"Not dead yet"

Marxism and political theory in the era of post-communism

Michael Levin

pp. 299-310

in: Mark Cowling, Paul Reynolds (eds), Marxism, the millennium and beyond, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000

Abstract

Political theory courses in British universities focus on a canon of thinkers among whom the following are conventionally assigned a place: Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Burke, Hegel, Marx and Mill. These writers, and a few others (e.g., Hume, Bentham, Tocqueville) have somehow become elevated out of the profusion of otherwise unnoticed or forgotten political writings of the long Western tradition of political reflection. The process by which the selection took place is, to say the least, obscure. Sheer quality is presumably an important factor, although in a number of cases a major theorist rose to prominence because his ideas fitted the political needs and circumstances of his time. Some thinkers enjoyed intellectual celebrity in their own lifetimes (Locke, Voltaire, Sartre and Rawls come to mind; Rousseau's case is perhaps more one of notoriety); others are only given their laurels posthumously.

Cited authors

Sartre Jean-Paul

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich

Aristoteles

Plato

Marx Karl

Rousseau Jean-Jacques

Voltaire