What do you think?
Rate this book
Utopia or Bust: A Guide to the Present Crisis
After the financial crash and the Great Recession, the media rediscovered Karl Marx, socialist theory, and the very idea that capitalism can be questioned.
But in spite of the publicity, the main paths of contemporary critical thought have gone unexplored outside of the academy. Benjamin Kunkel’s Utopia or Bust leads readers—whether politically committed or simply curious—through the most important critical theory today. Written with the wit and verve of Kunkel’s best-selling novel, Indecision, this introduction to contemporary Leftist thinkers engages with the revolutionary philosophy of Slavoj Žižek, the economic analyses of David Graeber and David Harvey, and the cultural diagnoses of Fredric Jameson. Discussing the ongoing crisis of capitalism in light of ideas of full employment, debt forgiveness, and “fictitious capital,” Utopia or Bust is a tour through the world of Marxist thought and an examination of the basis of Western society today.
But in spite of the publicity, the main paths of contemporary critical thought have gone unexplored outside of the academy. Benjamin Kunkel’s Utopia or Bust leads readers—whether politically committed or simply curious—through the most important critical theory today. Written with the wit and verve of Kunkel’s best-selling novel, Indecision, this introduction to contemporary Leftist thinkers engages with the revolutionary philosophy of Slavoj Žižek, the economic analyses of David Graeber and David Harvey, and the cultural diagnoses of Fredric Jameson. Discussing the ongoing crisis of capitalism in light of ideas of full employment, debt forgiveness, and “fictitious capital,” Utopia or Bust is a tour through the world of Marxist thought and an examination of the basis of Western society today.
194 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2013
41 people are currently reading
988 people want to read
About the author
Benjamin Kunkel
29 books48 followersBenjamin Kunkel is an American novelist. Kunkel grew up in Eagle, Colorado, and was educated at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire; Kunkel studied at Deep Springs College in California, graduated with a BA from Harvard University, and received his MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia University.
He co-founded and is a co-editor of the journal n+1. His novel, Indecision, was published in 2005
He co-founded and is a co-editor of the journal n+1. His novel, Indecision, was published in 2005
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
November 9, 2014
Shallow and inaccurate summary of a handful of white bourgeois academic "dissident" authors, one of whom is an outright fascist, and only one of whom is actually a Marxist, presented as an overview of contemporary communist writing. Worthless historically, politically, intellectually, the project of this book appears to be in bad faith. Readers interested in getting a quick overview of the academic milieu in which most of these authors are celebrity lefts could try instead Terry Eagleton's Figures of Dissent (although those who chose Kunkel because they only think white men have anything to say, this book will not quite please), but for actually learning Marxism there is no substitute for reading Marx and Marxists themselves. A good bunch to begin with to get a view of contemporary discussion: Silvia Federici, Robin D.G. Kelley, Peter Linebaugh, Angela Davis, Jonathan Beller.
Read
September 18, 2017For
who can use it
all time great dedication.
*
No more straining after higher principles in one's taste. There's only one real struggle. Take power. Got to admire the trajectory from hipster aesthetics to Marxism.
Despite the title, this book is actually a fairly modest collection of essays examining some of the living intellectual luminaries of Marxism. Kunkel himself is a gifted and passionate amateur, and as such makes a good guide for the rest of us.
One starting point for any critical examination of the present ought to be the realization that the experts have failed. Obviously this doesn't mean that we should read less or be anti-intellectual. If anything, read more and be willing to transgress artificial boundaries of specialization in one's reading. The main value of Marxism lies in its aspiration to be a total, systematic critique of the existing order. The recent renaissance of Marxism - of which Kunkel has very much been a bellwether - suggests a healthy willingness of the left to be more ambition both in its theory and its political demands.
I'd say the highlight here is the piece on that perplexing figure Fred Jameson. I even think I prefer Kunkel's essay to anything Jameson himself ever wrote.
(Obvious solution: drop out of college, live in homeless shelters, get by on food stamps and tricks, and read, read, read)
who can use it
all time great dedication.
*
No more straining after higher principles in one's taste. There's only one real struggle. Take power. Got to admire the trajectory from hipster aesthetics to Marxism.
Despite the title, this book is actually a fairly modest collection of essays examining some of the living intellectual luminaries of Marxism. Kunkel himself is a gifted and passionate amateur, and as such makes a good guide for the rest of us.
One starting point for any critical examination of the present ought to be the realization that the experts have failed. Obviously this doesn't mean that we should read less or be anti-intellectual. If anything, read more and be willing to transgress artificial boundaries of specialization in one's reading. The main value of Marxism lies in its aspiration to be a total, systematic critique of the existing order. The recent renaissance of Marxism - of which Kunkel has very much been a bellwether - suggests a healthy willingness of the left to be more ambition both in its theory and its political demands.
I'd say the highlight here is the piece on that perplexing figure Fred Jameson. I even think I prefer Kunkel's essay to anything Jameson himself ever wrote.
This is a simple instance, since no special ingenuity is required to see that you can't have slaves without masters or vice versa. It's perhaps not much harder to grasp the idea of Frederic Jameson and someone like Sarah Palin as two faces of the same coin, figures truly as absurd as their opponents make them out to be, but only because the system itself is utterly cracked. So intellectual debility becomes a badge of populism, and socialist learning a hobby of rich people's children.
(Obvious solution: drop out of college, live in homeless shelters, get by on food stamps and tricks, and read, read, read)
April 8, 2014
sometimes felt like marxism for readers of the new yorker
December 14, 2014
The last few years have seen the revival of the cultural magazine, driven (in the case of the ones I read at least) by the resurgence of activist politics, of which Occupy is/was the most obvious example, and associated critical cultural and social rethinking of existing theoretical analyses. One of the most engaging of these has been
The Jacobin
with its sharp and sparky explorations of current affairs and ways of thinking about those affairs. To see The Jacobin embark on a publication project with Verso, then, is quite exciting.
Given the magazine’s topicality it is appropriate that one of the first outcomes of that joint venture is Benjamin Kunkel’s series of essays, all previously published in slightly different forms, introducing some of the major current political thinkers, the chaps, and they are all men, who are having an impact on current activism. In (academic) disciplinary terms, he has been inclusive – geography, literary studies, economics, anthropology and two philosophers. He has certainly covered some of the key theoretical voices we have – David Harvey, David Graeber and Slavoj Žižek are likely to be well-known names if not writers to those who have paid much attention to leftist politics in the last few years. Frederic Jameson may be less well-known in activist circles, and both Robert Brenner and Boris Groys known to even fewer. In this sense, Kunkel’s menagerie of thinkers, covered in introductory critical essays, will allow many to stay in a comfort zone of recognition, for part of those at least.
From my point of view, it was good to see both Harvey and Brenner included in the collection: Harvey was not all that surprising, his current profile as one of the major explainers and developers of Marxist ideas makes him hard to go past, but Brenner’s work on global economic long-run trends/turmoil is less well known and in many ways much more difficult because much more technically economic (I have to confess to having had a soft spot for Brenner’s work since, as an undergraduate, I encountered his sharp interventions into debates over the ‘transition’ from feudalism to capitalism, back in the days before economic history drowned in the deluge of econometrics in economics departments). Both Harvey and Brenner prioritise economic issues and debates, something too often nodded to but by-passed in leftish debates. Readers will also note that Graeber’s work on debt fits this camp, but will note further the significant differences between his more anthropologically framed work within an explicitly anarchist tradition and Brenner and Harvey’s more conventionally Marxist political economy (despite their differences): Kunkel does not seem to try to impose a common approach, but seems to recognise the flux and multiplicity of the current context.
That said, Kunkel seems more comfortable in the more culturally oriented areas represented by Jameson as a literary-grounded theorist, although his work on postmodern theory (the focus of the essay here) is a Marxist limitation on the excesses of many postmodern theorists, Žižek, with his amalgam of Marx, Hegel and Lacan, and the least well-known (I suspect) of the subjects, the philosopher of aesthetics Boris Groys, although in this case Kunkel focuses on The Communist Postscript and to a lesser extent The Total Art of Stalinism both of which seem to have gained some traction beyond academic circles.
The essays are engaging, not necessarily straightforward (these are some of the major leftist minority world thinkers of our time) and come with a useful introductory essay where Kunkel positions himself and the essays in an intellectual, urban, ‘Marxish’ democratic socialism. For what they are, they are useful and a good way onto some of the key debates of the era (I am resisting dissecting each of his analyses; if I wanted to do that I should have written the damned book!).
I look forward to seeing him venture away from a North Atlantic comfort zone to explore those analysts of the ‘Global South’ who are also confronting these forces and developing important indigenous theory, such as the Bolivian Álvaro García Linera (whose majority world profile is very low) or Silvia Federici or Arundhati Roy whose profile is high. In the meantime, this is a good place to start….. but it is a long, long way from the end.
Given the magazine’s topicality it is appropriate that one of the first outcomes of that joint venture is Benjamin Kunkel’s series of essays, all previously published in slightly different forms, introducing some of the major current political thinkers, the chaps, and they are all men, who are having an impact on current activism. In (academic) disciplinary terms, he has been inclusive – geography, literary studies, economics, anthropology and two philosophers. He has certainly covered some of the key theoretical voices we have – David Harvey, David Graeber and Slavoj Žižek are likely to be well-known names if not writers to those who have paid much attention to leftist politics in the last few years. Frederic Jameson may be less well-known in activist circles, and both Robert Brenner and Boris Groys known to even fewer. In this sense, Kunkel’s menagerie of thinkers, covered in introductory critical essays, will allow many to stay in a comfort zone of recognition, for part of those at least.
From my point of view, it was good to see both Harvey and Brenner included in the collection: Harvey was not all that surprising, his current profile as one of the major explainers and developers of Marxist ideas makes him hard to go past, but Brenner’s work on global economic long-run trends/turmoil is less well known and in many ways much more difficult because much more technically economic (I have to confess to having had a soft spot for Brenner’s work since, as an undergraduate, I encountered his sharp interventions into debates over the ‘transition’ from feudalism to capitalism, back in the days before economic history drowned in the deluge of econometrics in economics departments). Both Harvey and Brenner prioritise economic issues and debates, something too often nodded to but by-passed in leftish debates. Readers will also note that Graeber’s work on debt fits this camp, but will note further the significant differences between his more anthropologically framed work within an explicitly anarchist tradition and Brenner and Harvey’s more conventionally Marxist political economy (despite their differences): Kunkel does not seem to try to impose a common approach, but seems to recognise the flux and multiplicity of the current context.
That said, Kunkel seems more comfortable in the more culturally oriented areas represented by Jameson as a literary-grounded theorist, although his work on postmodern theory (the focus of the essay here) is a Marxist limitation on the excesses of many postmodern theorists, Žižek, with his amalgam of Marx, Hegel and Lacan, and the least well-known (I suspect) of the subjects, the philosopher of aesthetics Boris Groys, although in this case Kunkel focuses on The Communist Postscript and to a lesser extent The Total Art of Stalinism both of which seem to have gained some traction beyond academic circles.
The essays are engaging, not necessarily straightforward (these are some of the major leftist minority world thinkers of our time) and come with a useful introductory essay where Kunkel positions himself and the essays in an intellectual, urban, ‘Marxish’ democratic socialism. For what they are, they are useful and a good way onto some of the key debates of the era (I am resisting dissecting each of his analyses; if I wanted to do that I should have written the damned book!).
I look forward to seeing him venture away from a North Atlantic comfort zone to explore those analysts of the ‘Global South’ who are also confronting these forces and developing important indigenous theory, such as the Bolivian Álvaro García Linera (whose majority world profile is very low) or Silvia Federici or Arundhati Roy whose profile is high. In the meantime, this is a good place to start….. but it is a long, long way from the end.
July 2, 2015
Strong start, weaker finish.
July 30, 2016
The high point of this book are its recommended books. I added quite a few to my list including quite a bit of David Harvey whom I am ashamed to admit I've read very little.
The essays themselves are mediocre. Benjamin Kunkel is Marxist perhaps but Marxist-lite though I don't know if he realizes that fact.
In any case Kunkel rightly praises David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years. As the book progresses though Kunkel reveals his caveats and limitations. He's unduly harsh towards Slavoj Zizek, making some fair points such as Zizek's tendency to wander, but against Zizek's theory he's lost. He criticizes Zizek for being vague on what a communist world would look like and for being too enamored with the former USSR.
The first criticism is not justified. Marx himself was also vague on what a communist society would look like aside from worker control over the workplace. This view only makes sense. Neither Zizek nor Marx for that matter are going to map out a better world since communism is about human fulfillment on an individual and international level. Of course Marx and Zizek could fill out what they'd like to see, but that does little good as both would agree the communist world would take time, trial and error.
The second criticism is partly justified. The model of government from Stalin onward in the USSR was ineffective at weeding out corruption although very effective at organizing a police state, and make no bones about it: killing. Zizek though in In Defence of Lost Causes-which oddly enough Kunkel cites- acknowledges these crimes and does not defend them. What Zizek does that I don't think Kunkel really grasps is that the Soviet model needs studying because regardless of what occurred the USSR remains the first successful Socialist revolution that set the model for later Socialist revolutions. Stalinism, as Zizek reminds, also was not inevitable. Invariably then while the future ought to avoid Stalinism such a haphazard and reflexive dismissal as Kunkel ultimately does is counterproductive.
Because of this Kunkel misses an important lesson from Occupy that should justify at least a portion of the USSR: namely that social movements by themselves do not produce change and require a political edge. In simpler terms one cannot disdain political power from without and simultaneously hope to influence it from within. Kunkel cites his association with Occupy as proving that the movement was overall not about fundamental economic change towards socialism. I was only loosely associated with Occupy though I was heavily involved in its precursor the Wisconsin protests. I disagree somewhat with Kunkel in his assessment in that I believe that a desire for some kind of left wing economic system be it Keynesian or some gradient of socialism was still at its core although that's another lesson from Occupy in favor of the Soviet Revolution that Kunkel largely discards.
In Kunkel's defence he outrightly stated that he was not advancing any kind of philosophy on 'how?' He was merely reviewing books from a Marxist perspective. All the same I think that he does still attempt a kind of philosophy though its effectiveness is minimal in both this format and his analysis.
The essays themselves are mediocre. Benjamin Kunkel is Marxist perhaps but Marxist-lite though I don't know if he realizes that fact.
In any case Kunkel rightly praises David Graeber's Debt: The First 5,000 Years. As the book progresses though Kunkel reveals his caveats and limitations. He's unduly harsh towards Slavoj Zizek, making some fair points such as Zizek's tendency to wander, but against Zizek's theory he's lost. He criticizes Zizek for being vague on what a communist world would look like and for being too enamored with the former USSR.
The first criticism is not justified. Marx himself was also vague on what a communist society would look like aside from worker control over the workplace. This view only makes sense. Neither Zizek nor Marx for that matter are going to map out a better world since communism is about human fulfillment on an individual and international level. Of course Marx and Zizek could fill out what they'd like to see, but that does little good as both would agree the communist world would take time, trial and error.
The second criticism is partly justified. The model of government from Stalin onward in the USSR was ineffective at weeding out corruption although very effective at organizing a police state, and make no bones about it: killing. Zizek though in In Defence of Lost Causes-which oddly enough Kunkel cites- acknowledges these crimes and does not defend them. What Zizek does that I don't think Kunkel really grasps is that the Soviet model needs studying because regardless of what occurred the USSR remains the first successful Socialist revolution that set the model for later Socialist revolutions. Stalinism, as Zizek reminds, also was not inevitable. Invariably then while the future ought to avoid Stalinism such a haphazard and reflexive dismissal as Kunkel ultimately does is counterproductive.
Because of this Kunkel misses an important lesson from Occupy that should justify at least a portion of the USSR: namely that social movements by themselves do not produce change and require a political edge. In simpler terms one cannot disdain political power from without and simultaneously hope to influence it from within. Kunkel cites his association with Occupy as proving that the movement was overall not about fundamental economic change towards socialism. I was only loosely associated with Occupy though I was heavily involved in its precursor the Wisconsin protests. I disagree somewhat with Kunkel in his assessment in that I believe that a desire for some kind of left wing economic system be it Keynesian or some gradient of socialism was still at its core although that's another lesson from Occupy in favor of the Soviet Revolution that Kunkel largely discards.
In Kunkel's defence he outrightly stated that he was not advancing any kind of philosophy on 'how?' He was merely reviewing books from a Marxist perspective. All the same I think that he does still attempt a kind of philosophy though its effectiveness is minimal in both this format and his analysis.
June 4, 2014
I really wanted to like this book more than I did. I like the idea of it, introducing often intimidating theorists but without speaking down to the reader.
There are some high points - I loved the inevitability of the chapter on Zizek, which seemed like it was there on anyone but the author's wishes. I also enjoyed the critique of Zizek, and I don't think there is enough of that sort of thing in "popular" leftism.
The other chapters were good, clearly argued and gave good introductions to key ideas. The underlying argument of the potential for reform to co-exist in the process of revolution is one I'm very sympathetic to, and it was well made.
Enough praise then, for three stars. In the introduction Kunkel attempts throws a bone to us pesky feminists, by flagging that he will not be dealing with the issue of gender in society, along with big questions of the environment or technology. He also doesn't deal with race or the idea of the state/nation, but doesn't flag that up. When this caveat is followed by celebration of Marxism's comprehensiveness, it's hard to read that certain issues (class and the questions of traditional economics) are viewed as more important than others.
Throughout the book, without setting out to count, I think there are three mentions of women in total. One is the author's past flatmate, another is Carmen Reinhert, who gets a not for a study she did, and the last is Anne Applebaum who is quoted as an example of a the establishment talking down to marxists. One of the strengths of the book is it's breadth of reading, this is a bit ridiculous. In a book that's meant to be about generating ideas and thought about what our shared future post-capitalism might look like, it feels very white and male.
It is not simply that diversity should be included, though a book that seeks to take part in forming progressive discussion shouldn't avoid diversity. It is simply untenable to believe that race, gender, nationality, sexuality, (dis)ability and other factors aren't massively implicated in the construction of modern capitalism. American capitalism is built on racism (http://www.theatlantic.com/features/a...), and the occasional references by Kunkel to the role women played as a reserve workforce simply does not go anywhere near far enough in explaining how differentiated genders structure capitalism, in particular structuring the ability for holders of capital and holders of power to exploit others.
In closing the book, Kunkel quotes Frederick Jameson -"the way in which one isolated cause or issue , one specific form of injustice, cannot be fulfilled or corrected without eventually drawing the entire web of interrelated social levels together into a totality, which then demands the intervention of a politics of social transformation". I wish he would pay more heed to this, and would engage in work that doesn't seek to find the answers in solely economic/class based analyse, and appreciates instead the complexity of the system we live in, and the necessary complexity of any future world.
It's great to see a revival in leftist thinking,
There are some high points - I loved the inevitability of the chapter on Zizek, which seemed like it was there on anyone but the author's wishes. I also enjoyed the critique of Zizek, and I don't think there is enough of that sort of thing in "popular" leftism.
The other chapters were good, clearly argued and gave good introductions to key ideas. The underlying argument of the potential for reform to co-exist in the process of revolution is one I'm very sympathetic to, and it was well made.
Enough praise then, for three stars. In the introduction Kunkel attempts throws a bone to us pesky feminists, by flagging that he will not be dealing with the issue of gender in society, along with big questions of the environment or technology. He also doesn't deal with race or the idea of the state/nation, but doesn't flag that up. When this caveat is followed by celebration of Marxism's comprehensiveness, it's hard to read that certain issues (class and the questions of traditional economics) are viewed as more important than others.
Throughout the book, without setting out to count, I think there are three mentions of women in total. One is the author's past flatmate, another is Carmen Reinhert, who gets a not for a study she did, and the last is Anne Applebaum who is quoted as an example of a the establishment talking down to marxists. One of the strengths of the book is it's breadth of reading, this is a bit ridiculous. In a book that's meant to be about generating ideas and thought about what our shared future post-capitalism might look like, it feels very white and male.
It is not simply that diversity should be included, though a book that seeks to take part in forming progressive discussion shouldn't avoid diversity. It is simply untenable to believe that race, gender, nationality, sexuality, (dis)ability and other factors aren't massively implicated in the construction of modern capitalism. American capitalism is built on racism (http://www.theatlantic.com/features/a...), and the occasional references by Kunkel to the role women played as a reserve workforce simply does not go anywhere near far enough in explaining how differentiated genders structure capitalism, in particular structuring the ability for holders of capital and holders of power to exploit others.
In closing the book, Kunkel quotes Frederick Jameson -"the way in which one isolated cause or issue , one specific form of injustice, cannot be fulfilled or corrected without eventually drawing the entire web of interrelated social levels together into a totality, which then demands the intervention of a politics of social transformation". I wish he would pay more heed to this, and would engage in work that doesn't seek to find the answers in solely economic/class based analyse, and appreciates instead the complexity of the system we live in, and the necessary complexity of any future world.
It's great to see a revival in leftist thinking,
November 10, 2014
This book presents an overview of six contemporary Marxists authors. I give it four stars because Kunkel writes well. The subtitle is a bit mis-leading because three of the authors he covers (and the least interesting) have little to say about "the present crisis," authors Kunkel himself finds thin (Fredric James; for me, trite), shallow (Slavoj Zizek; for Chomsky, a fake), or bogus (Boris Groys). The better writers Kunkel covers--David Harvey, Robert Brenner, and David Graeber--don't require you to have already drunk the Marxist Kool-Aid in lieu of presenting cogent arguments. . . Of the three books that have come out so far in the Jacobin/Verso collaboration, this one is the weakest because Kunkel spends so much time parsing the stands taken by irrelevant intellectuals.
June 25, 2018
Best way into some current Marxist thinkers I've read. It kinda shows that the pieces originated as book reviews, but when Kunkel likes the author's work, he does an amazing job of explicating what makes them great. But when the authors aren't that great, Kunkel's reviews kinda meander. Still, readable Marxism is to kill for, and Kunkel rocks.
Update: On a second read-through, the last two chapters kinda drag (and can be safely ignored if you aren’t feeling them, imho). Still, his glosses on Harvey, Jameson, Brenner, and Graeber are more readable than those authors, and a great framework for tackling the source material. Odd to re-read this book a few years later, after the rise of Sanders/DSA in 2016.
Update: On a second read-through, the last two chapters kinda drag (and can be safely ignored if you aren’t feeling them, imho). Still, his glosses on Harvey, Jameson, Brenner, and Graeber are more readable than those authors, and a great framework for tackling the source material. Odd to re-read this book a few years later, after the rise of Sanders/DSA in 2016.
September 20, 2016
Worth reading for the first couple of pieces about the 2008 financial crisis and for the intro to Jameson. But after that, the author reveals his dogmatic belief in markets and takes an abrupt solutionist stance that is off-putting. He asks Zizek, philosopher and social critic, to make with the solutions rather than waste time engaging with philosophy or criticism. I don't get it.
December 31, 2016
This is a collection of six essays in which the author attempts to demystify six anti-capitalist thinkers. Some of the chapters caught my interest, but I found the last two completely unnecessary. His writing is so dense and impenetrable at times that it comes across as seriously pretentious. I'm not about to read any more Kunkel in my life.
August 26, 2018
A collection of essays on ... some other collections of essays on recent socialist / anarchist literature relevant to the 2008 credit crisis and its aftermath. Entertaining, but perhaps more useful as a signpost toward other interesting things to read.
April 15, 2014
Quick, readable overview of some interesting thinkers. Admirable especially for its calm but insistent refrain about the importance of imagining and working toward a (much) better world.
May 15, 2014
An excellent overview of the work of six leftist thinkers. Kunkel is an excellent expository writer and his lucid discussion of communist theory is actually exhilarating, given the historical moment.
November 24, 2014
Sometimes good, sometimes funny, mostly obtuse marxist mansplaining. Makes me want to read the fuck out of David Harvey, though.
February 7, 2017
Marxist for New Yorker readers indeed
April 18, 2019
Very good primer to the state of Marxist/Leftist thought in late capitalism. Most helpful as a way of coming to know how much I do not know. Also helpful as a pointer towards further reading.
Probably my favorite essay was the final one, "Aesthetics of Utopia," which focused on the work of Boris Groys, who writes "the communist revolution is the transcription of society from the medium of money to the medium of language."
Kunkel begins the final section, "A Guide to Further Reading," with a Fredric Jameson quote that I want to note down:
I feel like that quote suggests the general vibe of the book -- Kunkel is one of the young people Jameson is talking about, and this book is him starting to piece together the 'entire web of interrelated social levels' (albeit, somewhat ironically, more through the lens of discussing what he has read than what he has experienced). I found it fun + helpful to go along for the ride with him.
Probably my favorite essay was the final one, "Aesthetics of Utopia," which focused on the work of Boris Groys, who writes "the communist revolution is the transcription of society from the medium of money to the medium of language."
Kunkel begins the final section, "A Guide to Further Reading," with a Fredric Jameson quote that I want to note down:
"Even a fully postmodernized First World society will not lack young people whose temperament and values are genuinely left ones and embrace visions of radical social change repressed by a business society. The dynamics of such commitment are derived not from the reading of the 'Marxist classics,' but rather from the objective experience of social reality and the way in which one isolated cause or issue, one specific form of injustice, cannot be fulfilled or corrected without eventually drawing the entire web of interrelated social levels together into a totality, which then demands the intervention of a politics of social transformation."
I feel like that quote suggests the general vibe of the book -- Kunkel is one of the young people Jameson is talking about, and this book is him starting to piece together the 'entire web of interrelated social levels' (albeit, somewhat ironically, more through the lens of discussing what he has read than what he has experienced). I found it fun + helpful to go along for the ride with him.
August 17, 2025
Utopia or Bust is a book written in the fallout of the 2008 Financial Crisis. The book is a review and analysis of theories written by other Marxist writers. These theories dwell over economics and politics including the prevailing theories around Neo-liberalism, the development of theories on Late Capitalism, the success of the New Deal, the prevailing nature of debt in its control of the economy and the aesthetics of Communist revolutions.
The book gives a reasonable overview of different writers and a good analysis of their work. The referencing is quite clunky and there are no bibliographies, which kind of defeats the point of having a book reviewing other writers' work. Given that the book is supposed to be an analysis and overview of other Marxist writers, the lack of citations and bibliography makes it hard to reference the further works.
The book also focuses on Marxist theory which lacks any solutions to the crises of capitalism caused in the 2008 Financial Crisis. There are some good general points made in the book, however. The book seems to point towards the prevalence of rentier economic interaction, which stands at odds with most Marxist theories. That is because all capitalists are viewed as rentiers regardless of whether they own productive assets or not.
I would say the best chapters are Full Employment and the Long Downturn and In the Midst of Life, We are Debt. Both chapters give a good overview of how economics works and what policies should be implemented to improve the outcomes within the economy.
I would say Utopia or Bust is a reasonably good overview of Marxist writings reviewed around the time of the 2008 Financial Crisis
The book gives a reasonable overview of different writers and a good analysis of their work. The referencing is quite clunky and there are no bibliographies, which kind of defeats the point of having a book reviewing other writers' work. Given that the book is supposed to be an analysis and overview of other Marxist writers, the lack of citations and bibliography makes it hard to reference the further works.
The book also focuses on Marxist theory which lacks any solutions to the crises of capitalism caused in the 2008 Financial Crisis. There are some good general points made in the book, however. The book seems to point towards the prevalence of rentier economic interaction, which stands at odds with most Marxist theories. That is because all capitalists are viewed as rentiers regardless of whether they own productive assets or not.
I would say the best chapters are Full Employment and the Long Downturn and In the Midst of Life, We are Debt. Both chapters give a good overview of how economics works and what policies should be implemented to improve the outcomes within the economy.
I would say Utopia or Bust is a reasonably good overview of Marxist writings reviewed around the time of the 2008 Financial Crisis
February 11, 2023
This book provided a very educational reading experience. Even though I occasionally get disoriented by the text, I simply go back and read it again until I can understand it. I frequently had to do this in order to understand the writing, either by looking up words or by getting help from my peers. All things considered, this made finishing the book even more satisfying.
The text itself carried importance because of how it applied Marxist theory to contemporary issues. Marxist theories were utilized from an economic standpoint to prove the unsuitability of the current state of the world. This application allowed one to gain an in-depth understanding of Marxist theory and how it can be easily applied to today. One main effective form of arguing done by Kunkel is done through his descriptions of how the current system is failing itself. Rather than blaming the participants in the system, Kunkel proves the system itself is cursive and leaves it at that.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning about Marxist theory, especially from an economic perspective. The wide variety of examples and their impact provide the reader with several stasis points to reflect upon their current understanding of the material. This book fits the demographic of high schoolers and up, depending on one's current knowledge of Marxist theory.
The text itself carried importance because of how it applied Marxist theory to contemporary issues. Marxist theories were utilized from an economic standpoint to prove the unsuitability of the current state of the world. This application allowed one to gain an in-depth understanding of Marxist theory and how it can be easily applied to today. One main effective form of arguing done by Kunkel is done through his descriptions of how the current system is failing itself. Rather than blaming the participants in the system, Kunkel proves the system itself is cursive and leaves it at that.
I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning about Marxist theory, especially from an economic perspective. The wide variety of examples and their impact provide the reader with several stasis points to reflect upon their current understanding of the material. This book fits the demographic of high schoolers and up, depending on one's current knowledge of Marxist theory.
March 6, 2021
A stimulating collection of six articles about various writers of the modern left: David Harvey, Frederic Jameson, Robert Brenner, David Graeber, Slavoj Zizek, and Boris Groys. My favourite pieces were the ones about Brenner and Groys, and it is probably not a coincidence that these are the two writers I was not already somewhat familiar with. When Kunkel is impressed his enthusiasm is catching. I will definitely be ordering a copy of the new edition of Brenner's The Economics of Global Turbulence when it is released later this year.
As a guide to intellectual currents on the left, Kunkel is not in the class of, say, Perry Anderson. Where he excels, however, is in his ability to move smoothly between aesthetic and economic analysis, something which especially benefits the pieces on Harvey and Graeber. And he is a tough minded critic, constantly alert to waffle: in his piece on Groys he criticizes the latter's tendency to inflate critical concepts "to such dimensions that they lose as concepts the sharpness still clinging to them as rhetoric", something that could be said of a lot of theory. Likewise Zizek's 'communism' is "a heavy name very light on meaning". Hard to argue with that.
Overall a fine collection.
As a guide to intellectual currents on the left, Kunkel is not in the class of, say, Perry Anderson. Where he excels, however, is in his ability to move smoothly between aesthetic and economic analysis, something which especially benefits the pieces on Harvey and Graeber. And he is a tough minded critic, constantly alert to waffle: in his piece on Groys he criticizes the latter's tendency to inflate critical concepts "to such dimensions that they lose as concepts the sharpness still clinging to them as rhetoric", something that could be said of a lot of theory. Likewise Zizek's 'communism' is "a heavy name very light on meaning". Hard to argue with that.
Overall a fine collection.
October 3, 2017
I will echo the sentiments of previous reviews and give praise to the essays on Harvey and Graeber, as I think that they do a good job of summarizing some works by these authors and how they link to the crisis. However the other essays fell flat for me, and didn't seem to speak on the present crisis nearly as much as the two previously mentioned. While being very (and I mean very) well written, the book cannot escape the fact that it comes from the realms of the well endowed. This reality is manifested in the fact that all of the authors discussed are male. Why not bring in other voices to provide some perspectives that exemplify how the crisis intersects with other issues that continue to oppress the vast majority of human beings? This book had huge potential to explain the crisis in understandable terms from various perspectives but ultimately failed to do so effectively. If anything, find the index and explore the authors discussed on their own terms.
January 12, 2019
This is the kind a book I should've being writing if I had the proper skills and prose to summarize and explain what I just read on certain topics.
"Anyway, a Marxist’s education never ends." says the author before kindly putting a list of further readings at the end of the book.
This a good account about the ideas of some lead thinkers that will help us -most of them- understand and face the crises of the capitalist mode of production and build our utopias for a hopeful post capitalist society.
In the process several books are highlighted to be read. Yours truly will continue with Chris Harman's "Zombie Capitalism" and David Harvey's "the Limits to Capital" not interested in the nostalgia for the lack of art during the Stalinist counterrevolution.
Very recommendable book.
"Anyway, a Marxist’s education never ends." says the author before kindly putting a list of further readings at the end of the book.
This a good account about the ideas of some lead thinkers that will help us -most of them- understand and face the crises of the capitalist mode of production and build our utopias for a hopeful post capitalist society.
In the process several books are highlighted to be read. Yours truly will continue with Chris Harman's "Zombie Capitalism" and David Harvey's "the Limits to Capital" not interested in the nostalgia for the lack of art during the Stalinist counterrevolution.
Very recommendable book.
September 17, 2020
For an outsider to this stuff you get a lot of bang for your buck here. The essays praising Jameson and critiquing Groys are quite boring and tough going - and it seems that is most likely because the writing of Jameson and Groys themselves are quite boring and tough going. One always enjoys a good takedown of Zizek, like one finds here. The essays on Harvey, Graeber, and especially Brenner, however, are pretty fantastic, the best chapters of the book - and the guide to further reader really helpful. It is not easy to strike the right tone between accessibility and academy, nor is it easy to do everything with one pop book, which is why the best response to this powerful little number might be more books similar to it.
April 26, 2019
A good introduction to many of the leading figures on the Marxist Left today. Kunkel was a celebrated young novelist who was hyped as one of the best up and coming writers in America when he published Indecision in 2005. He seems to have abandoned literature in favor of politics, a bit like Arundhati Roy. I'd be interested to follow up on some of the figures he discusses here, though politics is moving so quickly it feels a little bit out of date already.
March 13, 2020
I was looking forward to reading this after reading Bregman's 'Utopia for Realists', thinking it may be along the same lines of issues we are facing, and how we can change the way in which we live. However, the book came across as a retelling of other peoples ideas, with no original thoughts by Kunkel. The writing was also very difficult to read and as such I finished in the middle of chapter 2. Very underwelming.
November 1, 2017
This is not a bad overview-style book for themes relating to marxism, capitalism, neoliberalism, and debt. However, it is terrible if you want to use it for academic purposes because the referencing system is vague to non-existent. I know it is supposed to be an essay-style book, but guys... reference that stuff!
November 12, 2017
Collection of essays dealing with left analysis of economic and cultural writings and their authors. Some better than others but overall fairly interesting, definitely found some works herein I'm interested in reading in full.
October 29, 2019
A concise introduction to some of the most prominent contemporary Marxist thinkers. Not sure whether the lack of diversity can be excused, but this is nonetheless a good primer on several central concepts.
September 9, 2022
Not a masterpiece but not too bad either. Separate articles that are intriguing on their own account do not come together in a coherent argument. Books on utopia started to feel more like wishful thinking than present tense revelations or future speculations.
February 28, 2025
As part of our book club, "BookoMania", this was chosen as the book of the week (Week 3, February 2025).
I found the book to be slightly underwhelming! The author spent a lot of time dwelling into the same thing over and over!
Could be better! A passive read!
I found the book to be slightly underwhelming! The author spent a lot of time dwelling into the same thing over and over!
Could be better! A passive read!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews