W
as Karl Marx a political think-
er? It might seem like an odd
question: What else would he
be? Yet over the course of the
20th century, the answer came
to seem less clear. Within a few years of
the Russian Revolution, Carl Schmitt
was already depicting Marxism as ge-
nerically similar to liberalism, a form of
“economic thinking” hostile to all genu-
ine politics. Bolsheviks and American
financiers shared the ideal of an “electri-
fied earth,” Schmitt asserted, differing
“only on the correct method of electrifi-
cation.” At the height of the Cold War,
Hannah Arendt would describe Marx’s
work as marking the “end” of a tradition
of political thought that had started with
Socrates. And Sheldon Wolin would see
in Marx the most powerful expression of
the 19th century’s “contempt for poli-
tics.” Marx’s thought looked less like a
diagnosis of modern society’s ills than asymptom of them.
This line of thinking drew much of
its appeal from developments on the
world stage: Even in its less sanguinary
moments, actually existing socialism
seemed to offer little more than drea-
ry technocracy. Its appeal also owed
something to developments within theDaniel Luban is a lecturer in the humanities
at Yale.
IN MARX’S REPUBLIC
by DANIEL LUBAN
Did Capital offer us visions of freedom as well as domination?
Marx’s Inferno
The Political Theory of Capital
By William Clare Roberts
Princeton University Press. 304 pp. $35Books & the Arts.
ILLUSTRATION BY TIM ROBINSON