Political Investigations: Hegel, Marx and Arendt

Robert Fine

Jul 2005 · Routledge

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In this highly innovative book Robert Fine compares three great studies of modern political life: Hegel's Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Marx's Capital and Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism, and argues that they are all profoundly radical texts, which jointly contribute to our understanding of the modern world. Fine maintains that these works are far more revealing when read together than in opposition, and draws a direct parallel between Hegel’s critique of social forms of right and Marx’s critique of social forms of value. Fine shows how fruitfully their work can and should be combined.

Hannah Arendt was in turn critical of what she saw as the historicism of both Hegel and Marx, but Fine argues that her study of the origins of totalitarianism directly picks up on their insights into the modern potential for fanaticism and destructiveness. Arendt never disavowed any of the nineteenth century thinkers who prefigured the catastrophes to come, but Fine shows her indebtedness to Hegel and Marx.

This fascinating book offers a re-reading of these texts as three pivotal moments in the construction of a critical humanist tradition.

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Robert Fine is Convenor of the MA in Social and Political Thought and Director of the Centre for Social Theory at the University of Warwick. He is author of Democracy and the Rule of Law: Liberal Ideals and Marxist Critiques (Pluto) and Beyond Apartheid: Labour and Liberation in South Africa (Pluto). He is co-editor of Social Theory after the Holocaust (Liverpool University Press).