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MARX FOR THE 21st CENTURY A REVIEW ARTICLE Published 2006 by Routledge, London and New York; Edited by Hiroshi Uchida, with a Special Introduction by Terrell Carver; xiv+203 pages; ISBN 0-415-30530-6
Abstract: Marx for the 21st Century, a collection of 14 essays by Japanese scholars, is not only about the relevance of Marx today, but also about Marx Studies, Marx-reception and Marxology in Japan. The themes, thinkers and texts discussed in this volume include: modernity, socialism, theory of history, original accumulation of capital, time sovereignty, distributive justice, environmental problems, labor money, civil/civilized society, Keynesianisms, World Systems Theory, John Stuart Mill, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Louis Blanc, Karl Marx, Max Weber, the Communist Manifesto, and The German Ideology. This publication provides some very interesting glimpses of Marx scholarship in Japan.
Key words: Marx; Japan; history; nature; society; polity; economy; capitalism; socialism
Introduction
The editor of this collection of essays, Hiroshi Uchida, is well known to Anglophone students of Marx for his book Marx's Grundrisse and Hegel's Logic.1 He informs the readers that it is "the fourth volume in the series 'Collected Essays in English' produced by the Japan Society for the History of Economic Thought" (p. xiii). It has been published as the 73rd volume in the series "Routledge frontiers of political economy" (p. vi). Terrell Carver additionally mentions in his Special Introduction, that "this is the first collection of essays on Marx and Marxism, assembled by scholars in Japan for international publication in English"2 (p. 1). Carver continues: "Marx was received in Japan in the late 19th century, almost as soon as anywhere else in the world (with the possible exception of Germany, France and Belgium)"3 (p. 1). Yet-save the field of Marxist economics in Japan-very little of the world of Japanese encounters with and, interventions on Marx are known to people outside Japan. The present volume is a rare window that provides some glimpses of that world.
This volume contains 14 chapters/essays, grouped into four parts/sections: Marx for the 21st Century (two essays); Contemporary Problems in Marx Studies (five essays); The Reception of Marx into Modern Japan (four essays); and, New Horizons of Marxology (three essays). Terrell Carver indicates that this landmark publication "surveys current research on Marx and Marxism from an unusual variety of perspectives,...