that Marxism does have analytical teeth for our age—alienation, exploitation, commodification of human life—but D’Amato never updates the playbook.
Instead of tackling AI surveillance, data extraction, or algorithmic governance, he’s busy dragging readers back to the picket lines of 1917.
You can practically hear Lenin sighing in frustration.
Worst of all, the book never faces up to history. Every Marxist “experiment” of the 20th century ended in collapse, authoritarianism, or disillusion. D’Amato acknowledges none of this with seriousness.
It’s all waved away as if those regimes were just “doing Marxism wrong,” a convenient dodge that lets him recycle the same promises without reckoning with decades of evidence.
So what we get is a book that’s rhetorically punchy but practically useless. Yes, Marxism gives us powerful critiques of capitalism. But critique without updated strategy is just performance art—angry poetry recited to the choir.
D’Amato’s book doesn’t prepare readers for 21st-century struggles against AI monopolies, data colonialism, or algorithmic exploitation. It prepares them for a revolution that’s already been canceled for lack of attendance.
In the end, this tome is more like The Nostalgia of Marxism. It’s a pep talk for a class that has been fragmented, outsourced, and automated into precarity. It’s a call to arms with no clear battlefield. And it’s a theory of change that hasn’t noticed the world has changed.
If Marx was right that history repeats itself—first as tragedy, then as farce—D’Amato’s book is firmly in the farce category.
Give this book a slip. I have already wasted my time.
Paul D’Amato’s The Meaning of Marxism wants to be a revolutionary spark, but instead it’s a re-heated 2-minute Maggi Noodles of Marxist leftovers served with the enthusiasm of a pamphleteer at a street corner rally.
It promises perseverance, clearness, and a call to action.
What it delivers is a pep talk for 19th-century factory workers who no longer exist, scattered with narratives meant to prove that history hasn’t passed Marxism by.
D’Amato’s central pitch is that Marxism is alive, vibrant, and more necessary than ever. But his “proof” is basically: “Look around, capitalism still sucks!” True enough—wages are stagnant, inequality is obscene, billionaires are playing space cowboy. But identifying capitalism’s problems is like pointing out that the Titanic hit an iceberg.
The real question is what you propose to do about it—and here D’Amato’s solutions are little more than warmed-over revolutionary clichés.
The book leans heavily on accessibility, but often at the cost of nuance. You get slogans instead of arguments and rally chants instead of strategy. It’s Marxism stripped down to a guidebook list:10 Reasons Capitalism Is Bad and the Workers Will Rise. This simplicity is supposed to make Marxism “come alive.” Instead, it makes it sound like a religion where every social ill is answered with the same mantra: “Just wait, the working class will save us.”
And here lies the fatal problem: the “working class” that D’Amato romanticizes is vanishing—or mutating into forms Marx never imagined. The book bangs on about the power of industrial labor while Amazon automates warehouses, Uber drivers get replaced by algorithms, and AI writes code faster than entire teams of developers.
If Marx’s proletariat was supposed to seize the means of production, D’Amato never explains how a DoorDash driver is supposed to seize an algorithm. His answer to automation? Pretend it’s just “mechanization 2.0.” It’s like bringing a hammer to a quantum computer fight.
Even when he admits that globalization has reconfigured labor, D’Amato falls back on the same tired faith: the global proletariat will unite.
Unite where? On Zoom?
In a Discord server?
Against which boss—Musk, Ambani, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Bill Gates or the algorithm quietly deciding whether they’re “efficient” enough to get their next shift?
D’Amato talks about global solidarity as if we’re still in the age of coal miners, not cloud computing.
The real irony is that Marxism does have analytical teeth for our age—alienation, exploitation, commodification of human life—but D’Amato never updates the playbook.
Instead of tackling AI surveillance, data extraction, or algorithmic governance, he’s busy dragging readers back to the picket lines of 1917.
You can practically hear Lenin sighing in frustration.
Worst of all, the book never faces up to history. Every Marxist “experiment” of the 20th century ended in collapse, authoritarianism, or disillusion. D’Amato acknowledges none of this with seriousness.
It’s all waved away as if those regimes were just “doing Marxism wrong,” a convenient dodge that lets him recycle the same promises without reckoning with decades of evidence.
So what we get is a book that’s rhetorically punchy but practically useless. Yes, Marxism gives us powerful critiques of capitalism. But critique without updated strategy is just performance art—angry poetry recited to the choir.
D’Amato’s book doesn’t prepare readers for 21st-century struggles against AI monopolies, data colonialism, or algorithmic exploitation. It prepares them for a revolution that’s already been canceled for lack of attendance.
In the end, this tome is more like The Nostalgia of Marxism. It’s a pep talk for a class that has been fragmented, outsourced, and automated into precarity. It’s a call to arms with no clear battlefield. And it’s a theory of change that hasn’t noticed the world has changed.
If Marx was right that history repeats itself—first as tragedy, then as farce—D’Amato’s book is firmly in the farce category.
Give this book a slip. I have already wasted my time.
June 4, 2019
I finally finished this book - it took me a month or two. It is very dense and hard to read quickly, because there's a lot of information and it's very intellectual. That being said, it is absolutely well-written and an important book. The author sought to connect the writings of Karl Marx to our modern world in an updated fashion, and he definitely delivered. I already had some knowledge of this topic from reading "the Case for Socialism," which I suggest reading first because it is more of an emotional, quick introduction that goes for the heart, while this book definitely relies on the head.
The chapter on dialectics was the hardest to get through, for me. It was heavy material and I was very tired. However, the second half of the book went by much more quickly because it was more about applying all of it to our modern world.
His passages on Racism and Sexism were outstanding, and his chapter on the Environment was perhaps the most blunt, clear passage I've ever read about our current environmental situation. Capitalism is truly the root of our problems at the moment and we will not survive it - he makes this abundantly clear. Yet, we have the ability to solve that problem; we just need to get past this outdated economic mode which is only serving a handful of people. This was my favorite chapter of the book and if you pick it up, please read that chapter, if nothing else.
The section on "answers to common arguments against socialism" was also great and I highly suggest that part if you are interested in socialism but are faced with lots of criticisms of it.
I highly recommend this book, especially if you are convinced that capitalism is our only choice.
The chapter on dialectics was the hardest to get through, for me. It was heavy material and I was very tired. However, the second half of the book went by much more quickly because it was more about applying all of it to our modern world.
His passages on Racism and Sexism were outstanding, and his chapter on the Environment was perhaps the most blunt, clear passage I've ever read about our current environmental situation. Capitalism is truly the root of our problems at the moment and we will not survive it - he makes this abundantly clear. Yet, we have the ability to solve that problem; we just need to get past this outdated economic mode which is only serving a handful of people. This was my favorite chapter of the book and if you pick it up, please read that chapter, if nothing else.
The section on "answers to common arguments against socialism" was also great and I highly suggest that part if you are interested in socialism but are faced with lots of criticisms of it.
I highly recommend this book, especially if you are convinced that capitalism is our only choice.
July 7, 2007
An okay introduction to Marxist thought... But I feel that d'Amato presented a lot of simplistic ideas (whether or not connected structurally to Marxist theory), left out a lot of important things (alienation under wage-slavery and commodity fetishism), and consciously betrayed a lot of Marxist claims by trying to make them more palatable to his American audience (ie, that the American Civil War was fought to end slavery). His discussion on the 'socialist' answer to degradation of the environment was highly uninspiring, to say the least, and I feel that he was entirely disingenuous when he argued that Marxists would respect other nations' 'right to self-determination'--and just who is the nation? The state? Patriarchal social relationships? etc. Disappointingly, and seemingly like many leftists writers, d'Amato here seems to romanticize pre- or non-capitalist social relationships (most significantly, in the claim that pre-capital sexual relations were not commodified and thus, perhaps, more desirable). I think most of his ideas here are vulnerable to Marxist theory more generally, which, in my view, unjustifiably blames all social ills on 'capitalism.' And, d'Amato spends a good amount of time defending socialism as a theory that seeks not to lead the working class through hierarchy and narrow-minded puritanism toward revolution but tries to have the working class liberate itself... This is just untrue, in my view; he seems to be claiming the ideas of anarchism by espousing socialism. It isn't entirely a surprise, then--though certainly an unfair one--that he ends his book with a quote by a Spanish anarchist resisting Franco's counter-revolution together with opposition from liberals and Marxists.
June 18, 2020
Of course you could, and I did, disagree with some of D’Amato’s assertions. The left is nothing without constant, unending internal debate—this is good thing, mind you, and necessary. But for whatever one could say about the limitations of the scope of the book—it limits itself, with purpose—as an introduction to Marxism in a contemporary context (2006 is modern enough for me), it does its job. It is easy to read, the scope is still large, and it is careful to be welcoming and thought provoking. It avoids getting stuck in the mud or alienating a curious reader. This is important to books of the “intro” genre. I dug it. I’ll hand it over to someone I know who asks many questions, and hopefully this will provide some answers and spur them onto deeper reading and more focused conversations. Good book. Nice book. Pet the book with the fur, not against it.
June 24, 2019
This book - written in 2006 - tries to present a clear version of what Marxism is, referencing many sources such as Karl Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, and so forth. It is easy to read, and could be considered an excellent volume that explains both Marx's economic theories and why he felt the proletariat (working class) had to lead a possible revolutionary movement, to overthrow the economic system of capitalism. Although Marx thought a society had go through the capitalist phase and in fact generate a lot of wealth, before socialism could be embarked upon.
The author brands the versions of socialism that were imposed in Russia and China following their revolutions, not actual socialism. He goes into detail as to why Russia's system was distorted - and also says that there were many national liberation movements since the Russian Revolution that wrapped themselves in Marxist terminology but did not result in the transformation of society as outlined by Marx. He slams repeatedly the authoritarian, repressive system of Stalinism - which he says set back the whole idea of socialism for decades, giving it a bad name and associating it with an evil, repressive, dictatorial system.
The bottom line is that there has been no revolution that successfully implemented Marxism - so he can still praise or tout Marxism as an ideal that has never been achieved. It remains the vision of social and economic justice that is as elusive as the blessed hereafter.
You can "believe" in it and work toward it, but, because of the stubbornness of the ruling class everywhere, it is unlikely to ever come about as Marx predicted. Since he didn't figure the ruling class would never give up on trying to crush revolutions etc anywhere they may occur. Although he had seen the bloody aftermath of the Paris Commune - that should have given him a clue that the Establishment would not accept a worker's state lying down.
There was a revolution in the name of Marxism in Russia, but it degenerated into a dictatorship with no meaningful working class input. In fact it ended up very similar to the system it had replaced, with workers perhaps even more exploited or pushed than before, no real union representation - it was a worker's state in name only.
So I think this book, although it presents Marx's ideas, which were progressive of course, maybe lacks a critique in light of the subsequent developments. Some tried to put his ideas into practice in the early 20th C - less than a century after Marx and Engels presented their analysis and recommendations for alleviating the social problems brought about by rampant capitalism. Each attempt was besieged, attacked one way or another, by the world wide system of capitalism - which resulted in distortions, and inevitably a police state. Everything Marx railed against, was probably worse under so-called communism than the rotten systems it replaced.
It may be that Mr. D'Amato was trying to rehabilitate the concepts of socialism - and it's possible that growing income inequality in our era of globalization and neo-liberalism will make the concepts attractive again. Unfortunately, previously, they tended to be used as "cover" for dictatorships - state capitalism is not the same thing as what Marx had in mind. Certainly, a terror state is not what Marx proposed. The complete eradication of the capitalist system including the ending of rent and interest, has not proven to be the blueprint for changing society - millions have thought so but millions were surprised when it didn't work out as planned. Marx didn't think socialism was possible in one country - so the success of his recommendations depended on simultaneous worldwide socialist revolution. That has never happened - and it seems like a one-size fits-all "panacea." It may be possible to adopt the benefits of socialism within the context of a capitalist state - achieve it's goals without going through a revolution. However, the author points out that it is the revolutionary struggle that forges the new man/consciousness.
Anyway, here are the quotes:
From the Introduction - The Relevance of Marxism
"...the twenty-first century [world] -- of economic and social instability... ... in which the much -touted benefits of free trade and "globalization" dramatically enriched a very few but left tens of millions in ever-worsening conditions."
"The statistics for the United States reveal a society that is certainly rich--but only for a minority."
"The unplanned character of capitalist production, with its incessant drive for profit, has created an environmental crisis that threatens the earth's inhabitants like a runway train threatens its passengers."
From Chapter 1 - From Millenarianism to Marx
"Like other socialists, Marx and Engels saw the tremendous increase in wealth that sprouted up during the rise of industrial capitalism that promised, but did not deliver, a world free of want."
"Historians and poets may write history, but it is great masses of people in motion--in particular social classes - that make history."
From Chapter 2 - Marx's Materialist Method
"The last thesis that Marx jotted down in 1845 was this: "The philosophers have merely interpreted the world; the point, however, is to change it.""
"All societies that are divided into a minority class of exploiters and a majority class of exploited require for their functioning a set of ideas that reinforce class domination."
"[Marx and Engels:] The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships."
"Working class people are not blank slates, but carry with them a variety of different, often contradictory ideas, some of which reflect the ruling ideas, and some which challenge them. For example, the same person who supports unions as a way to better conditions on the job may also hold racist ideas. Another may oppose racism, but accept sexist ideas about women. They may not be conscious that these ideas--some of which reinforce solidarity and liberation, others that reinforce division and oppression--are contradictory."
"The ancient Greek idealist philosopher Plato...argued that the world and the things in it were determined by universal, logical categories."
"...according to Plato, the universal ideal category was "real," whereas the material manifestation was merely a shadow, or weak copy of the universal. Plato separated the mind from matter, and argued that the former ruled over the latter."
"Capitalism breeds greed, not vice versa."
"Hegel himself ended up as a defender of the conservative Prussian state, but at the heart of his philosophy nevertheless was a radical concept: as Engels noted, the idea that "all that exists deserves to perish.""
From Chapter 3 - The Marxist View of History
"Each ruling class would at first act to lead society forward, then, as their rule progressed, would act to prevent any changes to the system from which they benefited."
"...once humanity has created a means of production that can provide for the needs of humanity, the necessity of a division of society into classes is abolished, an the basis of a society based upon the conscious mastery of production and distribution becomes possible for the first time. A society democratically and consciously planned by the associated producers, on the basis of the application of the most sophisticated scientific knowledge, has long been within our grasp."
"For most of our existence a a species, humans lived...without any class division."
"People decided how long to work, and all things beyond personal possessions were communally owned and shared in what some have called "primitive communism.""
"The status of women in communal societies was far higher than in class societies that followed."
"Starting about ten thousand years ago, some societies, as a result of the depletion of their food sources, moved to domesticating plants and animals instead of foraging for plants and hunting animals."
"Human progress -- the advance of our ability to produce an expanding surplus over and above our basic needs--was impossible without the rise of class society. But the rise of class society has meant that every advance in human productive power has been made at the expense of the majority of humanity."
"[Engels:] ...the new society, during all the 2,500 years of its existence, has never been anything but the development of the small minority at the expenses of the exploited and oppressed great majority."
"The state, in other words, is at its core a political institution that concentrates in its hands the coercive power of society and removes as much as possible the means of coercion from the majority exploited class."
"[Engels:] As the state arose from the need to keep class antagonisms in check, but also arose in the thick of the fight between the classes, it is normally the state of the most powerful, economically ruling class, which by its means becomes also the politically ruling class, and so acquires new means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed class. The ancient state was, above all, the state of the slave-owners for holding down the slaves, just as the feudal state was the organ of the nobility for holding down the peasant serfs and bondsmen, and the modern Representative state is the instrument for exploiting wage-labor by capital."
"A condition for capitalism to develop fully...was the separation--by force, fraud, and legal sanction-- of the direct producers from land and tools on one side, and the concentration of all the land and instruments of production in the hands of a few rich capitalists on the other."
"The new class of wage workers was created by forcible theft of the common lands that the peasants had depended on for their livelihood. English landed gentry and big farmers, for example, taking advantage of the high price of wool, simply "enclosed" common lands, claiming them for their own, and turned them into sheep pastures. Soldiers were sent to drive tenants and small landholders by force from land they had tilled for centuries. Laws were then enacted in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that punished unlicensed begging and vagrancy with whipping, imprisonment, and, for a third offense, death. "Thus were agricultural folk forcibly expropriated from the soil," wrote Marx, "driven from their homes, turned into vagabonds, and then whipped, branded and tortured by grotesquely terroristic laws into accepting the necessary discipline for the system of wage labor.""
"Marx and Engels' condensed description of the rise of the bourgeoisie and of a world market in the "Communist Manifesto" emphasizes capitalism's dynamism, explaining how exploration, the discovery of the New World, and the spread of colonies gave a tremendous boost to commerce and industry."
"[Marx:] If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, [capital] ... will freely encourage both."
From Chapter 4 - Marxist Economics: How Capitalism Works, and How It Doesn't
"In a community where all goods are produced and shared in common, everyone contributes their work as they can, and everyone takes out what they need from the common storehouses. Such a society does not need money, because there is no exchange of commodities taking place."
"...only with the rise of capitalism did commodity production--production for the market--become the dominant form of production."
"...the historical evolution of capitalism not only involves a division of labor in which isolated individuals produce for the market, but also the separation of the means of production--the tools, machinery, and the physical plant necessary for production--from the mass of workers."
""The cause of profit," [nineteenth-century economist John Stuart Mill]... acknowledges, "is that labor produces more than is required for its support.""
"It is not abstinence on the part of the bosses, but on the part of the workers, that explains profit."
"Over the history of capitalism, productivity has soared astronomically compared to the sluggish pace of technological change in previous societies."
"What...began as more or less "free" competition, over time, has led toward the growth of trusts, cartels, and monopolies, where a small number of huge corporations control an entire market."
"Capitalism is the first economic system that is truly a world system that draws all corners of the planet into its "cash nexus." Capitalism creates tremendous wealth unheard of in previous times, but it does so in such a way as to deny the wealth it crates to the majority it exploits."
"Urban planner and historian Lewis Mumford, though no Marxist, could see how the vast gulf between the promise of technological progress and its capitalist application was a glaring contradiction at the heart of the system: "Those machines whose output was so great that all men might be clothed; those new methods of agriculture and new agricultural implements which promised crops so big that all men might be fed--the very instruments that were to give the whole community the basis of a good life, turned out, for the vast majority of people who possessed neither capital nor land, to be nothing short of instruments of torture.""
"Unemployment is an inbuilt feature of capitalism, one which capitalists depend on to discipline workers who have jobs."
"Supply and demand under capitalism have nothing to do with human need."
"The [1997] Asian crisis then spread globally, to Russia, Latin America, and the United States According to Joel Geier, "World trade declined for the first time since the Second World War," and in the United States, three million manufacturing jobs were wiped out."
"First, unemployment brought on by the crisis allows the employers to drastically lower wages without fear of retaliation. Second, the machinery and physical plant of bankrupt businesses is either destroyed or devalued."
"In the decades following the Second World War...high levels of U.S. government spending on the arms race siphoned off money that otherwise would have led to accelerated growth, and by moderating the rate of economic expansion, prolonged the postwar boom. But this "permanent arms economy" could only forestall crisis, not prevent its eventual reemergence."
From Chapter 5 - No Power Greater -- the Working Class
"The key weapon of collective action for workers is the strike. Workers may be dependent on the capitalist for a job, but the capitalist is dependent on workers for profit."
"All previous revolutions merely replace done kid of exploitation with another, one ruling class with another."
"[The Paris Commune] ...had abolished conscription and the standing army; it decreed the separation of church and state; it began to devise plans to reopen factories under the control of the workers in them; and it abolished night work for bakers. But these achievements were minimal compared to the most important achievement of the Commune. It was, argued Marx, "essentially a working class government, the product of the struggle of the producing and the appropriating class, the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economical emancipation of labor.""
"Its first lesson was that because the state exists as a repressive apparatus to maintain the power of the capitalists (a machine for the suppression of one class by another), it cannot simply be "seized" by workers, but must be dismantled and replaced by direct workers' democracy based on recallable delegates elected by workers themselves."
"[Unions] ... are the first line of defense for workers against attempts by capitalists to continually push down wages and conditions to their lowest possible level."
"A workers' council is even more democratic and representative than a strike committee based upon union delegates, sine it brings together delegates elected from different workplaces."
""In our eyes," wrote Trotsky, "individual terror is inadmissible precisely because it belittles the role of the masses in their own consciousness, reconciles them to their powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes towards a great avenger and liberator who some day will come and accomplish his mission.""
"It is no accident that [George Orwell's] "1984" is part of practically every high school curriculum. It reinforces what is a widespread prejudice in the United States: that workers are too divided, too distracted by "bread and circuses," and too mentally limited to change the world."
"In order to change society, workers must become conscious of their position as the oppressed class and organize themselves as a class to fight for their own interests. "
"Workers who strike quickly learn that the police and courts are set up against them and for the employers--and also that the press defends employers and tries to present workers' interests in a bad light."
"It is the fight against suffering and exploitation, rather than sufferer itself, that transforms consciousnesses. In isolation or defeat, workers are more easily prone to turn their suffering and bitterness on each other, or on scapegoats. But the experience of struggle teaches solidarity to workers, calling into question divisions of race, sex, and nationality that are deliberately fostered between them by the ruling class. They learn that whenever the employers or the state can pit them against each other they are weak; and when they unite, they are strong."
The author brands the versions of socialism that were imposed in Russia and China following their revolutions, not actual socialism. He goes into detail as to why Russia's system was distorted - and also says that there were many national liberation movements since the Russian Revolution that wrapped themselves in Marxist terminology but did not result in the transformation of society as outlined by Marx. He slams repeatedly the authoritarian, repressive system of Stalinism - which he says set back the whole idea of socialism for decades, giving it a bad name and associating it with an evil, repressive, dictatorial system.
The bottom line is that there has been no revolution that successfully implemented Marxism - so he can still praise or tout Marxism as an ideal that has never been achieved. It remains the vision of social and economic justice that is as elusive as the blessed hereafter.
You can "believe" in it and work toward it, but, because of the stubbornness of the ruling class everywhere, it is unlikely to ever come about as Marx predicted. Since he didn't figure the ruling class would never give up on trying to crush revolutions etc anywhere they may occur. Although he had seen the bloody aftermath of the Paris Commune - that should have given him a clue that the Establishment would not accept a worker's state lying down.
There was a revolution in the name of Marxism in Russia, but it degenerated into a dictatorship with no meaningful working class input. In fact it ended up very similar to the system it had replaced, with workers perhaps even more exploited or pushed than before, no real union representation - it was a worker's state in name only.
So I think this book, although it presents Marx's ideas, which were progressive of course, maybe lacks a critique in light of the subsequent developments. Some tried to put his ideas into practice in the early 20th C - less than a century after Marx and Engels presented their analysis and recommendations for alleviating the social problems brought about by rampant capitalism. Each attempt was besieged, attacked one way or another, by the world wide system of capitalism - which resulted in distortions, and inevitably a police state. Everything Marx railed against, was probably worse under so-called communism than the rotten systems it replaced.
It may be that Mr. D'Amato was trying to rehabilitate the concepts of socialism - and it's possible that growing income inequality in our era of globalization and neo-liberalism will make the concepts attractive again. Unfortunately, previously, they tended to be used as "cover" for dictatorships - state capitalism is not the same thing as what Marx had in mind. Certainly, a terror state is not what Marx proposed. The complete eradication of the capitalist system including the ending of rent and interest, has not proven to be the blueprint for changing society - millions have thought so but millions were surprised when it didn't work out as planned. Marx didn't think socialism was possible in one country - so the success of his recommendations depended on simultaneous worldwide socialist revolution. That has never happened - and it seems like a one-size fits-all "panacea." It may be possible to adopt the benefits of socialism within the context of a capitalist state - achieve it's goals without going through a revolution. However, the author points out that it is the revolutionary struggle that forges the new man/consciousness.
Anyway, here are the quotes:
From the Introduction - The Relevance of Marxism
"...the twenty-first century [world] -- of economic and social instability... ... in which the much -touted benefits of free trade and "globalization" dramatically enriched a very few but left tens of millions in ever-worsening conditions."
"The statistics for the United States reveal a society that is certainly rich--but only for a minority."
"The unplanned character of capitalist production, with its incessant drive for profit, has created an environmental crisis that threatens the earth's inhabitants like a runway train threatens its passengers."
From Chapter 1 - From Millenarianism to Marx
"Like other socialists, Marx and Engels saw the tremendous increase in wealth that sprouted up during the rise of industrial capitalism that promised, but did not deliver, a world free of want."
"Historians and poets may write history, but it is great masses of people in motion--in particular social classes - that make history."
From Chapter 2 - Marx's Materialist Method
"The last thesis that Marx jotted down in 1845 was this: "The philosophers have merely interpreted the world; the point, however, is to change it.""
"All societies that are divided into a minority class of exploiters and a majority class of exploited require for their functioning a set of ideas that reinforce class domination."
"[Marx and Engels:] The ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material relationships."
"Working class people are not blank slates, but carry with them a variety of different, often contradictory ideas, some of which reflect the ruling ideas, and some which challenge them. For example, the same person who supports unions as a way to better conditions on the job may also hold racist ideas. Another may oppose racism, but accept sexist ideas about women. They may not be conscious that these ideas--some of which reinforce solidarity and liberation, others that reinforce division and oppression--are contradictory."
"The ancient Greek idealist philosopher Plato...argued that the world and the things in it were determined by universal, logical categories."
"...according to Plato, the universal ideal category was "real," whereas the material manifestation was merely a shadow, or weak copy of the universal. Plato separated the mind from matter, and argued that the former ruled over the latter."
"Capitalism breeds greed, not vice versa."
"Hegel himself ended up as a defender of the conservative Prussian state, but at the heart of his philosophy nevertheless was a radical concept: as Engels noted, the idea that "all that exists deserves to perish.""
From Chapter 3 - The Marxist View of History
"Each ruling class would at first act to lead society forward, then, as their rule progressed, would act to prevent any changes to the system from which they benefited."
"...once humanity has created a means of production that can provide for the needs of humanity, the necessity of a division of society into classes is abolished, an the basis of a society based upon the conscious mastery of production and distribution becomes possible for the first time. A society democratically and consciously planned by the associated producers, on the basis of the application of the most sophisticated scientific knowledge, has long been within our grasp."
"For most of our existence a a species, humans lived...without any class division."
"People decided how long to work, and all things beyond personal possessions were communally owned and shared in what some have called "primitive communism.""
"The status of women in communal societies was far higher than in class societies that followed."
"Starting about ten thousand years ago, some societies, as a result of the depletion of their food sources, moved to domesticating plants and animals instead of foraging for plants and hunting animals."
"Human progress -- the advance of our ability to produce an expanding surplus over and above our basic needs--was impossible without the rise of class society. But the rise of class society has meant that every advance in human productive power has been made at the expense of the majority of humanity."
"[Engels:] ...the new society, during all the 2,500 years of its existence, has never been anything but the development of the small minority at the expenses of the exploited and oppressed great majority."
"The state, in other words, is at its core a political institution that concentrates in its hands the coercive power of society and removes as much as possible the means of coercion from the majority exploited class."
"[Engels:] As the state arose from the need to keep class antagonisms in check, but also arose in the thick of the fight between the classes, it is normally the state of the most powerful, economically ruling class, which by its means becomes also the politically ruling class, and so acquires new means of holding down and exploiting the oppressed class. The ancient state was, above all, the state of the slave-owners for holding down the slaves, just as the feudal state was the organ of the nobility for holding down the peasant serfs and bondsmen, and the modern Representative state is the instrument for exploiting wage-labor by capital."
"A condition for capitalism to develop fully...was the separation--by force, fraud, and legal sanction-- of the direct producers from land and tools on one side, and the concentration of all the land and instruments of production in the hands of a few rich capitalists on the other."
"The new class of wage workers was created by forcible theft of the common lands that the peasants had depended on for their livelihood. English landed gentry and big farmers, for example, taking advantage of the high price of wool, simply "enclosed" common lands, claiming them for their own, and turned them into sheep pastures. Soldiers were sent to drive tenants and small landholders by force from land they had tilled for centuries. Laws were then enacted in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that punished unlicensed begging and vagrancy with whipping, imprisonment, and, for a third offense, death. "Thus were agricultural folk forcibly expropriated from the soil," wrote Marx, "driven from their homes, turned into vagabonds, and then whipped, branded and tortured by grotesquely terroristic laws into accepting the necessary discipline for the system of wage labor.""
"Marx and Engels' condensed description of the rise of the bourgeoisie and of a world market in the "Communist Manifesto" emphasizes capitalism's dynamism, explaining how exploration, the discovery of the New World, and the spread of colonies gave a tremendous boost to commerce and industry."
"[Marx:] If turbulence and strife will bring a profit, [capital] ... will freely encourage both."
From Chapter 4 - Marxist Economics: How Capitalism Works, and How It Doesn't
"In a community where all goods are produced and shared in common, everyone contributes their work as they can, and everyone takes out what they need from the common storehouses. Such a society does not need money, because there is no exchange of commodities taking place."
"...only with the rise of capitalism did commodity production--production for the market--become the dominant form of production."
"...the historical evolution of capitalism not only involves a division of labor in which isolated individuals produce for the market, but also the separation of the means of production--the tools, machinery, and the physical plant necessary for production--from the mass of workers."
""The cause of profit," [nineteenth-century economist John Stuart Mill]... acknowledges, "is that labor produces more than is required for its support.""
"It is not abstinence on the part of the bosses, but on the part of the workers, that explains profit."
"Over the history of capitalism, productivity has soared astronomically compared to the sluggish pace of technological change in previous societies."
"What...began as more or less "free" competition, over time, has led toward the growth of trusts, cartels, and monopolies, where a small number of huge corporations control an entire market."
"Capitalism is the first economic system that is truly a world system that draws all corners of the planet into its "cash nexus." Capitalism creates tremendous wealth unheard of in previous times, but it does so in such a way as to deny the wealth it crates to the majority it exploits."
"Urban planner and historian Lewis Mumford, though no Marxist, could see how the vast gulf between the promise of technological progress and its capitalist application was a glaring contradiction at the heart of the system: "Those machines whose output was so great that all men might be clothed; those new methods of agriculture and new agricultural implements which promised crops so big that all men might be fed--the very instruments that were to give the whole community the basis of a good life, turned out, for the vast majority of people who possessed neither capital nor land, to be nothing short of instruments of torture.""
"Unemployment is an inbuilt feature of capitalism, one which capitalists depend on to discipline workers who have jobs."
"Supply and demand under capitalism have nothing to do with human need."
"The [1997] Asian crisis then spread globally, to Russia, Latin America, and the United States According to Joel Geier, "World trade declined for the first time since the Second World War," and in the United States, three million manufacturing jobs were wiped out."
"First, unemployment brought on by the crisis allows the employers to drastically lower wages without fear of retaliation. Second, the machinery and physical plant of bankrupt businesses is either destroyed or devalued."
"In the decades following the Second World War...high levels of U.S. government spending on the arms race siphoned off money that otherwise would have led to accelerated growth, and by moderating the rate of economic expansion, prolonged the postwar boom. But this "permanent arms economy" could only forestall crisis, not prevent its eventual reemergence."
From Chapter 5 - No Power Greater -- the Working Class
"The key weapon of collective action for workers is the strike. Workers may be dependent on the capitalist for a job, but the capitalist is dependent on workers for profit."
"All previous revolutions merely replace done kid of exploitation with another, one ruling class with another."
"[The Paris Commune] ...had abolished conscription and the standing army; it decreed the separation of church and state; it began to devise plans to reopen factories under the control of the workers in them; and it abolished night work for bakers. But these achievements were minimal compared to the most important achievement of the Commune. It was, argued Marx, "essentially a working class government, the product of the struggle of the producing and the appropriating class, the political form at last discovered under which to work out the economical emancipation of labor.""
"Its first lesson was that because the state exists as a repressive apparatus to maintain the power of the capitalists (a machine for the suppression of one class by another), it cannot simply be "seized" by workers, but must be dismantled and replaced by direct workers' democracy based on recallable delegates elected by workers themselves."
"[Unions] ... are the first line of defense for workers against attempts by capitalists to continually push down wages and conditions to their lowest possible level."
"A workers' council is even more democratic and representative than a strike committee based upon union delegates, sine it brings together delegates elected from different workplaces."
""In our eyes," wrote Trotsky, "individual terror is inadmissible precisely because it belittles the role of the masses in their own consciousness, reconciles them to their powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes towards a great avenger and liberator who some day will come and accomplish his mission.""
"It is no accident that [George Orwell's] "1984" is part of practically every high school curriculum. It reinforces what is a widespread prejudice in the United States: that workers are too divided, too distracted by "bread and circuses," and too mentally limited to change the world."
"In order to change society, workers must become conscious of their position as the oppressed class and organize themselves as a class to fight for their own interests. "
"Workers who strike quickly learn that the police and courts are set up against them and for the employers--and also that the press defends employers and tries to present workers' interests in a bad light."
"It is the fight against suffering and exploitation, rather than sufferer itself, that transforms consciousnesses. In isolation or defeat, workers are more easily prone to turn their suffering and bitterness on each other, or on scapegoats. But the experience of struggle teaches solidarity to workers, calling into question divisions of race, sex, and nationality that are deliberately fostered between them by the ruling class. They learn that whenever the employers or the state can pit them against each other they are weak; and when they unite, they are strong."
December 31, 2020
Every now and then I find myself questioning my beliefs, ideals, and philosophies, as any halfway decent analytical person should. Am I really what I proclaim to be to the world? Do I truly feel that way in the core of my being? And then I read a book like this, and I can answer most definitely and affirmatively, yes. Yes, I am. I am a diehard Marxist. If you are a Marxist, as well, or if you are curious about Marxism and what it means for you or how it fits in to today's world, I would definitely recommend this book.
A must read!
A must read!
January 4, 2018
This is not a terrible book. But it is a limited one. As a basic introduction to a lot of the basic concepts in Marxism it has some merit. D'Amato sweeps across the range of Marxism from the economy to exploitation to the state to the revolutionary party, covering each at a basic introductory level. What then is the problem?
Partly it is that D'Amato's treatment is quite dogmatic. He discusses Marxism as a fairly monolithic source of truth without acknowledging debate or variation other than to condemn Stalin and Mao as dictatorial and not true Marxists. But Marxism is not a monolithic entity, certainly not anymore. It's use in the modern world must surely be as an analytical toolkit to prompt debate and the exploration of alternatives to the neoliberal capitalism. This requires the sort of argument that doesn't form any part of this book. On top of this, D'Amato's own (undeclared) viewpoint is sectarian Trotskyist, a fairly specific clique within modern socialism.
It doesn't feel like D'Amato engages with modern uses of Marx's analysis at all. He doesn't mention such thinkers as David Harvey or Wolfgang Streeck, both of whom make intelligent use of Marxist thinking to break down modern society and economy. Jodi Dean is mentioned only to attack her as not adhering to the true nature of socialism. Yet these writers (and I'm sure others that D'Amato doesn't mention) are all critically engaged with Marx and Marxist thought.
In fact this book feels like a simple restatement of a revealed truth. D'Amato quotes Marx and Trotsky extensively, and often follows this up with an assertion that whatever point is being made remains relevant to the modern world, without attempting to actually apply the analysis to the changed world. And it is important to remember that the capitalist world has changed since Marx was alive and we cannot simply treat his work as truth. It is telling that D'Amato quotes the Communist Manifesto extensively, written before Marx began his economic work and while it has value doesn't reflect the depth of his later work.
It does not feel like D'Amato is trying to reconstruct a modern left progressive movement that can take on the world of capitalism. He is simply reasserting the world view of Trotsky in the 1930's and D'Amato's belief that it remains relevant to today.
Finally the bibliography is limited and strongly slanted towards Trotsky and with very few recommendations of modern writers. While it does reference Capital, it doesn't really provide a guide to getting further into Marx's analysis (for example D'Amato doesn't reference key works by Harvey, Michael Heinrich, or Ben Fine that can help ease the difficulty of getting to grips with Marx's economics).
In short this is a limited book. It does have value, it is written in clear language and covers a wide range of subjects. It is by no means a definitive introduction to the basics of Marxism.
Partly it is that D'Amato's treatment is quite dogmatic. He discusses Marxism as a fairly monolithic source of truth without acknowledging debate or variation other than to condemn Stalin and Mao as dictatorial and not true Marxists. But Marxism is not a monolithic entity, certainly not anymore. It's use in the modern world must surely be as an analytical toolkit to prompt debate and the exploration of alternatives to the neoliberal capitalism. This requires the sort of argument that doesn't form any part of this book. On top of this, D'Amato's own (undeclared) viewpoint is sectarian Trotskyist, a fairly specific clique within modern socialism.
It doesn't feel like D'Amato engages with modern uses of Marx's analysis at all. He doesn't mention such thinkers as David Harvey or Wolfgang Streeck, both of whom make intelligent use of Marxist thinking to break down modern society and economy. Jodi Dean is mentioned only to attack her as not adhering to the true nature of socialism. Yet these writers (and I'm sure others that D'Amato doesn't mention) are all critically engaged with Marx and Marxist thought.
In fact this book feels like a simple restatement of a revealed truth. D'Amato quotes Marx and Trotsky extensively, and often follows this up with an assertion that whatever point is being made remains relevant to the modern world, without attempting to actually apply the analysis to the changed world. And it is important to remember that the capitalist world has changed since Marx was alive and we cannot simply treat his work as truth. It is telling that D'Amato quotes the Communist Manifesto extensively, written before Marx began his economic work and while it has value doesn't reflect the depth of his later work.
It does not feel like D'Amato is trying to reconstruct a modern left progressive movement that can take on the world of capitalism. He is simply reasserting the world view of Trotsky in the 1930's and D'Amato's belief that it remains relevant to today.
Finally the bibliography is limited and strongly slanted towards Trotsky and with very few recommendations of modern writers. While it does reference Capital, it doesn't really provide a guide to getting further into Marx's analysis (for example D'Amato doesn't reference key works by Harvey, Michael Heinrich, or Ben Fine that can help ease the difficulty of getting to grips with Marx's economics).
In short this is a limited book. It does have value, it is written in clear language and covers a wide range of subjects. It is by no means a definitive introduction to the basics of Marxism.
April 3, 2020
it was nice to get back to reading a book like this and it seemed to come at the right time. i read a couple chapter of "meaning of marxism" throughout various classes at Berk and I was only ever given slices but I wanted the whole pie, so I did! The rhythm of D'Amato's language, while explanatory, is never dense and really picks and pulls from Marx to make the material not only digestible but essential. while the book is sort of "explainer"-esq, it is also argumentative and that's one of its strengths (and maybe weaknesses). socialism is inevitable and d'amato pulls from sources far and wide, high and low to prove his point. most of the quotes are from Marx or Engels (who I get the sense is more prolific then we give him credit for), as well as Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg, but he also pulls material from everyday workers, postings, socialist leaders who were purposefully erased from history, anti-imperialist movement, democratic pundits, leading environmental thinkers, conservatives, and current Marxists. in many ways, he builds a movement of these thinkers; all fighting in different ways against the same structure. the voices d'amato incorporated are screaming at you, for you, buildings type of community around you. sometimes, when I think about the future of this struggle, it's not only hard to imagine but seems lonely. it seems like, if you want to go and fight and make a change, you have to take a risk and stand on the tree branch alone. fighting does take bravery. but "the meaning of marxism" places voices around you so you know you're fighting, not for some faraway future, but for you and me and each voice that is silenced.
d'amato is also especially good at describing the basics of marxist thought, which can sometimes be hard to wrap your mind around, especially if you're coming in cold. how labor is bought and sold and stolen and surplused, how certain aspects of society are commodified, how dispossession and alienation of land and the commons occurred, what use-value is and how it compares to exchange value (plus evaluation of those concepts), etc are all succinctly taught in this book. especially in those early chapters, you look around and just see how embedded exploitation is in every part of our lived society and how use to it we've gotten. you kind of want to fall over and never leave the house.
but you have to and you have to be brave and stand in solidarity and fight. I'm still not exactly sure how, D'amato never really gives a direct outline. at first (aka at the beginning of this review) that was frustrating. it's easy to tell people to imagine a better world but sometimes I just wanna fuckin see and know what a better world looks like. maybe that's counterintuitive. maybe we don't know what that better world looks like because we'll only find out in struggle. we'll only find out when we're marching or fighting or singing or laughing or growing and we feel other heartbeats around us, and we fight for those heartbeats as well, because those heartbeats are the better world. don't get me wrong -- d'amato belives a better world is infrastructurally possible. warehouses, 3 hour workdays, gardens close to us, collectivized housing, public transit, green energy, are all physically possible. but marxism, more than any theory I've ever encountered, is, of course, about the struggle. maybe that better world won't happen. maybe we'll just keep buying and advertising and selling and accumulating until 1 man owns everything and the earth is grayed and our lungs are clogged. but we still struggle because we believe in each other.
we're that little boy with the broom at the end of the last Jedi, looking up at the stars. we're exploited in ways you feel and see everyday. bite back.
d'amato is also especially good at describing the basics of marxist thought, which can sometimes be hard to wrap your mind around, especially if you're coming in cold. how labor is bought and sold and stolen and surplused, how certain aspects of society are commodified, how dispossession and alienation of land and the commons occurred, what use-value is and how it compares to exchange value (plus evaluation of those concepts), etc are all succinctly taught in this book. especially in those early chapters, you look around and just see how embedded exploitation is in every part of our lived society and how use to it we've gotten. you kind of want to fall over and never leave the house.
but you have to and you have to be brave and stand in solidarity and fight. I'm still not exactly sure how, D'amato never really gives a direct outline. at first (aka at the beginning of this review) that was frustrating. it's easy to tell people to imagine a better world but sometimes I just wanna fuckin see and know what a better world looks like. maybe that's counterintuitive. maybe we don't know what that better world looks like because we'll only find out in struggle. we'll only find out when we're marching or fighting or singing or laughing or growing and we feel other heartbeats around us, and we fight for those heartbeats as well, because those heartbeats are the better world. don't get me wrong -- d'amato belives a better world is infrastructurally possible. warehouses, 3 hour workdays, gardens close to us, collectivized housing, public transit, green energy, are all physically possible. but marxism, more than any theory I've ever encountered, is, of course, about the struggle. maybe that better world won't happen. maybe we'll just keep buying and advertising and selling and accumulating until 1 man owns everything and the earth is grayed and our lungs are clogged. but we still struggle because we believe in each other.
we're that little boy with the broom at the end of the last Jedi, looking up at the stars. we're exploited in ways you feel and see everyday. bite back.
November 18, 2017
This was a pretty great intro to some basic Marxist ideas - what unpaid labor really means, how sexism and racism stem from capitalism, etc. It’s slightly dry, but not much worse than other books about this kind of thing. It’s somewhat dated too, I think it came out like 10 years ago. Would be interesting to have an updated one in today’s world. The more I read about US imperialism, the more appalled I am and the more mind boggling it is that this isn’t a mainstream talking point.
May 30, 2021
Left out a lot of core Marxist economics and harshly criticized the apparent outcomes of Mao and Stalin without offering a materialist basis that he could analyze and substantiate his claims
January 12, 2025
"The unplanned character of capitalist production, with its incessant drive for profit, has created an environmental crisis that threatens the earth's inhabitants like a runaway train threatens its passengers. Indeed, many of the trends described by Marx and Engels- the creation of an increasingly interdependent world market; the system's tendency toward periodic economic crises; increasing productivity and wealth on one side and poverty on the other; the concentration and centralization of capital and the growth of monopolies- give their writings an almost prophetic air." (from Introduction)
This is a great introduction into the study of Marxism and its philosophical underpinnings, it's view of history and revolution, its economic analysis, and the prospects of workers owning the means of production. The author early in the book distinguishes Marx and Engel's scientific socialism to the utopian style of thinking that was prevalent at the time. Marx's theory centered the working class (the proletariat) in the struggle toward establishing socialism while the utopian socialists had a more indifferent view of them, subscribing instead to the idea that through reason alone they could convince the right amount of the right people to transcend the current mode of production. Marx provided a scientific understanding of how socialism can come to be, looking in depth at the history of revolution and the current formulations of the economy that continued the long struggle of one class against another. These class conflicts take different forms during different historical epoch, the slave vs. the master, then the serf vs. the lord, now the worker (proletariat) vs. the owner (bourgeoise). Class conflict may seem hidden in today's mode of production (capitalism) due to the fact that the owner and the worker meet in the marketplace to sign their contract, with the worker free to deny work from the owner, but there is a hidden domination at play. The worker must sell their labor power (ability to do work) to the owner in order to survive, but the owner more than likely can maintain without that particular worker seeking employment. Class conflict for Marx was the basis in which transformations in the particular modes of production came to be. This view, the view that each mode of production has within it contradictions that eventually limit its capacity to accommodate a certain class in society, is known as dialectical materialism.
Each mode of production (slavery, feudalism, capitalism) also erects from it a superstructure in the legal and political domains that legitimizes the rule of one class over another. This helps keep the system alive but ultimately will fail in it's mission in legitimizing the current mode of production when the mode of production itself fails to be a progressive economic force. Class is talked about in the book as having developed due to agricultural surplus in which one group was able to exert control over such surplus. To quote from the book, "In any case, class emerged on the basis that production had developed so far that the labor-power of a man could now produce more than was necessary for its mere maintenance." From the siphoning of society into one class or another, the state was born. Marx and Engels also viewed the state as a means not to mediate conflict without taking sides, but to subordinate the dominated class and further legitimize the system of appropriation from that same class.
The labor theory of value is a tenet of Marxism that views value is made entirely from the labor process and that in an economy of equal exchange, labor is the only way to increase value of commodities. In other words, it is only in the realm of production, not circulation, of commodities that surplus value can be produced. Marx explained that a commodities value is dependent upon the amount of labor that is needed to produce it. This labor takes the form of dead labor (the raw materials and means of production already made and ready to be used) and living labor (the workers who utilize the machinery and raw materials to produce a new commodity). Living labor is the means in which the final product becomes more valuable than before because it is the only commodity that can produce more value than before. The product is then sold in a market with the socially necessary labor time (the average time it is made to produce the product) being the basis for the value of the commodity itself. Supply and demand are ways in which prices deviate from the value that is imbued into a product through labor, but supply and demand are surface level and cannot explain the imbued value of the product itself. Prices are kept in check due to competition, but the incentive toward innovation in an industry means products of lesser value due to a reduced injection of living labor into the labor process enter the market, driving down price as the capitalist is able to sell at lower prices compared to competitors and giving them a temporary monopoly of sales. Another way to keep their commodity's price low is to increase productivity and/or lower wages, something that has greatly proliferated in the neoliberal era and is another reason for class conflict. It is not only that the owners of capital steal surplus value from the worker, but they are incentivized to increase this stealing to the greatest degree they can.
The author also discusses the ways in which Marx wrote about the process of capitalist accumulation amounting to the concentration and centralization of capital into fewer and fewer hands. This is caused by overproduction of commodities that cannot find a buyer, therefore surplus value cannot be realized in the form of profit. Overproduction only becomes overproduction when the glut of commodities on the market is past what can be profitably sold on the market. This occurs because the need to accumulate more capital and the anarchic (not planned) system of production leads to capitalists producing more than the current market can handle. On a mass scale this becomes a recession or even depression, causing many companies to go bankrupt and for their assets to be appropriated by other existing companies. Normalcy is only achieved when profit rates return to normal, and people are willing to invest their money. This normalcy can only then occur through the beating down of the working class amounting to increased extraction of surplus value. The onset of the neoliberal era is an example of this event playing out and now productivity and wages have diverged tremendously.
In the making of a better world, socialism offers workers an alternative to the privatized, class-ridden mode of production. Socialism, in the form of worker councils, offer a way in which production can be centered toward the needs and wants of all members of society in a democratic manner. There is much more in this book that deals with reform vs. revolution, a vanguard's role in the revolution, the Russian Revolution, imperialism, and climate change that offer good insight as to the Marxist view of these questions, events, and processes.
Highly recommend this book!
This is a great introduction into the study of Marxism and its philosophical underpinnings, it's view of history and revolution, its economic analysis, and the prospects of workers owning the means of production. The author early in the book distinguishes Marx and Engel's scientific socialism to the utopian style of thinking that was prevalent at the time. Marx's theory centered the working class (the proletariat) in the struggle toward establishing socialism while the utopian socialists had a more indifferent view of them, subscribing instead to the idea that through reason alone they could convince the right amount of the right people to transcend the current mode of production. Marx provided a scientific understanding of how socialism can come to be, looking in depth at the history of revolution and the current formulations of the economy that continued the long struggle of one class against another. These class conflicts take different forms during different historical epoch, the slave vs. the master, then the serf vs. the lord, now the worker (proletariat) vs. the owner (bourgeoise). Class conflict may seem hidden in today's mode of production (capitalism) due to the fact that the owner and the worker meet in the marketplace to sign their contract, with the worker free to deny work from the owner, but there is a hidden domination at play. The worker must sell their labor power (ability to do work) to the owner in order to survive, but the owner more than likely can maintain without that particular worker seeking employment. Class conflict for Marx was the basis in which transformations in the particular modes of production came to be. This view, the view that each mode of production has within it contradictions that eventually limit its capacity to accommodate a certain class in society, is known as dialectical materialism.
Each mode of production (slavery, feudalism, capitalism) also erects from it a superstructure in the legal and political domains that legitimizes the rule of one class over another. This helps keep the system alive but ultimately will fail in it's mission in legitimizing the current mode of production when the mode of production itself fails to be a progressive economic force. Class is talked about in the book as having developed due to agricultural surplus in which one group was able to exert control over such surplus. To quote from the book, "In any case, class emerged on the basis that production had developed so far that the labor-power of a man could now produce more than was necessary for its mere maintenance." From the siphoning of society into one class or another, the state was born. Marx and Engels also viewed the state as a means not to mediate conflict without taking sides, but to subordinate the dominated class and further legitimize the system of appropriation from that same class.
The labor theory of value is a tenet of Marxism that views value is made entirely from the labor process and that in an economy of equal exchange, labor is the only way to increase value of commodities. In other words, it is only in the realm of production, not circulation, of commodities that surplus value can be produced. Marx explained that a commodities value is dependent upon the amount of labor that is needed to produce it. This labor takes the form of dead labor (the raw materials and means of production already made and ready to be used) and living labor (the workers who utilize the machinery and raw materials to produce a new commodity). Living labor is the means in which the final product becomes more valuable than before because it is the only commodity that can produce more value than before. The product is then sold in a market with the socially necessary labor time (the average time it is made to produce the product) being the basis for the value of the commodity itself. Supply and demand are ways in which prices deviate from the value that is imbued into a product through labor, but supply and demand are surface level and cannot explain the imbued value of the product itself. Prices are kept in check due to competition, but the incentive toward innovation in an industry means products of lesser value due to a reduced injection of living labor into the labor process enter the market, driving down price as the capitalist is able to sell at lower prices compared to competitors and giving them a temporary monopoly of sales. Another way to keep their commodity's price low is to increase productivity and/or lower wages, something that has greatly proliferated in the neoliberal era and is another reason for class conflict. It is not only that the owners of capital steal surplus value from the worker, but they are incentivized to increase this stealing to the greatest degree they can.
The author also discusses the ways in which Marx wrote about the process of capitalist accumulation amounting to the concentration and centralization of capital into fewer and fewer hands. This is caused by overproduction of commodities that cannot find a buyer, therefore surplus value cannot be realized in the form of profit. Overproduction only becomes overproduction when the glut of commodities on the market is past what can be profitably sold on the market. This occurs because the need to accumulate more capital and the anarchic (not planned) system of production leads to capitalists producing more than the current market can handle. On a mass scale this becomes a recession or even depression, causing many companies to go bankrupt and for their assets to be appropriated by other existing companies. Normalcy is only achieved when profit rates return to normal, and people are willing to invest their money. This normalcy can only then occur through the beating down of the working class amounting to increased extraction of surplus value. The onset of the neoliberal era is an example of this event playing out and now productivity and wages have diverged tremendously.
In the making of a better world, socialism offers workers an alternative to the privatized, class-ridden mode of production. Socialism, in the form of worker councils, offer a way in which production can be centered toward the needs and wants of all members of society in a democratic manner. There is much more in this book that deals with reform vs. revolution, a vanguard's role in the revolution, the Russian Revolution, imperialism, and climate change that offer good insight as to the Marxist view of these questions, events, and processes.
Highly recommend this book!
October 2, 2016
This book is an excellent introduction into Marxism, providing a high level overview without going too deeply into the minutae of it. As with all political books, the authors own viewpoint and writing style influences how the information is presented. Mostly, D'Amato is concise enough to get his point across when explaining the various topics. When he isn't, he usually clarifies himself a few paragraphs later. The section on how the Soviet Union, especially under Stalin, differed from Marx's idea of socialism was also helpful in contrasting what Westerners observed verses what should have been. "Introduction to Marxism" is a surprisingly easy book to read given how dense the material can be. I found the appendix section quite helpful in explaining the differences between socialism, communism, and capitalist perceptions on it all. This section of the book also includes questions many people from capitalist societies, mainly the United States, would ask after being fed one perspective of socialist ideologies for most of our lives. This is helpful when explaining the differences to people who believe communism and socialism are the same thing or who quickly start screaming "Communism!" at the first sign of any socialistic idea.
Once I finished this book, I was more curious about the topic and wanted to read more. There's even a helpful reading guide at the end of it and D'Amato often references other publications for those interested in learning more.
Once I finished this book, I was more curious about the topic and wanted to read more. There's even a helpful reading guide at the end of it and D'Amato often references other publications for those interested in learning more.
February 4, 2015
Five stars purportedly means "amazing." This isn't an "amazing" book but for anyone interested in this subject, or even for some readers familiar with the topic, it makes a remarkably good presentation.
Karl Marx is a very interesting figure in that he has got to be one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century (despite dying in 1883) and also one of the most misunderstood. His most useful contributions are the least understood. He is one of the most frequently cited thinkers and yet one of the least read. One can complete the most rigorous academic training in economics that the U.S. has to offer, and never once be required to examine the most compelling critique (or any critique at all) of capitalism, via Marx. Revolutions claiming inspiration by Marx have ruled in ways that are anathema to Marx himself. As a result, "Marxism" is a common part of political vocabulary in 2015 and yet the word can be used to describe almost anything. What "Marxism" might actually be is as mysterious and fluid as the nature of Marx's dialectical method itself.
In light of all that, this book (with a recent new edition incorporating recent historical developments) is an excellent introduction and orientation to Marx's analysis, methodology, and relevance to current events. It also includes an excellent, differentiated list of recommended further reading.
Karl Marx is a very interesting figure in that he has got to be one of the most influential figures of the twentieth century (despite dying in 1883) and also one of the most misunderstood. His most useful contributions are the least understood. He is one of the most frequently cited thinkers and yet one of the least read. One can complete the most rigorous academic training in economics that the U.S. has to offer, and never once be required to examine the most compelling critique (or any critique at all) of capitalism, via Marx. Revolutions claiming inspiration by Marx have ruled in ways that are anathema to Marx himself. As a result, "Marxism" is a common part of political vocabulary in 2015 and yet the word can be used to describe almost anything. What "Marxism" might actually be is as mysterious and fluid as the nature of Marx's dialectical method itself.
In light of all that, this book (with a recent new edition incorporating recent historical developments) is an excellent introduction and orientation to Marx's analysis, methodology, and relevance to current events. It also includes an excellent, differentiated list of recommended further reading.
May 14, 2007
Best introduction to Marxism that I know of. Even well versed socialists will get something out of it.
March 9, 2024
In this book the hubris, arrogance, and dogmatism of modern day Marxists is on full display. In order to defend the moribund fantasies of delusional 19th century academics, D'Amato is forced into adopting a laughably simplistic understanding of human nature that chalks up all individual action as the result of prevailing economic incentives. What about the role of culture, psychology, biology, individual agency, or alternative norms in the guiding of man's behavior, you may ask? Thankfully, D'Amato can use the conveniently sweeping catch-all of "false consciousness" to disregard any non-economic criticisms of his facile philosophy. Workers don't really care about national identity or cultural differences, he claims unabashedly. After all, these are just examples of the "false consciousness" programmed into workers to intentionally divide them and have no basis in actual concerns of working people. Only a socialist would so fervently claim to be the vanguard of worker's interests while in the same breath argue they are too dumb to figure it out themselves. Thankfully, D'Amato illustrates how all socialists are equipped with ESP to mind read all workers and sort out fact from fiction.
This obvious tautology is as ridiculous as it is inhumane and dangerous. If everyone is merely a slave to the incentives of their own class group, why bother treating people like individuals? It is only through this circular, self-assuring logic that D'Amato can defend blatant despotism and violence to secure a socialist future because "the end justifies the means" — a truly reprehensible world view.
Ah, but a dictatorship of the working class is only a temporary transition arrangement, D'Amato dubiously assures us. Eventually, the state will whither away entirely (except for planning boards and administrative bureaucracies, paradoxically) allowing people to "eat and live as they please." How this will occur is left completely unexplained by the author as while he in great detail outlines the practical feasibility of a working class revolution based on the principles of Leninist organization, how this "new society" after the transition phase is created is left completely ambiguous, probably because it's never been successfully achieved despite the many attempts of well meaning revolutionary practitioners.
My greatest impression of The Meaning of Marxism, however, was the incredible self-confidence of the author in the radicalism of his views. I am now starting to understand how so many well meaning individuals, utterly convinced by the mission of their crusade, went to unconscionable lengths to see it through. It's precisely because humans don't only revolve around economics that socialism nestled neatly with the fervent nationalism of Mao' China. When you provide an ideology that legitimates all to achieve a fuzzy utopia, how do you stop the disregard for human life and choice? The reality is that socialism has nothing to do with "living as you please" (paraphrase), it is the coercion of all based on the arbitrary decision of a few who determine what is rational and what is right from wrong.
This obvious tautology is as ridiculous as it is inhumane and dangerous. If everyone is merely a slave to the incentives of their own class group, why bother treating people like individuals? It is only through this circular, self-assuring logic that D'Amato can defend blatant despotism and violence to secure a socialist future because "the end justifies the means" — a truly reprehensible world view.
Ah, but a dictatorship of the working class is only a temporary transition arrangement, D'Amato dubiously assures us. Eventually, the state will whither away entirely (except for planning boards and administrative bureaucracies, paradoxically) allowing people to "eat and live as they please." How this will occur is left completely unexplained by the author as while he in great detail outlines the practical feasibility of a working class revolution based on the principles of Leninist organization, how this "new society" after the transition phase is created is left completely ambiguous, probably because it's never been successfully achieved despite the many attempts of well meaning revolutionary practitioners.
My greatest impression of The Meaning of Marxism, however, was the incredible self-confidence of the author in the radicalism of his views. I am now starting to understand how so many well meaning individuals, utterly convinced by the mission of their crusade, went to unconscionable lengths to see it through. It's precisely because humans don't only revolve around economics that socialism nestled neatly with the fervent nationalism of Mao' China. When you provide an ideology that legitimates all to achieve a fuzzy utopia, how do you stop the disregard for human life and choice? The reality is that socialism has nothing to do with "living as you please" (paraphrase), it is the coercion of all based on the arbitrary decision of a few who determine what is rational and what is right from wrong.
September 3, 2019
It took me more than two months to finish this book, I read it very slowly, making a tonnes of dog ear along the way, and like many good books, many times it forced me to pause and think.
I was once picked up The Communist Manifesto (the un-annotated version) and start reading it, naively thinking that I can understand the whole affairs. I was left more confused on what Marxism was. I picked this book up initially to understand Marxist Economics, although economics has been made into one chapter, I don't find it adequately explained, but the Labour Theory of Value (LTV) explanation is easily understood. Well, at least that's a plus.
This book was very helpful (especially for new reader on the topic) to understand how Hegelian idea influenced Marx's thinking, applying Hegelian dialectic to materialism. The material condition capitalism brought in order for socialism to emerge. He explained what socialism is and what is not. I truly think, what the left contribute was the diagnose of the problem and flaws of the current system. The critique help us understand the limitation of the current system and the needs for alternatives. But I don't think all the solution he outlined is practical, "volunteers" to substitute the police? Hmm not sure whether that will work.
He also explained how the revolution in Russia failed, I have long to understand what is the Marxist position of Soviet Union and Stalin. The Russian Revolution were discussed adequately, albeit very briefly. Some of his view contradict my previous reading, for example, The American Civil War is to end slavery? If you read historian Howard Zinn, that is not the case. But this is not a history book, so, thats okay.
I was once picked up The Communist Manifesto (the un-annotated version) and start reading it, naively thinking that I can understand the whole affairs. I was left more confused on what Marxism was. I picked this book up initially to understand Marxist Economics, although economics has been made into one chapter, I don't find it adequately explained, but the Labour Theory of Value (LTV) explanation is easily understood. Well, at least that's a plus.
This book was very helpful (especially for new reader on the topic) to understand how Hegelian idea influenced Marx's thinking, applying Hegelian dialectic to materialism. The material condition capitalism brought in order for socialism to emerge. He explained what socialism is and what is not. I truly think, what the left contribute was the diagnose of the problem and flaws of the current system. The critique help us understand the limitation of the current system and the needs for alternatives. But I don't think all the solution he outlined is practical, "volunteers" to substitute the police? Hmm not sure whether that will work.
He also explained how the revolution in Russia failed, I have long to understand what is the Marxist position of Soviet Union and Stalin. The Russian Revolution were discussed adequately, albeit very briefly. Some of his view contradict my previous reading, for example, The American Civil War is to end slavery? If you read historian Howard Zinn, that is not the case. But this is not a history book, so, thats okay.
July 22, 2022
Probably as concise as an introduction to Marxism as one could hope for without leaving out key points. To me, this is probably the best first text for anyone looking to begin reading Marxist theory/history. The connections to contemporary issues/movements are helpful not only to show the importance of Marxist theory today, but to provide readers with relatable examples to explain otherwise difficult concepts.
My only criticisms:
Chapter 4, subsection There Is Nothing Quite as Wonderful as Money:
we now have a better understanding of the history of money than social scientists did in Marx's time (see David Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years) so this subsection is mostly inaccurate.
Chapter 7 Democracy, Reform, and Revolution:
I disagree with the author's conclusions on electoralism. Electoralism is obviously not sufficient opposition to capitalism, but it's another tool available to us that we should take.
Chapter 11, Marxism and Oppression:
His handling of sex work could've been slightly more tactful, and the section Gender and LGBTI Oppression definitely could've been more nuanced. It's not insensitive by any means, but slightly ahistorical (discrimination against queer people obviously predates capitalism by centuries) and scientifically inaccurate (it's much more complicated than "sex refers to a person’s reproductive organs").
My only criticisms:
Chapter 4, subsection There Is Nothing Quite as Wonderful as Money:
we now have a better understanding of the history of money than social scientists did in Marx's time (see David Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years) so this subsection is mostly inaccurate.
Chapter 7 Democracy, Reform, and Revolution:
I disagree with the author's conclusions on electoralism. Electoralism is obviously not sufficient opposition to capitalism, but it's another tool available to us that we should take.
Chapter 11, Marxism and Oppression:
His handling of sex work could've been slightly more tactful, and the section Gender and LGBTI Oppression definitely could've been more nuanced. It's not insensitive by any means, but slightly ahistorical (discrimination against queer people obviously predates capitalism by centuries) and scientifically inaccurate (it's much more complicated than "sex refers to a person’s reproductive organs").
November 13, 2022
I don't want to waste time pointing out all the mind bending contradictions and flat out lies but claiming that Solidarnosc was somehow a socialist revolution was insulting, they literally killed communism in Poland, the author has no shame. No, you don't get to claim a movement whose members died for freedom as your own.
Apart from from the expected mendacity this book retreads the dozen other beatifications of Marx I've already read.
One entertaining detail stood out and stayed with me for a long time was when the author was imagining the inevitable utopia that will of course be the result of proletariat rule. He says that at the beginning, before the proletariat is educated (simply a matter of time, of course), the limited number of the current scientists and engineers will have to be commandeered "democratically" (surely, the most ingenious use of this word to date) by the proletariat. Funny, that's exactly what Stalin did with his intellectuals, killed them or imprisoned them and made them work as slaves. Can't understand why the author keeps trying to denounce Stalin since he shares most of his ideas. I assume after the proletariat has been educated the former intellectuals will be liquidated.
Apart from from the expected mendacity this book retreads the dozen other beatifications of Marx I've already read.
One entertaining detail stood out and stayed with me for a long time was when the author was imagining the inevitable utopia that will of course be the result of proletariat rule. He says that at the beginning, before the proletariat is educated (simply a matter of time, of course), the limited number of the current scientists and engineers will have to be commandeered "democratically" (surely, the most ingenious use of this word to date) by the proletariat. Funny, that's exactly what Stalin did with his intellectuals, killed them or imprisoned them and made them work as slaves. Can't understand why the author keeps trying to denounce Stalin since he shares most of his ideas. I assume after the proletariat has been educated the former intellectuals will be liquidated.
February 7, 2021
I wanted to understand what was meant by terms like Marxism, communism, and socialism. This book does not differentiate them - they are all the same. The book does explain why no countries today are socialist and that government social programs are not the same. It gives a good groundwork in Marxist thought, then spends a lot of time trying to proselytize about socialism and why it is better than any other system. For me, it failed to give a convincing argument as to how a truly socialist system would work effectively. It did help me understand that Russia, after Stalin rose, was never communist, nor has China ever really been. I would recommend it but be prepared for a long read.
December 2, 2020
I appreciate the effort and concept, but overall I found this pretty dull. The first ~third provides a decent (though somewhat scattered and cursory) summary of the Marxist critique of political economy which was fun, but after that the book wanders through various historical anecdotes and polemics that grow tiring. This is much more of a history book (of socialism as a political movement) than a book about theory, in spite of the title, which left me somewhat disappointed.
March 22, 2018
Solid introduction to Marxism and early Marxists, though I felt that some of the later topics in the book - like oppression and the environment - were given bare bones coverage that left a lot unsaid.
March 23, 2019
Really worthwhile, especially in the updated edition. If you're at all interested in alternatives to the nightmare of corporate multi-nationals running things, it's worth reading this. It's a bit dense, but truly is an introduction to these ideas.
March 25, 2025
3.75 ⭐
A good primer for a basic understanding of the Marxist position. However, D'Amato harshly criticizes the apparent outcomes of Mao and Stalin without offering a materialist basis that he could analyze and substantiate. A touch too idealist in several parts, but overall a decent text.
A good primer for a basic understanding of the Marxist position. However, D'Amato harshly criticizes the apparent outcomes of Mao and Stalin without offering a materialist basis that he could analyze and substantiate. A touch too idealist in several parts, but overall a decent text.
September 10, 2018
gonna buy a million copies of this and hand it out to everyone I know
May 2, 2020
fucking fantastic, broke down marxism in various, overlaying topics.
was a bit hard to get through, but very much worth the labor to gear through the readings.
was a bit hard to get through, but very much worth the labor to gear through the readings.
October 13, 2020
Somewhat conceptually challenging and academic, but a sound overview of Marxist thought. An excellent reference or introduction for those interested in Marxist theory and practice.
November 30, 2020
Very good overview, highly recommended for those who don't want to read Marx's thick volumes but want to understand his thinking.
February 28, 2021
Decent introduction to Marxism. Author is Trotskyist, and doesn't shy away from showing it.
August 13, 2025
One of the best books and a brilliant writer!🔥
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