The Debate Between Communism and Capitalism A Critique of Marxist Communism based on Terry Eagleton's book 'Why Marx Was Right” Aufheben

The word 'aufheben' is used primarily in the works of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel as a way to explain the result of the thesis and antithesis interacting, via the term 'sublation'.

Terry Eagleton's book Why Marx Was Right seems to prove the old adage that 'defenders of a faith often do more damage than detractors.' The adage here is taken to mean it's a sign that an old paradigm is falling away when defenders cling to it. 1.Terry Eagleton: Why Marx Was Right (Yale University Press) hereafter referred to as W.M.R.

Eagleton claims to be a Marxist, but he is no street radical. He would seem to fit better with the genteel seventeenth century Utopians like Tobias Hess and Johann Valentin Andrea, who were waiting for a group of physician-magi to arise and heal society. Eagleton makes the points that capitalism is a necessary step for communism, because there can be no communism without capitalism to reject (WMR pgs. 57-63), that Karl Marx even had some positive feelings for Colonialism because it would bring about the needed conditions for communism (WMR pgs. 218-221), and that communism must ride on the back of capitalism (WMR pg. 235). This sounds like a nice way of saying that communism is a parasite on capitalism. Eagleton even says communism needs capitalist resources (WMR pg. 57), and that it was Stalin and not Marx that thought communism could generate wealth (WMR pg. 236). There seems to be a big problem with communism if it cannot even be the hero in it's own drama. Communism is a protest against the abuses of capitalism. Communists share much the same relationship that devil worshipers have with Christianity-without Christianity there can be no devil worshipers. Capitalism must be prior not only historically but ontologically to Communism.

The reason for this is wealth creation. If your purpose is to spread the wealth, there must first be wealth, and this is what communism cannot do. It cannot create wealth. Eagleton even goes as far as to say that capitalism is like the 'Sorcerer's Apprentice'-able to create wealth out of thin air. Capitalism is not without its problems, or communism would never have grown into a world wide movement. The abuses and excesses of capitalism are the blood that communism feeds on. 
*all posts co-authored by I.Green