Marx and the Invention of Post-capitalist Politics

Abstract

A book that, with remarkable erudition, addresses politics and State in the immense theoretical work of Marx does not need many justifications nowadays.If in the 1980s and 1990s Marxism was to philosophy, ideology and the official social science a definitely lost continent, the extraordinary volume of scholarly meetings, specialized publications, critiques and renewed translations of Marx's works over the last ten years only confirm the rising interest in this theory, at least in Brazil (Boito Jr. and Motta 2010). Thamy Pogrebinschi's book is part of this new wave and is eloquent testimony that the old social division of scientific labor, which split and hierarchically categorized the academic community in "producers of theory" (the French, British, Germans, Americans) and "consumers of theory" (the Latin-Americans), makes increasingly less sense. 1 Only that now this consistent and resolute university Marxism does not reign alone in the national intellectual scene as was the case during the glorious period between the late 1950s and the late 1970s (Ridenti 2010). Instead, it has to face strong competitors, in Brazil and abroad, as for example, an increasingly more methodologically sophisticated Political Science, an academically institutionalized Sociology and, especially, a Political Philosophy relentlessly posing ever more difficult questions that cannot be ignored, theoretically and empirically. These questions range from multiculturalism to feminism; from egalitarianism bpsr (2012) 6 (1) 135 134 -143 (2012) 6 (1) 136 134 -143 (2012) 6 (1) 142 134 -143