Book Review [Marx and Alienation: Essays on Hegelian Themes by Sean Sayers]

Abstract

Sean Sayers' book is about much more than alienation. In fact by the end it has become a refreshingly broad account of the descriptive and normative dimensions of Marx’s vision of capitalism, communism and historical development as a whole. It is an account that consistently aims to free Marx from the frameworks of contemporary academic thought, and especially from the attempts by ‘analytical Marxists’ to understand his critique of capitalism and advocacy of communism as a matter of judging them each by transcendent moral principles. It represents an important contribution to the project of resurrecting a Hegel-inspired understanding of Marx’s thought as a whole. However here, rather than address these larger themes, I will limit myself to some comments on Sayers’s discussion of alienation, the core topic of the book.