Karl Marx’s writings are illuminating and much more subtle and variegated than some of the simplistic interpretations of his ideas, says sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein. (Photo: Walt Jabsco)
For three decades, neoliberal policies and ideology have been almost uncontested worldwide. Nevertheless, the 2008 economic crises, the profound inequalities that exist in our society — in particular between the Global North and South — and the dramatic environmental issues of our time have urged several scholars, economic analysts and politicians to reopen the debate on the future of capitalism and the need for an alternative. It is in this context that today, almost everywhere around the world, on the occasion of the bicentenary of Marx’s birth, there is a “Marx revival”: a return to an author in the past wrongly associated with Marxism-Leninism dogmatism and, then, hastily dismissed after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Returning to Marx is still indispensable to understanding the logic and dynamics of capitalism. His work is also a very useful tool that provides a rigorous examination addressing why previous socio-economical experiments to replace capitalism with another mode of production failed. An explanation of these failures is critical for our contemporary search for alternatives.
Immanuel Wallerstein, currently a senior research scholar at Yale University, is among the greatest living sociologists and one of the most appropriate scholars to discuss the current relevance of Marx. He has been a reader of Marx for a long time, and his work has been influenced by the theories of the revolutionary born in Trier on May 5, 1818. Wallerstein has authored more than 30 books, which have been translated into several languages, including his very well known The Modern World-System, published in four volumes between 1974 and 2011.
Marcello Musto: Professor Wallerstein, 30 years after the end of so-called “actually existing socialism” there continue to be publications, debates and conferences…