The weapon of theory: A post-cold war primer for Marxism - Softcover

Markar Melkonian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0964156903 ISBN 13: 9780964156906

Publisher: Sardarabad Press, 1994

Synopsis

The Weapon of Theory is an accessible, non-technical introduction to a "lean, mean" version of Marxism. On the one hand (the "lean" aspect), Melkonian presents a Marxism that is devoid of the adventitious metaphysical formulations with which other Marxisms have been burdened. On the other hand (the "mean" aspect), Melkonian's Marxism focuses on the reality of such relations of domination as class conflict, exploitation, state power and imperialism.

The book was written for "young adult" readers outside of academia. Nevertheless,it has been used quite successfully in the classroom.

About this title

From the Author

I wrote The Weapon of Theory at the request of a small collective in San Francisco, of which I was a member. This project required explaining some very sophisticated ideas in language that would be as non-technical as I could get it. While writing the book, I imagined an audience of intellectually precocious high school students searching for solutions to problems posed by life and class struggle. Instructors who have used my primer as a college text have told me it is the best book of its kind available.

My research for the primer started long before 1993, when The Weapon of Theory first appeared. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s, both in the United States and the disintegrating Soviet Union, I encountered what appeared to be an almost-unanimous consensus, to the effect that Karl Marx was either wrong or irrelevant, or both. It seemed to me that I had heard the arguments before. Nevertheless, I noticed that many erstwhile Marxists had abandoned the tradition, and I was anxious to find out why.

So I set out to sift through the claims and counter-claims of the most serious and best-thought-out critics of Marxism. I resolved to keep myself open to modifying my philosophical and political beliefs--or even abandoning them entirely--if my research were to lead me in that direction. Over the course of a couple of years, I did indeed relinquish many of my former philosophical and political beliefs. I adopted new interpretations of past events and re-evaluated the lives and ideas of leaders and thinkers within the larger Marxist tradition.

The more closely I examined things, though, the more convinced I became that at least one version of Marxism-namely, the one I present in The Weapon of Theory, was far superior to anything I had encountered from the best-known critics of Marxism. Furthermore, this version is immune to some well-known criticisms of "Marxism" conceived as a metanarrative (Lyotard), or a form of historical or technological determinism (Kolakowski, Castoriadis), or a variety of transcendental philosophy (Richard Rorty).

I like to describe it as a lean, mean Marxism: on the one hand (the "lean" aspect), it is devoid of adventitious metaphysical hypotheses with which the various "orthodox Marxisms" have been burdened; and on the other hand (the "mean" aspect), it focuses on the reality of such relations of domination as class conflict, exploitation, state power and imperialism.

As I prepared the primer for publication, many of the opponents of Marxism were in the process of discrediting themselves in the eyes of millions of their compatriots. The Free Marketeers of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union delivered misery and economic insecurity to the majority, along with new forms of political manipulation. The victors in the Cold War continued to spend trillions of dollars on armaments, while an ever-tighter global tyranny of capital descended upon Asia, Africa and Latin America. In the so-called "economic miracles" of Latin America, the Caribbean and the Pacific Rim, productivity and GDPs soared, even as hundreds of millions of people spiraled into deeper and deeper poverty. And in the United States, wages and working-class living standards continue to fall, even as stock markets boom.

It would be easy to argue, then, that at the threshold of the Twenty-First Century, Marxism is more important than ever.

About the Author

Markar Melkonian is a teacher, writer, and solidarity worker. He holds several graduate degrees, including a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His the author of a number of books, including RICHARD RORTY'S POLITICS: LIBERALISM AT THE END OF THE AMERICAN CENTURY (Humanities Press, 1999).

About this edition

• Publisher: Sardarabad Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0964156903
• ISBN 13: 9780964156906
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 181