To read Karl Marx is to contemplate a world created by capitalism. People have long viewed the United States as the quintessential anti-Marxist nation, but Marx’s ideas have inspired a wide range of individuals to formulate a more nuanced understanding of the stakes of the American project. Historians have highlighted the imprint made on the United States by Enlightenment thinkers such as Adam Smith, John Locke, and Thomas Paine, but Marx is rarely considered alongside these figures. Yet his ideas are the most relevant today because of capitalism’s centrality to American life.
In "Karl Marx in America", historian Andrew Hartman argues that, although Karl Marx never visited America, the country has been profoundly influenced, shaped, and transformed by his ideas. Since the beginning of the Civil War, Marx has been a specter in the American machine. During the Gilded Age, socialists read Marx as a remedy for the unchecked power of corporations. During the Great Depression, communists turned to Marx in the hope of transcending the destructive capitalist economy. Marx inspired the young activists of the 1960s as they gathered to protest a war overseas. Marx’s influence is also evident today, as Americans have become increasingly attuned to issues of inequality, labor, and power.
After decades of being pushed to the far-left corner of intellectual thought, Marx’s ideologies have crossed over into the mainstream and are more alive than ever. Working-class consciousness is on the rise, and, as Marx argued, the future of a capitalist society rests in the hands of the people who work at the point of production. A valuable resource for anyone interested in Marx’s influence on American political discourse, Karl Marx in America is a thought-provoking account of the past, present, and future of his philosophies in American society.
This week, the dialectic sat down with the author, Andrew Hartman, to chat about this new book.
