I was at Powell's Books in Portland, specifically in their politics section, when it hit me: looking for new books to read always makes me have to shit. This happens without fail. I didn't have time to go and resume my search after so the last book I grabbed was one with the most alluring cover: Marxism A Graphic Guide.
I'm not a huge theory guy. I feel like I actually spent a lot of time organizing with the DSA getting dunked on by people who can quote Das Kapital like the bible. I thought a graphic guide would be a good way for a time-pressed idiot like myself to learn some of the basics and defend myself from the rabid mobs of anarchists insisting that Medicare for All is fascism.
And maybe it is, but certainly not this graphic guide. It became clear by page 74 that Woodfin is actually not a fan of Marx. The first 70 or so pages are an introduction to Marx's life and theory of value. Woodfin then pivots, saying "Marxist Theory seemed rigorous....but more or less all economists today believe Marx's theory seriously flawed, or, to put it bluntly, wrong". He then spends the next 100 pages giving massive amounts of air time to Marx's anarchist and capitalist detractors - Bakunin and Francis Fukuyama play big roles - and post Marxists like Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Significant time is spent talking about the authoritarianism of Russia, because of course.
The last page of the guide has a 10-point criticism of Marxism that includes such gems as "in an interdependent, globalized world, anti-imperialism has had its day. The world is too complex", "the state as such is always dangerous and cannot deliver effective social welfare", "any form of central planning is inefficient and tends toward corruption". It's unclear if Woodfin, who taught Marxism to undergrads (his bio doesn't list where) actually believes these criticisms, but it's strange that they're included and seem to refute a theory he spends almost no time defending.
It strikes me that Woodfin holds with neo-classical and modern economists he cites who, as the brilliant Martin Hagglund puts it, "seek to explain the value of commodities not in terms of labor time but in terms of supply and demand". Even though supply and demand seem like immutable orthodoxy, the concept doesn't reject Marx like some would think, Hagglund goes on: "the model of supply and demand confirms [Marx] argument that socially necessary labor time is the measure of value for commodities. [These concepts] cannot be understood merely in spatial terms but must be understood in temporal terms". The example I found very compelling was if water was even a fraction as difficult to obtain as diamonds, the value of water would be insane regardless of supply.
So to be clear, Marxism a Graphic Guide is a critical guide, paying tribute to Marxism only in its influence as a critical theory of the past. The stance of the author is that we have moved beyond the need for such a theory. And also that the government is inherently evil? Anyway, the cover is still pretty damn cool and I have to give it to illustrator Oscar Zarate, the art is fun:
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