Book Review: Other Areas: Karl Marx

DOI10.1111/1478-9302.12016_32
Published date01 May 2013
Date01 May 2013
Subject MatterBook Review
ref‌lection and ‘the will to be scrupulously honest with
and about oneself ’ (p. 40). In chapters 4, 5 and 6, he
discusses the overweeningnature of morality, argues that
moralism adopts an impoverished narrow conception of
moral thought, and disputes the extent to which moral
judgements can claim to be universalisable.In chapter 7
Taylor turns to politics and argues that ‘there can be a
kind of radical disconnect between a person’s moral
judgements and political reality ... [which] involves a
kind of moralism’ (p. 132).The basic problem is that if
we judge a policy purely bythe demands of morality this
mistakenly‘counts any pressure of government that con-
f‌licts with the demands of morality so construed as
somehow illegitimate: as merely distorting an agent’s
judgement about how they should act’ (p. 137). One
implication of this is that when we come to assess
politicians, ‘we need to ask ourselves honestly what
someone should do in their situation ... it is not suff‌icient
merely to criticize some course of action actually taken;
we need also to state more positively what alternative
course of action we are recommending’ (p. 135).
The book is well written, although some of the main
points are rather repetitively made.It succeeds admira-
bly as an introduction to some of the debates about the
problem of moralism and gives the rather disparate
claims about moralism made by other philosophers a
certain unity that has hitherto been missing. However,
it is less clear that Taylor develops and deepens the
philosophical debate about moralism itself, because
while he makes numerous worthwhile points, there is
little that is not discussed more originally and in more
depth elsewhere. Nonetheless Moralism: A Study of aVice
is a welcome addition to the literature on this under-
examined topic.
Edward Hall
(London School of Economics and Political Science)
Karl Marx by Paul Thomas. London: Reaktion,
2012. 224pp., £10.95, ISBN 978 1 86189 906 4
Reaktion’s ‘Critical Lives’series aims to ‘explore the life
of the artist, writer,philosopher, or architect in question
and relate it to their major works’. Paul Thomas’ book
can be considered a great success when set against this
measure, and in this sense at least it marks a distinct
contribution to the f‌ield.Whereas other studies of Marx
tend either to be framed around key concepts or theo-
ries or to provide a more or less substantial biography,
this work nicely situates a number of Marx’s key works
within their historical and biographical context. Divided
into four main chapters alongside an introduction and
conclusion of relative substance, Thomas deftly maps
discussions of Marx’s key works into his biography.
In his introduction he treads well-worn ground in
attempting to dissociate Marx from Stalinism. However,
whereas others who have attempted a similar feat have
tried to unpick Marx’s theoretical contributions from
his practical activity – David McLellan argued, for
instance, that Capital’s completion was delayed by
Marx’s activity within the International Working Men’s
Association – Thomas insists that the evidencepoints in
the opposite direction: it was precisely the sense of
urgency fostered by political practice that spurred Marx
on to publish Capital in 1867, and the relative dearth of
publications in the last decade of his life is best under-
stood against the background of the bleak political
terrain following the defeat of the Paris Commune.
After chapter 1, which gives a brief summation of
Marx’s childhood and studies leading up to his doctoral
dissertation and his radical democratic journalism,
chapter 2 moves on to his ‘discovery’ of the proletariat
in Paris in the mid-1840s. This chapter includes dis-
cussions of key essays including On the Jewish Question
and The King of Prussia and Social Reform before moving
on to an excellent survey of Marx’s Economic and Philo-
sophical Manuscripts. The next chapter examines the
works of the second half of the 1840s, including his
settling of accounts with Proudhon and the Young
Hegelians before providing an overview of the Com-
munist Manifesto. Finally we encounter Marx in
London, where introductions to Marx’s studies of
Louis-Napoléon’s coup and the Paris Commune sit
alongside an excellent introduction to Capital that
squarely locates its publication in the context of Marx’s
work within the First International. This introduction
to Marx’s ideas is highly recommended.
Paul Blackledge
(Leeds Metropolitan University)
The Politics of Misrecognition by Simon
Thompson and Majid Yar (eds). Farnham:Ashgate,
2011. 179pp., £ 55.00, ISBN 978 1 4094 0169 8
The idea of recognition has already gained wider cur-
rency and various interpretations in the realm of con-
temporary social and political theory.The struggles over
246 POLITICAL THEORY
© 2013 TheAuthors. Political Studies Review © 2013 Political Studies Association
Political Studies Review: 2013, 11(2)

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