Who’s Afraid of Marxism? Or Why Marx was Right and Pleşu, Liiceanu and Patapievici Are Not!

The paper overviews some of the most important anti-Marxist traditions in the Romanian public sphere and analyses the discourse of three of the most important anti-communist philosophers today: Andrei Pleşu, Gabriel Liiceanu and Horia-Roman Patapievici. The main argument is that most relevant ideas of the author The Capital are misused and misinterpreted, due to a primitive understanding of Marxism. One problem is that Romania lacks academic studies of post-Marxism. The other is that the Romanian intellectuals are most often propagating ready-made Marxist ideas, half-truths without referencing the original context. Returning to the classical work of Terry Eagleton, who suggested that “Marx was right,” the author proposes a return to Marxist concepts, so necessary when it comes to critically understanding present day capitalism.

Full Text