Reinventing Marxism

The collapse of the Soviet Union provides economist Howard Sherman the opportunity to re-evaluate Marxism as an alternative to conventional pro-capitalist perspectives. Arguing that Soviet Marxism distorted Marxian thought, Sherman acknowledges that Marxism must move beyond its traditional Soviet formulation. What is needed, he writes, is a new, critical Marxism that is integral to a radical political economy—a Marxism that sees society as an organic whole, dependent upon an integrated set of relationships.

The Johns Hopkins University Press

The collapse of the Soviet Union provides economist Howard Sherman the opportunity to re-evaluate Marxism as an alternative to conventional pro-capitalist perspectives. Arguing that Soviet Marxism distorted Marxian thought, Sherman acknowledges that Marxism must move beyond its traditional Soviet formulation. What is needed, he writes, is a new, critical Marxism that is integral to a radical political economy — a Marxism that sees society as an organic whole, dependent upon an integrated set of relationships.

"There is no other book that shows the relevance and importance of dialectics to so many major debates now going on in the Academy, and it does all this with a thorough grasp of the relevant scholarship and a clear and crisp writing style that shouldn't be possible on such a complex topic (but obviously is)." — Bertell Ollman, Department of Politics, New York University.

"A major contributor for many years to the tradition of political economy, Sherman offers a persuasive argument for a new kind of Marxism. The timing is right, partly because it ties into current postmodern/modern debates, and partly because it offers a difference to that heretofore reigning orthodoxy produced above all within the former USSR. This is an extraordinarily ambitious book. It deserves to be read." — Stephen Resnick, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

"Reinventing Marxism is the product of three decades of intense scholarly work. It will be exciting to institutional economists because it is high-quality Marxism utilizing an evolutionary andholistic approach." — William M. Dugger, University of Tulsa

Booknews

Eschewing the obscurantist jargon of technical economics, Sherman presents a basic framework for the entire field of Marxism which is critical of conventional social science, but also critical of the old, Stalinist, Soviet Marxism. He effectively synthesizes the numerous specialized contributions to a new critical Marxism into a coherent paradigm, stating the new Marxism as a unity of all the social sciences. The volume is divided into four parts: the political economy of history; political economy--a relational-historical approach; the critical method; and a radical program for the 21st century. Paper edition (unseen), $16.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Howard J. Sherman is professor of economics at the University of California, Riverside. His many books include The Business Cycle: Growth and Crisis in Capitalism, and Foundations of Radical Political Economy.