Marx Is Dead, Long Live Marx’s Ideas

I have worked as a journalist for forty years, largely for left-wing and liberal publications, and in the last few decades, or until very recently, I may have heard Marx cited five or six times by people actively engaged in politics or shaping public opinion. I don’t know anyone under sixty who has read the first volume of Capital, let alone the second or third. I am sure there are professional historians or political scientists, even economists, who have done so, but that’s not my point. Until a recent burst of interest among young radicals in the wake of the Great Recession, Marx had become an irrelevant curiosity. Jonathan Sperber’s new biography reinforces this dim view of Marx. Aptly subtitled “A Nineteenth Century Life,” it is a portrayal of Marx, as well as his ideas, as the product of his time rather than ours.