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

Doru POP
Who’s Afraid of Marxism? Or Why Marx was Right and Pleşu, Liiceanu and Patapievici Are Not!
Instituția: 
Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca
Email autor: 
doru.pop@ubbcluj.ro
Abstract: 

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.

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